Blozis

Executive Summary

As the Supply Manager of Blozis I am faced with a number of problems. First, my department has little to no controls built in to ensure a compliant overall purchasing process. These lack of controls are leading to inventory shrinkage, infighting between departments, upset suppliers and lost profits. Secondly, the wrong people are doing certain jobs, since there is no defined scope for each role. This leads to ineffective decisions and direction. Finally, when things go wrong it is almost impossible to find out why. Lack of standards coupled with no accountability systems suggests this is not going to change anytime soon.

I need to attack this in a systemic way. I cannot expect accountability unless people know what they are expected to do, and know how to do it. I will not know what people should be doing unless I develop a set of standards and processes for them to follow. So that is exactly what I will do.

Key Assumptions

While the issues noted in the case below are prevalent throughout Blozis, this paper will focus only on the Supply Department.

Issues

There are three major issues facing Blozis. First, they are essentially completely lacking process and control systems within their supply department – and across the entire organization it would appear. This lack of control is embedded within the culture from the top down through the relatively loose style of the President.

Secondly, roles and responsibilities within the organization are not clearly defined. This leads to people doing jobs they are not qualified for, and others doing jobs they are not truly paid for. This problem produces issues downstream in the supply process when confusion arises and people point fingers at each other claiming it is not his or her responsibility.

Finally, there is no true accountability within the company. This is undoubtedly the outcome of the above two issues, but in and of itself creates a...