As a Director in SC&H Group’s Contract Compliance Audit Services practice, Patrick has a few key professional motivations with all of his clients: increasing third-party transparency, optimizing supplier relationships, and improving governance. He works with Fortune 100 companies to evaluate contract compliance in categories such as marketing and advertising, contingent staffing, facilities management, construction, computer hardware/software, MRO, security, events, and office supplies. Projects under Patrick’s leadership have resulted in client savings of over $150 million in addition to practical control developments, valuable process improvements, enhanced earnings, and proven cost-savings initiatives. He is very passionate about helping to influence the operations and cultures of global enterprises, and one of his greatest professional achievements was being able to hand over a $1 million recovery check to his client.
What is the secret to a Fortune 500 brand’s success? Brands fail not because they lose market share, but because they lose competitive differentiation and profits. The conventional definition of a brand’s value in the provider-driven market used to be the price that the brand could command over a generic competitor. In today’s consumer-driven market, the power of the brand seems to have become separated from its origins: the ability to create and sustain a long-term flow of profit by making people want to buy the product or service, and be willing to pay a higher price for it.
This shift has caused sales and marketing teams to become fixated on driving sales without regard for profitability. We are no longer living in the provider-driven market of decades past, where the company held the power and the information, and could use that to sway the consumer toward purchasing. I can’t think of one industry today that is not impacted by the consumer-driven market that exists. Consumers now hold the power with more access to information, they are the ones driving the purchasing decision, and the providers are now at the mercy of the decisions they make.
As a supply chain professional, you already know the value in establishing and maintaining relationships, but are you maximizing your communication strategy? For millennials, the use of social media is natural; it’s a part of our everyday lives. For other generations, it’s hit-or-miss. Some people are social media privy, some are experts and some avoid it like the plague. Whether or not individuals choose to use social media from a personal standpoint is their own prerogative. Whether or not companies use social media for their brands shouldn’t be a question at all. We live in a digital age where virtually (no pun intended) everything is online. So, it makes perfect sense for you to market your brand online. While having a website is absolutely essential, you also need vehicles to drive traffic to it—one major channel for that is social media. If you’ve totally been ignoring digital transformation for your brand, let’s make a U-turn, take the bull by the horns and start with the following seven steps.
Choose your Platforms
There are 1.5 billion people using social media. Exciting, right? There is a whole virtual universe out there for you to explore. Each social media platform was designed for a different (sometimes just slightly) purpose. In addition, each platform generally reaches unique (yet sometimes overlapping) audiences. Once you understand each platform, you can develop your segmentation strategy. Don’t underestimate the power of these platforms for connecting with your suppliers, vendors and customers. They are using them too and you can learn a lot by being on the platforms they are frequenting.
Create a Voice That’s Consistent Across All Platforms
You work hard to build a reputation that’s trustworthy. You’ve created a beautiful logo, compelling marketing collateral, engaging online campaigns and held endless photo shoots – and the list goes on. However, all your hard work is in vain, if you don’t know what others are saying about you or your suppliers. For example, most companies don’t know if there are slaves in their supply chains. It might sound far-fetched, but human traffickers target unskilled workers to fulfill shortages all along a supply chain and if you’re like most companies, you aren’t even aware of it. Monitoring your online presence, in addition to the reputation of companies you do business with, will provide valuable insights for your brand, and more importantly – will keep you in the know when the reputation of others in question.
These social media tools can help you better monitor your online presence and the reputation of others.
Mention - Paid Service
Mention is an online platform that provides real-time web and social media monitoring. Mention is very user-friendly and is a great way to stay informed every time someone mentions your name, brand or dedicated keywords. The platform is able to monitor billions of online sources in various languages, providing you with super rich data as to what is trending or popular. You can set the platform to receive daily alerts, instantly respond to social media alerts from inside the web portal, set priority status and collaborate with your social media team to improve customer support. This is a great tool for people looking to increase their brand’s awareness, monitor their reputation and grow relationships both online and through social media.
Because we're not short of positive perspectives on outsourcing: again, anyone attending even one SIG Summit would come away with plenty of evidence for its value, and the outsourcing community and media such as Outsource have more than enough material to make an overwhelming case for why the model has been a good - a great - one for organizations right across the size spectrum. But the benefits aren't confined to individual companies: a wealth of scholarly work has been carried out to demonstrate how, in direct opposition to the assertions of its detractors, outsourcing (even offshoring) is good for those very economies it is supposedly corroding.
