David Kinnear, Expert on Global Sourcing & Sustainability; Founder & Chair Elect, The Global Sourcing Council – New York

You’ve heard them a thousand times – so here they are again; those priceless lines:

Jerry Maguire: I’m ready.
Rod Tidwell: I wanna make sure you’re ready, brother. Here it is: Show me the money. Oh-ho-ho! SHOW! ME! THE! MONEY! A-ha-ha! Jerry, doesn’t it make you feel good just to say that! Say it with me one time, Jerry.
Jerry Maguire: Show you the money.
Rod Tidwell: Oh, no, no. You can do better than that, Jerry! I want you to say it with you, with meaning, brother! Hey, I got Bob Sugar on the other line; I bet you he can say it!
Jerry Maguire: Yeah, yeah, no, no, no. Show you the money.
Rod Tidwell: No! Not show you! Show me the money!
Jerry Maguire: Show me the money!
Rod Tidwell: Yeah! Louder!
Jerry Maguire: Show me the money!

The delivery of these lines in the Jerry Maguire movie was arguably flawless. It was an overnight movie moment. But, just as it was funny, it had special significance in the storyline. It was at the heart of what made the difference for Rod Tidwell’s character. Flawed or not, their relationship had to make money.

The same is true of Sustainability and the business of Sustainability.

To get sustainability is to get that it does – and must – make money for organizations that commit to it. It’s far more than just filing a report and being green. Just like Maguire, government and the industry may have thought it was ready. But now it must commit. Organizations need to see savings, efficiencies, money saved and money made. As much as organizations may seek to be green, there’s something even more compelling about being fiscally smart and operationally efficient, developing new lean processes that generate next-generation products to compete successfully on a global stage. Who doesn’t like saving & making money..? That’s a healthy recipe for job creation also.

My view is we’ll see this realization in 2011.

Early evidence suggests this. And the impact of this outlook and activity will indeed be significant. As we enter 2011, there’s a growing awareness of Sustainability as a catalyst for change among many organizations. The move beyond just being green – to being smart.

Sustainability. Are you ready? Show us the money!

David Kinnear – Sr. Adviser on Sustainability, Global Sourcing & Chair Elect of The Global Sourcing Council

At the risk of being radical, I invite you to forget much of what you heard about “green” and “sustainability” in the last 1-5 years versus what you may have felt in the last 3-6 months. This game is changing; this market is moving. The reason why is critical for businesses to understand and act upon, now. Make no mistake, this is a 2011 issue.

Sustainability is a path and an approach, not a destination or a simple report. It will become an inherent part of business – more seamlessly integrated than much of the technology we use today. This view is supported by the necessity for Sustainability as a discipline when we look at the world of global sourcing. If the world is really just one large supply chain, what we’re doing now is time-critical. For centuries, companies have hedged the risks associated with the supplies they use – sourcing from multiple vendors and locations, for example. Now, we’re emerging into an era where the world is the competitive landscape and raw material is increasingly accounted for. The game changes. It’s not enough to own the supply; it’s time to change the dependency. And this is where Sustainability comes in.

It’s all about definition – and the differentiation, competitive advantage that Sustainability can deliver on several levels. It’s why the client and provider community has so much to do and so much opportunity ahead. The fundamental reason why things are changing is the markedly growing perception and understanding about what Sustainability actually is, what it should deliver – and how critical that is to both the present and future competitive state of most businesses. So let’s recap for a second…

Along with a long list of other outcomes & benefits, Sustainability should enable the organization to achieve the following critical goals – each of which has clear, quantifiable, commercial value – not the fluffy stuff you may have heard about:

Clear, differentiating competitive advantage in a global marketplace for goods and services
Material, quantifiable cost and risk reductions – delivered by data tools to manage cost drivers such as energy
Break-throughs in operating efficiency & a new level of engagement with both internal employee and external stakeholder audiences
To date, aside being “green”, many have only really looked at the compliance aspects. Grab the data, throw it into a report. If you’re only looking at the compliance issue, that’s fine. You’re in good company. Perhaps 75-85% of companies will address this, for now, simply as a compliance issue with some modest benefits. But that’s not to say that the appetite for more won’t grow.

