Value Chain!

Should we look at only role content when charting out our career plans? What other factors should we consider?

I feel we should also consider what is portfolio of contexts we are building for ourselves.

We can look at life stage of an organization- start up, high growth, mature, or declining.

We can also look at where in value chain is context? Is it

• Closer to customer- pre-sales, sales, delivery, post sales service?
• A little higher up in Supply chain? - secondary distribution (to customer)?
• Much higher up in supply chain-primary sourcing/distribution to factories.
• Product design/R&D?
• Central function -governance of value chain?

 

I have worked in a central org, manufacturing org, sales org, and delivery org.

 

Why is working across different points of value chain important? Well, for one as we see different points we understand the value chain better. For another, different parts of value chain hold different values.

Some values a central org may hold are integration, standardization, bet practices, etc.

In a manufacturing set up values may be Right First Time (no errors), predictability, reliability, process orientation, etc.

In a sales org values may be outcome orientation, resourcefulness, etc.

A delivery org might have values similar to a manufacturing org - focus on processes, quantitative orientation, large scale implementation, etc.

I've worked in mature and high growth phases. I've worked in HQs , with sales orgs, with manufacturing orgs, and with delivery orgs. I’ve worked in HQs as well as in subsidiaries. I've started experienced handling international markets.

What are some of contexts I have not experienced? Service (should be about customer orientation/delight) and R&D (creativity, knowledge); start up and declining phase orgs; and regional and HQ (international) roles.

These are some lines I am thinking on, along with content of next roles, as I plan my next career steps.

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Sourav