A few days ago, I introduced readers here to Greg Richardson's Contract Blog. I have been reading more of the entries and finding more wisdom.
He has a really interesting post on the (overlooked) importance of Sourcing Departments to their organizations in which he makes a provocative point: that money saved is actually more valuable to the organization than money earned!
Here is a quote from the relevant part. "In other words, the corporate world doesn't seem to believe that a penny saved is worth the same as a penny earned. However, in reality, a penny saved is actually worth MORE than a penny earned because a penny earned is taxed." Please read the whole thing for a complete understanding. This link will take you to the specific post.
Think about that for a moment. That is a powerful statement, indeed. I can't count the number of times when working for a large company that I heard people (both within and from outside of Purchasing) say about a particular division that always seemed to be acting like cowboys in the wild west (aka doing and purchasing whatever/however they wanted despite the rules and procedures), "Nobody can touch them. They bring in all the revenue." I never thought that was an acceptable attitude, but everybody else sure did.
I would like to hear from everyone, especially financial whizzes, to let us know if we are overlooking something here. If not, it's time for some serious corporate attitude adjustments!
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