It’s the 15-25% of companies, especially the major enterprises and household brands, that will take Sustainability to the transformative level, leveraging information tools and behavioral science – given the scale and complexity of their organizations and the opportunity to benefit from this change in approach.

2011 will be the year of the supply chain on both a corporate and macro global level. The response to the supply chain issue reflects the strategy of the organization toward self-preservation and growth in an era of potential uncertainty. Those that move swiftly and with confidence will, in this writer’s view, garner the benefits.

Re-printed from Seismic Shift – an article by David Kinnear

Sustainability  is a lot like change itself…

It happens. Love it, embrace it, learn to work with it – or get slammed broadside by it. It happens regardless. Sustainability happens to be a commercial survival & transformative issue, which will be played out on a very public, global stage.

So, in context, are you willing to bet against Rupert Murdoch?

What is Your Sustainability Strategy?

Depending on what you and your organization are doing to address Sustainability, there’s your answer. If the answer is nothing – or next to nothing – then may I suggest that you’re betting against the instincts & actions of one of the shrewdest businessmen on the planet. Sustainability is an issue you simply cannot afford to be wrong on – and it’s a lot more about being smart – than being green. I’m not talking about hugging trees. The game is changing and so is the dialog. In some respects, you can throw out a lot of what you may have read or heard in the last 1-5 years about Sustainability. A lot of it was tainted with over-emphasis on politics, carbon-trading, cap-and-trade macro issues and a whole bunch of tree-hugging thrown in.

The Money Game

Let’s talk the money-side of Sustainability and why smart businesses are changing their ways to embrace the road ahead – making money from change, and saving it too. Change is a constant and successful business leaders inspire teams to evolve companies – marrying products, services and solutions to an ever-evolving marketplace. So it is that I have a profound respect for Rupert Murdoch’s navigation of the news industry and how he has set a course for a new era in delivering news – reflecting the tastes and circumstances of his audience, globally. His online publications save paper. But saving paper isn’t really the point, right? It’s a healthy by-product of being smart and creating products that people want to buy, factoring in their preferences for being “green”.

Transforming Businesses, Saving Industries from Decline

It’s hard not to see the extraordinary difficulty faced by traditional news outlets as they pit capital-intensive infrastructure and the physical limitations of print sales against the agility and zero cost-basis of news & content breaking distributing over Twitter, Facebook and the internet as a whole. So, just as in life, those who act  – survive, thrive.

Run the Presses!

Today, the presses are running on Rupert Murdoch’s “The Daily” – the only paper of its kind entirely designed, constructed and targeted for an iPad (virtual) readership. In one masterful stroke, Murdoch has embraced Sustainability, Change. Perhaps he has also shown how an entire industry may save itself from a slow and painful decline. Change is, well, good.

The No-Return Point for Sustainability. Are You Ready for 2011?

We’ve moved beyond feel-good. This is different. 2011 is the demarcation point for something very different. This is where the smart money shakes off the green noise and fluff and gets down to forming real commercial strategies driven by this issue. This is when winners plot a course for winning and others will fall by the way-side.

The World is Your Oyster. Go Conquer It…

The smart money is now focusing on the transformative change and fiscal implications of Sustainability – not just feeling good or filing a report. This is about aggressively embracing change and conquering new markets, new audiences – growing market share. This is an area filled to the brim with opportunity for the smart, the bold, those open to seeing lands beyond the horizon.

Feeding Crocodiles & Dragging Our Feet

As Churchill once observed: “An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.” Businesses cannot afford to turn a blind eye to Sustainability in the unfounded hope that it will simply pass by and leave things un-touched. Rather, consider Sustainability to be a vast weather pattern forming in a global context – and undoubtedly those that prepare best will fare best.

Change is very hard for most people – even those who say they ‘love a change’. But great leaders don’t fight it; they embrace it. It’s a catalyst issue – something that drives curiosity and demands a response. It’s a cave to be explored; a stone to be over-turned just to see what lies beneath. It’s a competitive thing. Mastering the challenge set by change. Turning the issue into opportunity.

I’m with Rupert Murdoch on this one.