Читать книгу Value Merchants - Nirmalya Kumar - Страница 11

Senior managers at most firms in business markets have come to realize that if they can cut the cost of acquired goods and services, such procurement savings will fall to the bottom line as improved profitability. Thus, nearly every firm has set goals for purchasing to cut the cost of acquired goods and services. These goals are typically expressed as total cost reduction goals and tend to take one of two forms. They may be expressed as a targeted cost reduction amount, such as reducing the cost of acquired goods and services by $2 billion over three years (as one oil company did), or as a yearly percentage reduction, such as reducing costs by 10 percent, 5 percent, and 5 percent over three consecutive years (as one automotive manufacturer did). However, the translation of these goals into purchasing practice often leads to a bias that one purchasing director captured with the expression “green money versus gray money.” What did he mean by that?

Green money (the predominant color of U.S. currency) refers to cost savings for which purchasing managers can readily get credit, whereas gray money refers to cost savings that are difficult for them to claim. Getting three bids, picking the lowest one, and then negotiating a further price reduction is green money. It reflects directly on purchasing’s contribution to the goal that senior management has set. Acquiring an offering that provides a lower total cost of ownership but that may have a higher purchase price is gray money. Because of limited time and measurement capabilities, a purchasing manager may not be able to document that she has actually received the cost savings that the supplier assured her firm.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. A manufacturer of controls for automating manufacturing lines has its salespeople spend time at prospective customers gathering data on what controls would be required, what the total cost of them would be (not just purchase price, but all costs, such as installation and training), and what the payback period would be if the customer were to purchase them. The salesperson pulls this research together into a report that demonstrates the potential savings, which he then provides to the prospective customer. Whose name appears on the cover of the report? The purchasing manager’s. The supplier salesperson’s name appears nowhere on the cover of the report. Now, the purchasing manager can take this report to her senior management and say, “Look, I have been doing some research in conjunction with this supplier, and this is how we can save some money.” What has this supplier done? Enabled the purchasing manager to turn gray money into green money. It also has provided another benefit: allowing the purchasing manager to leverage her time, which is in short supply.