Building Strategic Weaponry for Competitive Competence

Introduction

The current speed of change requires employees to be trained continuously to out-think and out-manoeuvre competitors.

Customisation is key - this article explains how to tailor programmes to maximise synergies between company strategic objectives, individual needs and lifelong learning.

Identify areas to be addressed

A previous article, “Targeting Training for Strategic Success” identified tools for determining the skills gaps of each individual within the organisation, both in terms of the company’s current needs and future strategy.

Having applied these tools, the company will have a strategic overview of what must be trained, at what level and to how many people at each level.

Structure content and strategies for training programmes

Diversity of approach and company structures mean  that there is no “one size fits all”: every company must align training to its own bottom-line objectives.

To achieve this, the company will need to create a matrix in which the identified skills gaps are grouped into areas of similarity at different levels.

Such a matrix will look something like this:

	Technical	Company Systems	Strategy / Management / Supervisory	Soft Skills
General Management
Supervisory
Operator
General Worker

Identify the specific objectives of each training unit 
By populating this matrix we have a strategic overview of the competency requirements of our organisation. It also represents a lifelong learning path for each employee.

The skills gaps which have been identified in each of the matrix cells need to be fleshed out so that each defines what the person who has been trained in that area will be able to do. 

For example, if we have identified “manage inventory” as a skills gap at operator level, we might, after consultation with those involved in the function, decide that a person who has been trained in this function will be able to:

• Explain the principles of freight logistics 
• Receive, dispatch and return freight
• Control and locate stock
• Locate freight in a warehouse
• Pack, handle and secure freight 

Million dollar question- insource or outsource?

Now the burning question: which of these competencies should be trained on an in house basis and which should we outsource to external providers?

According to the supplychainforesight 2014 report “With the education system of South Africa under increasing scrutiny, there is a clear gap between relevant qualifications and skills that are marketable in the workplace.” This is a clear indication that, at least in the field of supply chain management, the bias should be towards insourcing. This, by the way, is not a uniquely South African phenomenon.

Other considerations are:

• What do we have the ability to execute in-house, and what can’t we perform internally with quality and consistency?
• Which of the competencies we have identified give us our competitive edge, which of them give us our unique character in the marketplace?
• Consider outsourcing those generic “soft skills”  (communications, time management, leadership development, decision-making, and problem-solving), as well as environmental and health-safety issues. Keep in mind that if we were to keep training entirely in-house, the only resources we’d have are the skill sets that exist in our current staff.
• To what extent can we insource training without compromising the operational requirements of those Subject Matter Experts who will be required to do facilitate training? Put another way, how do we manage the risk of loss of focus on our core business, if we implement in house training programmes?

Moving target

Nothing stays the same. Both the competency matrix of the company should be subject to annual review as an absolute minimum.

Getting Real – Determining Realistic Training Requirements

The matrix shown below was introduced previously as the starting point for determining who we should train on what.

This time around I would like to focus on the development of this matrix to determine the competency needs of our particular organisation.

Reason suggests that, since our organisation must be unique in order to survive in a highly competitive market, we must be employing different competencies from those of our competitors, right? Yes, to an extent.

What actually makes us competitive is, I would suggest, more the WAY in which we employ a common set of competencies in serving our clients, rather than the employment of unique competencies.

For example, supply chain management companies derive much competitive edge from unique software packages to manage the supply chains of their clients: the ability to create such packages is made up of common competencies applied in a work environment which enables creativity to flourish.  It is the environment in which competencies are applied which determines the uniqueness of the final product, not the actual competencies being applied.

In summary: our organisation’s competitiveness is developed from the unique way in which we harness competencies.

To use this matrix to determine the training needs of each individual in our organisation we need first to establish what competencies in each of the vertical columns are required by our organisation. The technical skills required in freight forwarding can for instance be vastly different to those used in the warehousing industry: every company has its own in house procedures and systems and so on. Whilst soft skills and management competencies are quite generic, we need to analyse carefully the way in which we apply them because this is the source of much of our competitive edge.

How to determine our organisation’s competency needs? It is strongly suggested that this is not something which can be taken on by one individual - in smaller companies of say less than 50 individuals, the four to five key individuals need to be involved; in larger companies all line managers should be extensively consulted.

The recommended process is as follows:
List the competencies needed by your organisation under each of the four headings Technical, Soft Skills, Management, Company In house Systems and Procedures. In building this competency profile, be careful to define not only those competencies which are needed now, but also those which will be needed to sustain the company in terms of its long term strategic goals.

For each job/ job category in the company, select the level of proficiency which each job/ job category requires under each of the four headings.

A word of caution: this task requires time and commitment on the part of those involved. Very often what we may think is required in terms of a competency at a particular level of proficiency may be far removed from the reality of the job. This is because the more senior we become the less we tend to know about how things are actually done at the coalface. This exercise therefore represents a good opportunity to find this out.  

The result will be a competency profile of each job.

In the next article I would like to explore these competency profiles in more depth with examples and also make some suggestions of competencies which need to be included from the point of view of the international supply chain management environment.