'People and skills' to drive Royal Mail change

[TrueBlueTerrier]

http://www.supplymanagement.com/news/20 ... il-change/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;?

People development is the engine behind Royal Mail's procurement transformation, according to its buying head.

Speaking at the CIPS/SM Efficient and Sustainable Public Sector Procurement conference last month, Ninian Wilson, group procurement director, said it had been hard but necessary to change a culture of underperformance.

"It's all about the people. If you haven't got the skills capacity it will remove aspirations. Without it your house is built on sand. You cannot do it without people."

He explained how he had flattened the management structure in procurement, reducing its 13 different grades to four, and increasing the number of his own direct reports from two to nine. "It was 1970s style management and I swept it away," he said.

Many staff left as a result of the changes, which included relocations, but he said they did so on good terms. He added 1,000 applications were received for jobs during the recruitment campaign - 60 per cent of the function is now made up of new staff.

"It has exploded the myth that no-one wants to join us," he said.

The project, nicknamed Columbus because it is a "journey to the new world", aims to make Royal Mail one of the top three procurement functions in Europe over the next three years, based on benchmarking from consultants AT Kearney.

When the firm was first benchmarked, the department ranked last out of 346. But Wilson is confident it will achieve its goal, because of the motivation and loyalty of his staff. "Ask anybody in our function, and we'll be top three in three."

[fishtank]

I feel i've lost a couple of IQ points just reading that crap.

The project, nicknamed Columbus because it is a "journey to the new world"

Columbus...An incompetent mercenary from Italy working for the Spanish Monarchy set sail for Japan and ended up in the Bahamas ...where he proceeded to torture the locals into "civilisation"...nice.

[DirtyHarry]

The bane of many a hard-working man/woman, corporate bullshyte such as that spouted by arch knob, Nitwit Wilson.

[Lincox]

He,ll soon be claiming that Wrexhams ground is named after him, and look whats happened to them.