A 2006 Harvard University study entitled 'The Politics and Economics of Offshore Outsourcing' articulates the truth of this superficially counter-intuitive position very nicely. Authors Gregory Mankiw and Phillip Swagel found that "outsourcing appears to be connected to increased US employment and investment rather than to overall job loss. Some US jobs are certainly lost to other countries. On the whole, however, firms involved with offshore outsourcing are not shifting net jobs overseas but instead are creating jobs both in the United States and in other countries... Outsourcing will create winners and losers, and the pain of dislocation will be real for workers and their families. Taken together, however, these conclusions suggest that offshore outsourcing is likely to be beneficial for the United States as a whole."
As a marketer, I know the value of branding. The largest and most successful companies in the world have teams of people dedicated solely to branding. Branding is no longer about using the same logo, trademark, tagline and/or color scheme on all your marketing material. Branding is composed of different components including: brand identity, brand image, brand character, brand culture, brand personality and brand essence. Marketing agencies and consultants charge anywhere between $75,000-$250,000 to develop and manage a company’s brand.
Now here’s the kicker with branding that every marketing professional will tell you – they have no idea how it impacts their bottom line. Branding is the most difficult type of marketing to measure because you can’t easily quantify it. So, why are organizations across the globe spending so much money and time on branding? Quite simply – effective branding creates consumer confidence. Establishing a brand with a clear voice and values will enable your consumers to be loyal and confident when they buy from you. People have a natural desire to evolve with a brand whose products and services help give their life or business meaning and significance.
It’s not just businesses that need to focus on effective branding. If you care about your future as a professional in the world of work, you need to focus on your own personal brand. Personal branding is critical to establishing who you are and what you represent to those around you, the equivalent of a company’s consumers. They are your employer, your manager, your co-workers, your peers and anyone else that comes in contact with you in a professional setting. I’m not just talking about ensuring that embarrassing picture from your cousin’s wedding isn’t visible on Facebook... I’m talking about preparing for the future by branding yourself as a leader in your industry now.
It’s been awhile since I’ve written a blog…I’ve been remiss. But in my defense, it has been a BUSY year. We officially opened SIG University with hundreds of students now matriculating through it…acquired Outsource, the leading digital content thought leader based in the UK…launched a division of SIG in EMEA…and absorbed the LatAm Alliance (formerly called Nearshore Executive Alliance) as a SIG Working Council…and that is all since January! Not to mention launching a new website, starting two Working Groups, hosting our first CPO Meet & Eat, conducting several events with our European team, planning our first-ever awards event, holding dozens of one-day forums all over North America and beyond and preparing for our second Global Summit of the year! My head is spinning…it’s been quite a year. But it’s the crazy ride we call the Summit that has me thinking it’s time to write another blog.
The Summit is a time that we at SIG always look forward to with (to be honest) mixed feelings. The event itself gives us a high like no other. It is the time when we get to see all of our members face-to-face. We hear the latest innovations and ideas from world class thought leaders. We meet new SIG members…and we reconnect with our work colleagues whom we know better by voice than face. But preparing for it is a LOT of work. I’m not sure I emphasized that enough. It is A LOT of work. There are literally thousands of little details that go into making this the world-class event you have all come to expect. From the speakers to the signage…from the cups to the cocktail napkins…from the app to the entertainment…the list is LONG. We put the effort into making it a flawless event so you can come prepared to just absorb, learn, network and enjoy. But if you want a few more tips for making the week the best it can possibly be, consider these three things:
In all my years attending SIG and similar sourcing conferences (often from the outside looking in), I have never observed this degree of nervousness around a new innovation as that surrounding Robotics Process Automation (RPA). Speakers struggle with how much development background they should share before launching into the topic. Conference attendees eagerly lap up nuggets of information that can add to their meager understanding of the topic. And the few who "get it" seem to be oblivious to the general discomfort of mainstream sourcing professionals whenever robotics is mentioned.
