In the first of this series, I examined how Tiger could have better managed his affairs using a variety of Spend Management technologies including spend analysis, sourcing, optimization, and contract management. In this column I’ll continue my analysis, turning my attention to other areas of technology that Tiger might have taken advantage of. Let’s start with supplier diversity. In the procurement world, supplier diversity is really about two things: First, intentionally allocating more spend to minority and women-owned suppliers, because they represent a good potential revenue segment, and you’ve got to spread the love to get the love (even if you’re spreading hundreds and getting back dimes, at least you’ve got something to show for it); second, it’s about bureaucratic reporting, because our government feels sorry for all the centuries of discrimination that it condoned against certain protected minorities (but not the Jews, Irish, Italians, Japanese, or any other non-protestants who came over on the boat, were denied jobs, or who were interned by our government at various points in history, but don’t get me started on that one).
Still, even if it’s hard to quantify supplier-diversity benefits, we can all agree that, in principle, encouraging a diverse supply base is a good thing. Moreover, perhaps our spending decisions really should go to what amounts to a cross-section of our country (at least the cross-section that stays on-shore, weekend jaunts to Bangkok and other LCCS regions not withstanding). Given this, if we knock down the number of Tiger’s alleged affairs by 30-40%, we’ll still get a number in the 10 or so range. Which would imply that, based on the melting pot that — thank goodness — is the United States, some of these vendors would have been minorities. Statistically speaking, as a random sample, of course. Given this, Tiger clearly failed this test on a tier-one supplier-diversity level, opting to concentrate his spend among non- diverse ladies (tier-two reporting might have shown a different result, mind you). Now, there is nothing wrong with this (to each his own) and I suspect his time at The Masters with the good old boys down South might have had something to do with this decision, but seriously, what a lost PR opportunity…
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