“The disproportionate capture of economic rent, providing sustainable competitive advantage, will derive from contract penetration and user compliance. Assuming the correct governance framework, the key to this lies in stakeholder support. If I can help to build consensus through engagement with user-buyers I would be happy to make arrangements. Any questions?”
Yes, I thought, just one: what’s that language you’re speaking? The closing words of the first-year graduate trainee at the quarterly review meeting I chair left me agog. This chap, earmarked for greater things and already sporting an executive hair cut, had just completed a six-month placement with our MRO category team. If I was struggling to understand him, what chance the guys in our stores? Imagine asking them for further engagement on a Friday afternoon. It wouldn’t be pretty!
I’m sure his plans for “transformational category breakthrough” are world class, but they would have been no clearer had he said the words backwards. This was meant to be a brief update on how we plan to spend a bit less on nuts and bolts. Instead, it doubled as the first recorded Martian broadcast to the human race. It seems that like lawyers, IT geeks and teenagers, purchasing has joined that elite group of folks who think they deserve their own language.
Why do such languages exist? They make sense for, say, pilots or doctors who need accuracy under pressure in the face of complexity. But using strange ways of speaking in business sounds like a membership trial for an exclusive club. When I hear phrases like “economic rent” I get particularly concerned. I know we’re encouraged to speak the language of finance these days, but it makes us sound like wannabe investment bankers. We really should set our sights higher.
Having said that, some business functions do need their own language. After all, we can’t afford to have any hoi polloi pretending they know how to sell stuff. No, clearly we need folks who can speak in terms that only a select few (and not always their customers) understand. They’re
called “marketing”.
The rot set in when transport was renamed logistics and purchasing joined the über-function of supply chain management. Cast into that morass of previously proud and independent groups, we had to carve out a role or risk demise, like planning (remember them?). No uniform of peaked caps or white coats for us, just the armour of fine words. A couple of examples will help to illustrate my point.
First, we used to have a plan. Normally one a year, sometimes with tough targets, and on occasions really demanding. Every now and again a three-year plan, but still a plan. Now we have “transformation plans”. Hell, even our plans to bid out taxis got called “transformational ground transportation”. Beam me up, we’ve just invented teleporting!
Second, delivering savings in purchasing has always been the norm. It’s just the difference between what was expected and what was delivered that matters. But now delivery is always – and I mean always – “breakthrough”. Or break-through. Or even Break Through. Even the blasted recruiters use it in their adverts for junior buyers, as if a whole new, previously uninterested, bunch of candidates will apply.
The problem is, having set the expectation of radical, dramatic, awesome improvements to cost, how do you explain yourself when prices start rising? “When I said breakthrough, what I actually meant was… er, a bit less inflation than we thought.” Doesn’t have quite the same ring, does it?
Despite all my protestations, though, I have no doubt that such purchasing yuk-speak is becoming mainstream. Say the words quickly several times in the right places and you’ll be amazed at how many people copy you. And before you know it, you’ll be racing to the top of search engine results for keyword gobbledegook.
Even I am not immune to this trend. If someone had asked me five years ago if my meta-tags were Googleable, I would probably have resorted to violence. Now I pause as I think when I last updated them.
Jim Frankley (not his real name) leads a purchasing function in a Fortune Global 500 company. He can be contacted at frankleyspeaking@cpoagenda.com
