8CIOReview | | APRIL 2021IN MY OPINIONFor some companies, the pandemic that has beset us and our customers for the last 10 months has been a boon, driving record sales growth and profits. Think on-line retailers, grocery and food delivery, video gaming and streaming, as well as medical and PPE companies. My company is not one of those. Like many other companies, we are coming out of the pandemic struggling to re-gain our sales growth and working capital health, while, at the same time, dealing with on-going challenges regarding the availability of people, working capital, and raw materials.I am sitting down at the beginning of 2021, looking back at the lofty goals set at the beginning of 2020, envisioning even loftier goals for the coming year, and recognizing the need to re-think how we progress these strategic goals with fewer resources and less capital investment. I, for one, will not use the pandemic as an excuse to step back or slow down, but, instead, challenge myself and my team to press forward with our strategic improvements, looking for ways to implement them without large capital investments or large projects consuming the time of already over-taxed subject matter experts.In the forward to the book, Jugaad Innovation, which specifically deals with driving innovation with a frugal mindset, Kevin Roberts, the former CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi, stated that "creativity overcomes scarcity". A very succinct summation of the solution to the dilemma my teams and I face in 2021. I want us to think of ourselves as the astronauts in the Apollo 13 space capsule who had limited time and people to build a carbon-dioxide scrubber from only raw materials they already had on board and could salvage. They solved the problem and survived through (a) the recognition of the scarcity, (b) some creative thinking that saw new purposes for items already at hand, and (c) a high-level of teamwork and collaboration.Collaboration is strength during any time of scarcity, and some of the most powerful constituents with whom you can collaborate are your suppliers. If you have strategically curated your supply base, their capabilities and resources are available for promoting your strategic objectives. Here are just a few examples that we have either implemented or are discussing implementing, this year to further our strategic goal of a CREATIVITY OVERCOMES SCARCITYBy Geoffrey Fry, Global VP of Supply Chain, Cree LightingGeoffrey Fry
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