Vertical Integration, 10x Productivity, and Career Design

Procurement Weekly brings you 3 career-enhancing ideas

Hey Procurement Legend,

Here is your weekly dose of Procurement Weekly, a list of what I’m considering and exploring. Feel free to forward along if the spirit moves you.

Supply Chain Thoughts

“One of the most important decisions that Elon Musk made about Tesla—the defining imprint that led to its success and its impact on the auto industry—was that it should make its own key components, rather than piecing together a car with hundreds of components from independent suppliers. Tesla would control its own destiny—and quality and costs and supply chain—by being vertically integrated. Creating a good car was important. Even more important was creating the manufacturing processes and factories that could mass-produce them, from the battery cells to the body. But that’s not the way the company began.” - Elon Musk, Walter Isaacson.

I wonder how many other organisations globally have taken such an approach. I was consulting with an organisation that was discussing this, but the skills, cost, and time to do it with the barebones resources we had would have been a fool’s errand.

What I’m listening to

I’ve been attempting to become more productive within my allocated working day. I moved from calendar-blocking to-do lists to realise to-do lists never get done. They merely accumulate more noise. Calendar blocking, on the other hand, makes you truly realise how long a thing takes to do.

This podcast episode is a solid listen on this and more.

What I’m Building

I’ve been thinking about career design and how too often procurement pros fall into the profession and get herded along. This isn’t inspiring. And we all have way more control over our career than we’re often led to believe. I’m currently building a Career Design Notion template that should be ready in the next couple of weeks.

And that’s it my friends,

Daniel