It’s one thing to get attention and kudos from peers and colleagues for Vested Outsourcing, for which I’m deeply grateful.
It’s quite another when the mainstream business press picks up on the vested message! But that’s what has happened this week, with props and coverage coming from The Economist and Forbes Magazine.
This week started with the publication of an excellent article from the Economist Intelligence Unit on “Resilient supply chains in a time of adversity.” The 15-page piece is a briefing paper done by the unit on behalf of Oracle that talks about how “nurturing the resilient supply chain is vital for survival.”
“Nurturing” is an interesting choice of words, it occurs to me: Is there a kinder, gentler trend in supply chain relationships developing? Perhaps so, I submit, especially if the vested approach and the Five Rules are used.
The article goes on to say that companies have tried to balance cost-cutting as they emerge from the recession with “strategic objectives” that include “ensuring sufficient resilience for a given level of efficiency;” rethinking and strengthening supplier relationships; and improving forecasts and planning. Those concepts actually embody several of Vested Outsourcing rules, including the shift to a win-win, ‘What’s in it for We’ mindset, and focusing on outcomes (Rule 1) while agreeing together on clearly defined and measurable outcomes (Rule 3).
The article concludes that it is time for companies to “foster mutually beneficial partnerships” and to make “better use of data.”
There’s a short blub about Vested Outsourcing at page 8 of the article, where I briefly comment on the idea of rethinking supplier relationships to achieve mutually beneficial partnerships.
The Forbes article, “A New Way to Outsource,” was published Tuesday (June 1) on the Forbes.com site, and (I hope) explains the vested approach to a wider audience.
Or at least a wider online audience.
Getting the message for any new endeavor out and understood is hard work. In the case of Vested Outsourcing, it occurs to me that this message is becoming very resonant in a time of economic change and uncertainty, where new thinking is needed.
The Economist and Forbes seem to think so.