What Does Football Have To Do With Purchasing?
This week has been massive in terms of sports news in Pittsburgh, primarily due to the hiring of the new Steelers' head coach, Mike Tomlin.
One thing that has been a frequent topic of sports articles about the hire is that Mr. Tomlin is the Steelers' first African-American coach and their first coach hired after the "Rooney Rule" was implemented in the NFL in 2002. The Rooney Rule, named after Steelers' executive Dan Rooney who pushed the NFL to adopt the policy, requires NFL teams to interview at least one minority candidate when they are interviewing for a vacant head coach position.
The Rooney Rule does not require NFL teams to hire a certain percentage of minority head coaches, only to give minority candidates the opportunity to interview for the vacant head coach positions. According to this Post-Gazette article, Mr. Tomlin "acknowledged that the so-called Rooney rule may have helped him get noticed, but not to get the job."
So what can we take away from this in the private-sector purchasing and supply management field?
It might be that, for purchases that exceed a certain dollar threshold, at least one diversity supplier must be given the opportunity to bid. Not necessarily that a certain percentage of business be set aside for diversity suppliers, just that they be given a fair chance on a level playing field.
So do you think that purchasing and supply management departments should adopt this type of adaptation of the Rooney Rule?
One of the next editions of PurchTips will delve more into the challenges of supplier diversity programs and will discuss whether or not actual-spending-with-diverse-supplier-goals should be used. So stay tuned!
To Your Career,
Charles Dominick, SPSM
President
Next Level Purchasing, Inc.
Struggling To Have A Rewarding Purchasing Career?
Earn Your SPSM Certification Online At
http://www.NextLevelPurchasing.com
posted by Charles Dominick, SPSM @ 7:54 AM
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2 Comments:
Mike Tomlin surely was awarded the job on merit. I agree with The Rooney Rule. I believe Mike won the job on merit, passion, innovative ideas and good old fashion can-do .I can tell you first hand, as we are diversity suppliers for telecommunication services. An opportunity to be included in bids is not enough at this point. There are many stigmas that we must remove before we are looked at seriously and that cannot be done through a bidding process. Although, major corporations and sports organizations have strong diversity and diversity supplier programs... I can only hope some day that diversity suppliers are given the same opportunity Mike Tomlin was given. The opportunity to win contracts on merit passion, innovative ideas and good old fashion can-do. We have four appointments set up for May 2007 with fortune 500 companies. I will post my results from those meeting on my blog if you are interested at my
Diversity Suppliers Blog
Frank McGuire
Managing Partner Telecommunications
Genesis Networks
www.genesisnetworks.com
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Frank. Good luck with your appointments and feel free to share your success stories with us.
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