Is ISM No Longer A True Procurement Association?
Earlier this week, Purchasing Magazine reported the results of ISM's controversial membership vote regarding whether or not salespeople were allowed to join ISM and attend ISM events. The results were that about 75% of voters voted to allow salespeople to join.
I admit to being surprised by the outcome of this vote. Nearly every person I had spoken to was vehemently against allowing salespeople to join. And other professional associations (e.g., the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the American Medical Association, etc.) strictly limit their membership to those in a specific role and exclude salespeople.
So, with this change, what has ISM become?
Can it really be considered a true procurement association going forward?
Can ISM now be considered more of a "chamber of commerce" - connecting buyers and sellers - than a professional association?
Will it lose the 23% of members who voted against it?
What proportion of the membership will be comprised of salespeople?
Will it recruit enough new sales members to offset the loss of procurement members in order to help the organization return to financial health?
Will ISM change its name (again) to reflect this change in audience? Long-time procurement professionals know that the organization has changed its name multiple times in its history.
What do you think?
To Your Career,
Charles Dominick, SPSM
President & Chief Procurement Officer
Next Level Purchasing, Inc.
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posted by Charles Dominick, SPSM @ 2:31 PM
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3 Comments:
I for one am very disappointed.
In the late 70’s when I first started attending the monthly meetings in Indianapolis one of the strongest beliefs was the presence of individuals who had sales responsibility represented a conflict. I think they need to move to change the name and take Supply Management out of the title as it certainly will no longer represent the nature of the group.
I have no doubt the change was motivated by the need for a new source of cash and that they will succeed in increasing their numbers as sales teams rush to get access to the members at the local and national meetings. That has been the result over the past few years at the spring meeting for the hospitality purchasing sub-group held in Chicago during the NRA show. The image of a pride of lions being allowed in a confined area with antelopes comes to mind.
Charles we posted a poll on PurchasingBizconnect as a follow up to the news story about ISM's vote and so far it does look like more than half of purchasing pros will change their approach to ISM events as a result of the vote:
http://bizconnect.purchasing.com/polls.php
Quite an interesting poll, David. The backlash against the decision makes me wonder how 3/4ths of voters submitted their support.
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