I have received quite a bit of feedback and correspondence from my 10 Jan blogpost. Please keep the conversation going.
Probably the most interesting comments were received from two unrelated colleagues who both compared the new FSC OCP platform to the supply chain management system operated by Walmart. The comparison is a bit of a stretch, but the analogy is though-provoking. The massive, top-down, conform-or-else, style that Walmart brings to the retail supply chain certainly is effective at driving down costs. It is also extremely unpopular with the folks who bear the burden of making it work.
I don’t think FSC really intends for the OCP to look like Walmart’s procurement system. A more important question might be this: Even if they did, could they pull it off? I doubt it.
What do you think?