Going forward I plan to occasionally use this blog as a vehicle for sharing professional experiences that hopefully shed light on how to operate in a Next Generation Supply Management world. I understand that experience is usually the best teacher. Hopefully, though, reading about other’s experiences can provide you with enough schooling that you will get “advanced placement” credit from the school-of-hard-knocks.
Today’s story deals with policies and their administration. Policies are written to provide guidelines of practice. Specifically, they define pre-determined sets of behavior for addressing scenarios that will likely occur during the normal course of doing business. The best ones are based on market needs and pass the “smell” test, i.e., they make sense. In addition to providing guidance, however, they also function as a vital means of communication between functional areas—such as design and supply management—and between organizations, i.e., customers and their suppliers.
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