But Slaight recalls a time when procurement
professionals played a behind-the-scenes role in
most companies. And what he observed about
procurement early in his career helped shape
what he believed the profession could become
as the business world shifted. Slaight saw the
value of data and technology, even in their
beginning stages, because, he says, “I was always
interested in figuring out how things worked.”
That interest served him well in the 1970s at
Aurora Products, a toy and hobby subsidiary
of Nabisco. Slaight says he “collected even the
most rudimentary data” to help the company
better plan manufacturing schedules and
inventory. He realized that once he understood
the way the data was filed and stored, he could
retrieve it to assist with production planning, a
function that was challenging for the company
at the time.
“The other managers treated this information
like it was magic,” he recalls. “I became the go-
to guy. If anyone wanted to know information
about schedules or inventory, they were told: ‘Go to Slaight; he will find
it out for you.’ And I was only an assistant controller at the time.”
LEARNING ABOUT SUPPLY MANAGEMENT
It was also at Aurora that Slaight, as director of management
information services, got his first glimpse into procurement. Technology
purchases had to be facilitated through the purchasing department — a
requirement that gave Slaight an impression of procurement as a barrier
in the company. He soon changed his mind, however, and learned
important lessons about supply management in the process.
For example, at Aurora, he worked with MRP systems, learning that while
they offer precise need and requirement calendars for manufacturing
planning — down to how many units are needed on a weekly or daily
basis — they aren’t necessarily reflective of procurement requirements. “I
recall a time when I sat down with our purchasing manager and told him
we needed 37 corrugated cartons every week,” Slaight says. “He looked
at me and asked: ‘When you buy beer, do you buy three bottles or seven
bottles?’” The manager was explaining that some things can’t be ordered
in units of 37. “It made me want to understand procurement better,” he
says.
Slaight also learned that, while technology helps with speed and
accuracy in business, “communications among purchasing, production
planning and sales forecasting are very important,” he says, adding that
“understanding people and the reasons they act the way they do is the
real key to success.”
Early in his career, Slaight — and many other department leaders at the
time — lumped purchasing managers into two types. First, there was
the proceduralist. “That individual was rules-oriented, with a focus on
getting the requisition form from the left side of the desk to the right
side of the desk,” he jokes. The second type was the externally focused
manager. “That was the purchasing manager who liked going out to
lunch with suppliers’ sales managers,” he adds.
“Thus, purchasing managers were either internally and narrowly
focused, or they were externally focused,” Slaight says. He believes
some managers were externally focused because, he says, “inside their
companies, they were considered a necessary evil, and no one trusted
them to take charge of important spend categories in the company.”
That initial evaluation of procurement stuck with Slaight, and it helped
him in later years as he worked to transform supply management
professionals into strategic partners.
FOCUSING ON STRATEGIC SOURCING
When Slaight joined A. T. Kearney as a partner, he became intrigued by
a project a colleague had conducted for the Opel Division of General
Motors in Germany. The project’s objective was to broaden the supply
base beyond the German-based suppliers trusted by Opel engineers. It
was called Global Sourcing.
The consulting group realized that to obtain competitive pricing, certain
conditions needed to be met, Slaight says. “These conditions included
qualified suppliers, comparable selection criteria, supplier market belief
in the fairness of the selection process, processes to enable supplier
transition, and acceptance by internal stakeholders of the processes
“COLLABORATION
WILL NOT ONLY
STRENGTHEN YOUR
RELATIONSHIPS WITH
TEAMS IN YOUR OWN
COMPANY, BUT ALSO
WITH SUPPLIERS. I HAVE
NO RESPECT FOR
COMPANIES THAT
STEAMROLL SUPPLIERS —
YOU DON’T BUILD
LOYALTIES THAT WAY.”
— TOM SLAIGHT
