I recently attended the Aberdeen’s CPO Summit meeting with some the top Chief Procurement Officers in the country and now understand why we are always fighting the last war.

The speaking agenda was packed with aging ex-CPO’s from companies whose glory has long since faded.  Companies like Sears and Chrysler whose products and services are so unexceptional that they have nearly lost all relevance in the marketplace today.  In the case of Chrysler they weren’t even “too big to fail” but just a place that employed a lot of hardworking people who we need to keep working to prevent wrecking the economy even further.

Listening to these ex-CPO war stories made me think that this position is so ill equipped to lead an organization to their next new market that they are actually placing their companies at great risk.  I had a chance to talk to some very bright CPO’s who clearly had an abundance of people skills, ability to spot excess costs and negotiate for win/win outcomes but they lacked imagination and insight into what is about to become the largest opportuntiy on their horizon: the emergence of a new energy driven economy as the next “Internet” scale business innovation.

I was curious why the dominant topic seemed to be how to reduce indirect purchasing costs.  You know, how to buy office supplies and janitorial services cheaper.  I was surprised that Sustainability was not even on their radar.  Even worse, many talked openly how they felt Global Warming was not a problem that they thought much about and they suspected it was just a fad.  It occurred to me that this profession is so preoccupied looking backwards analyzing “spent money” they can’t envision how to save money in the future.

I was surprised that not one of these high powered CPO’s thought that energy prices would rise again once the recession ends or that they will have to pay more for diminishing supplies of key raw materials like rare earth metals, lithium batteries,  precious metals such as platinum or silver.  Instead they were laser focused on travel spending, services and printing costs.

Message to the CEO: Don’t hand the binoculars to these guys.  They can only tell you where you have already been.

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