What's Your Unfair Advantage?
Cultivating Expertise, Woke ESG, State of Procurement Tech
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Hey Procurement Legend,
The last week or two has been particularly interesting regarding “ESG”.
There’s a lot circulating on “ESG” and how valuable in truly is. You can see a piece by me in the ICYMI section and I’ll have a YouTube video about this soon.
I watched a conversation between Ali Abdaal and Codie Sanchez this week. The video is about how to start a $5 Million/Yr Business on YouTube. This is something that I’m exploring and have been for a number of years.
Ali mentions something you all need to hear that you can apply to your career.
Ali stated that successful people on YouTube have an unfair advantage. This means combining skills or perspectives that enable you to be the best at what you can do.
This is similar to Jim Collin’s Hedgehog Principle from his book “Good to Great”.
And this is what I mean when I say everyone should be a generalist in Procurement but have a level of expertise in 1-3 areas.
A generalist is skilled enough to tackle any element of the Procurement Lifecycle, and more importantly, they can apply the skill of learning to quickly get to a high standard in any new area they’ve not come across before.
Pair this with expertise in an area such as Contract Management, as I have done, and then you have a recipe for longevity and a high-paying procurement career.
I used to tell people I wanted to be intentionally competent across Supply Chain, Procurement, and Contract Management. Those three skills together would be a superpower. I used to tell hiring managers that too. It’s a good conversation starter.
As an activity to help you here, do the following:
Use the table below (create your own version or use this Notion template - click Duplicate using the 3 dots).
Fill it out and work on your weak areas to reduce the amounts there, increase the “What I know” as a result of that, and choose a select few areas to be an expert in. I’d suggest Digital Procurement should be in one of the first two columns.
ICYMI
You loved this article, and thank you to the influx of paid community members benefitting from content like this.
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Hey Procurement Legend, I want to give you an actionable article about how we can buy Procurement Tech better by ditching the RFP process. In short, this process could be applied to various tech solutions. If you can become a pro at scouting new solutions in the market, you could be a valuable asset within your organisation.
Is Supply Chain ESG Woke?
Hey Procurement Legend, something a bit different today. I’m making this more of a neutral article because, and I’ll be totally honest with you, I’m sitting on that spiky hedgerow unsure where I might land when I make my mind up on this. But I do think this is an incredibly important conversation point and something to keep in mind. We don’t want to fall…
RECOMMENDED BOOKS
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Trade wars, pandemics, and chaos: How digital procurement enables business success in a disordered world - BUY HERE
Profit from the Source: Transforming Your Business by Putting Suppliers at the Core - BUY HERE
Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology - BUY HERE
The End of the World Is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization - BUY HERE
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See you next Wednesday for another newsletter,
Daniel
Evert article you write in here is packed full of actionable insight. Thank you