In the late 19th Century, artist Francis Barraud captured the iconic image of Nipper, the dog who became integral to RCA’s logo and identity. In an interview, Barraud shared “It is difficult to say how the idea came to me beyond that fact that it suddenly occurred to me that to have my dog listening to the Phonograph, with an intelligent and rather puzzled expression, and call it “His Master’s Voice” would make an excellent subject. We had a phonograph and I often noticed how puzzled he was to make out where the voice came from.”
This raises an interesting question for the Commercial Manager who is frustrated in their efforts in managing their stakeholders. Many have extensive stakeholder maps, complete with segmentation matrices and lists of relevant tactics. But perhaps the most effective tool to be used in supporting commercial management stakeholders is a pair of ears.
If we listen to our “Stakeholder’s Voice” with a certain level of attentiveness and focus, would that be a more effective means of engaging our stakeholders than the prevalent tools such as stakeholder maps. Too often our stakeholder maps focus on what we want to tell our stakeholders and how we want them to behave. Instead, should our stakeholder maps be a tool used to capture and address their commercial objectives.
Jim Bergman is a commercial contract professional with global experience spanning the USA, Latin America, UK, Europe, China, South Korea, Japan, India, SE Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Australia. He has worked on a wide range of direct and indirect spend categories in numerous sectors, developing a deep knowledge of services, goods and technology procurement and sales.
Across this wide array of commodity and services experience, Jim has found the keys to success in maximizing value for money through customer-supplier relationships founded on innovative category management and strategic sourcing practices, key performance metrics and measures, as well as Total Cost of Ownership principles and collaborative contracting tenets.
He has shared his knowledge through advisory engagements, as well as in developing and delivering training programs both on-line and in classrooms, in both open-enrollment and internal environments. Jim has assisted his clients through all phases and steps of contracting, negotiation, strategic sourcing and bidding processes, demonstrating value generation in excess of $250 million.
His audiences and clients have included over 7,000 attorneys and commercial professionals students from over 1,000 corporations and public-sector entities.
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