Focus on What Matters!

I often tell audiences when I’m speaking about “focus on what matters” that early in my supply chain career I delegated ALL of my price related activities to my buyers while I focused my savings efforts almost exclusively on value analysis.  Why did I make this decision?

Well, I found early on in my career that it was easy to get the best pricing on everything that I bought if I contracted through my GPO or bid a commodity that wasn’t under a GPO contract.  I didn’t need to lose sleep over this important, but very manageable activity any longer.

That’s when I realized that value analysis was where the action, opportunities, and recognition were in any healthcare organization. From that point forward, at every hospital, system and IDN I worked I immediately formed value analysis teams to root out the waste and inefficiency in my healthcare organization’s supply chain.

By doing so, I immediately saved my hospital, system or IDN millions of dollars (beyond price) annually, and gained a reputation as a superb material manager.   This reputation wouldn’t have come to pass if I decided to use my skills to shave two or three cents off the pencils I was buying.

More importantly, because of the high visibility my value analysis teams attained in these healthcare organizations everyone in the organization knew us by our achievements (better quality, service and reduced cost).  When it came time for my annual pay raise or bonus negotiations my senior management never quibbled about giving me a raise or promotion because they had seen my work first hand in a very observable way.  

So if you are looking for more money, more recognition and more promotions in your healthcare organization, I would recommend that you “focus on what matters” – value analysis. And let your price savings become an automatic and systematic task that shouldn’t take much of your valuable time at all.

Filed Under: Best Practices • savingsblog • Supply Chain