Recently, during a trip to visit suppliers in India, I similarly noticed a strange awkwardness surrounding the marketing of both RPA and analytics. When developer/programmers are asked to explain product offerings, they trip over themselves a bit cautious that buyers may not be able to grasp the computer science, statistics or mathematics of the product offering, and consequently resort to demonstrating actual end-user applications without ever really saying, "We have a miracle here, and we want to share it with you! And there is so much more we can do each week!"
There. I said it...I am officially addicted to Twitter. How can that be, when just a year ago I didn't even know how to log in? At that time I thought it was only for celebrities who used it to "tweet" about their exciting lives. How could anything meaningful come out of 140 characters? I thought it really wasn't going to catch on in business. Well, I decided I was acting like a fuddy duddy (yes, that tells my age) and would give it a month. Much to my surprise, after the month flew by, I knew I was addicted. Now I am going to tell you why you should consider having a twitter account. I don't care if you tweet (send out messages), but if you want to learn, you do need to follow (receive tweets) others. I started following some really interesting, talented, well read, educated people and by reading their tweets and their bit.ly (shortened) links to articles and other things they post, I am blown away by how much I have learned! How? Well, I follow people in sourcing, outsourcing, logistics, supply chain, economics, news feeds, research, member companies, technology etc. From each of the 500+ people I follow, I glance at their tweets on a daily basis and when it catches my eye I click on the article/whitepaper/video that they linked to and start reading and learning. I can only skim a handful of sites and periodicals myself...what my twitter network has done is opened the world of knowledge to me by having 500+ sets of eyes covering the news we should be hearing and bringing it directly to me. If each of my 500+ follow another 500+ interesting twitter links I have exponentially exposed myself to people all around the world interested in the same topics I am. I am seriously astounded by all that I am able to read/learn/consume about topics that may have taken months or years to bubble to the top of my knowledge base. I am now able to see cutting edge ideas as they emerge and can plan on how they apply to SIG, sourcing and outsourcing.
I don't know about you, but at the beginning of each New Year, I feel pressure to come up with something I resolve to do differently. Truth be told, I don't come up with New Years Resolutions every year, but when I do put thought into them, I do my best to see them through--mainly because I select things that are achievable and "task-oriented," like (don’t laugh) "wash my face every night before bed." Needless to say, my personal and professional resolutions have always been somewhat different. This year my resolution is slightly more esoteric. In fact, it's more of a "theme" than a "thing." I got the idea from a friend and I think it's a perfect way to merge personal and professional resolutions. The idea is to pick a word you want to live by...and every day find ways to implement it. My word this year is "do." I know, it's kind of lame considering Nike's successful "Just Do It" campaign. But I couldn't think of a better verb to capture my goal, which is to act on things, not to catalogue them for later. To remember it, I've been using the mantra "see it, do it." This comes in handy with four kids in the house. There is a lot to "do" when I "see it." But I also find it great in my professional life. It is so easy to put things on the back burner until later. But with a "see it, do it" mentality, I'm trying harder to do things as I get them. Obviously this doesn't work all the time--some things have a higher priority than others--but by focusing on "do-ing," I find that I'm more engaged. I'm reading relevant articles when I get them, adding things to my list of priorities, reading through the priorities and doing them when promised. Perhaps the better work phrase is "see it, schedule it, do it." That way it gets the appropriate weighting before "doing." If you aren't a regular resolution-maker like me, maybe this can help motivate you to pick a word, theme or phrase to live by for the year. Me? I'm seeing it and following through on it!
SIG Speaks to Patrick Gahagan, Director of Contract Compliance Audit Services at SC&H Group
As a Director in SC&H Group’s Contract Compliance Audit Services practice, Patrick has a few key professional motivations with all of his clients: increasing third-party transparency, optimizing supplier relationships, and improving governance. He works with Fortune 100 companies to evaluate contract compliance in categories such as marketing and advertising, contingent staffing, facilities management, construction, computer hardware/software, MRO, security, events, and office supplies. Projects under Patrick’s leadership have resulted in client savings of over $150 million in addition to practical control developments, valuable process improvements, enhanced earnings, and proven cost-savings initiatives. He is very passionate about helping to influence the operations and cultures of global enterprises, and one of his greatest professional achievements was being able to hand over a $1 million recovery check to his client.
Patrick will share his expertise with attendees at the Western Regional SIGnature Event in Bellevue, WA on May 16th.