Contents	6
	Foreword	10
	Foreword from the boardroom	12
	1 Are your staff fit enough?	14
	Ho ho ho, merry Christmas	14
	Future skills	15
	The black swan of the future	16
	Purchasing and supply chain management have to leave the basement!	19
	Purchasers need to transform into consultants	20
	Cross-cultural competence	20
	Multi-project management	21
	Negotiating competence	22
	Best-cost competence	22
	Best Practice: Titan Industries Ltd.	23
	To lay golden eggs	24
	The three day miracle	26
	The school of ideas	27
	Satisfied employees	28
	2 Onwards and upwards	30
	Meet Batman	30
	The figures are doing the talking	31
	The helmsman learns how to steer	33
	The manager as a change agent	37
	Best Practice: Deutsche Telekom	38
	Moving on up	40
	Traps and pitfalls	41
	Category management	43
	Simulating and Creating	44
	The true chore	45
	Unions vs globalization	46
	The pay-off	46
	3 Star Search!	48
	What’s the most important thing?	48
	The talent magnet	49
	The manager’s magnet	51
	Making the best of the good	52
	Bad luck and breakdowns	54
	Best Practice: Swisscom	55
	Projects with appeal	55
	More room for strategy!	57
	The hard skills	59
	Soft skills	60
	At the Academy	60
	4 Have fun!	64
	Do you know Kermit?	64
	It’s Fun Time!	65
	Make it attractive, not descriptive	66
	The fun paradox	68
	The killjoys	69
	Simply Best Practice	71
	Best Practice: Siemens	72
	Back to the drawing board	73
	Leadership skills in networks	75
	Virtual teams	76
	5 We can conquer the world!	80
	The Babel syndrome	80
	Who’s in charge of the world?	82
	Survival of the fittest	83
	How to become Chinese	84
	Globalization of the management board	86
	Company Olympics	87
	Best Practice: Deutsche Post DHL	88
	Now you speak my language	89
	English does not work!	90
	Trouble in the network	91
	Network harmony	93
	Welcome to the Radical Structuralism Club!	93
	6 The secret of champions	96
	The Buffett effect	96
	The specificity of a winner	96
	Money down the drain	98
	Detective work	100
	Not anyone can do it	101
	Best Practice: United States Postal Services	102
	Recruitment: Who wants to be a supply management professional?	104
	Development: The Virtual Supply Chain Academy	105
	The internet doesn’t work!	107
	Marketing can save the world	108
	Retention: Rotating is remaining	111
	7 Get a coach!	114
	The way to success	114
	Help! Here comes the coach!	116
	The Americans have to do their own thing	117
	Subject-specific coaching	119
	When purchasing begins to think	121
	Sell yourself!	122
	Total interdependency	123
	The Midas touch of Best Practice: Value, not cost	124
	Talking like Cicero	125
	Keeping a sense of proportion	127
	The bottom line	128
	8 Tomorrow’s winners	130
	The Love Lab	130
	The Next Big Thing	130
	Best Practice: Lanxess	136
	Even angels have to start somewhere	137
	The fitness program	139
	The principles	140
	What is really important	143
	9 My own university!	146
	Corporate Procurement University	146
	Cargo cult management	148
	A tough job	153
	The fly in the ointment	154
	A prophet has no honor in his own country	155
	All countries in one boat	156
	The same problems in every country	158
	The tenacity of Best Practice	159
	10 The executive’s best friend	162
	The fall of Troy	162
	Missed cues	163
	The Nestor hotline	165
	›Management team‹ is an oxymoron	166
	Waltzing to the networks	169
	Typical!	171
	Nosce te ipsum	173
	Know your enemy	174
	11 Develop Leaders!	178
	The globalization trap	178
	The leadership crisis	179
	The fuel of leaders	180
	Born to lead	181
	Where do leaders come from?	183
	Leadership coaching	185
	12 Wild, wild West	190
	Black Bart Bolton	190
	Risk!	192
	Supply Chain Risk Management	194
	Phantom of the workshop	196
	Heads in the sand	197
	The most important thing in the world	201
	Jumping without a parachute	203
	Aerial combat	205
	A life in garbage	209
	Management instead of communication	211
	Firefighters in foreign countries	213
	At the Edge of the Universe	215
	Develop Leaders!	218
	Acknowledgements	226
	Index	228
	About the author	232