GalaxE

Not sure you really read the original posting? There is an escalation path, and I can tell you that Procurement does escalate to executive leadership if the RFP is not adhered to, so in no way does Procurement pass the buck, or look the other way, nor do they say "it's not my job." But it is naive to think that if IT senior leadership ignores Procurement's escalation that somehow Procurement can force them to comply with the RFP results. It's easy to try to pin the problem on Procurement, when it lies squarely in IT's backyard.

 

But that still doesn’t answer the question - what is the escalation path? Clearly whatever has been done is not working because CD is doing what he wants regardless of the outcome of the RFP. So someone isn’t doing their job. Are you saying executive leadership is ignoring procurements direction? IMO this is still a huge gap in process.

 

This is a great example of why JnJ and IT are a dysfunctional disaster over the past two years. Ms procurement says it is her responsibility to conduct a fair RFP process and clearly award the winners. Then it is IT leadership’s responsibility to execute on the RFP. Now if Ms procurement learns that a VP/CD in IT chooses to disregard the RFP because they want to award their friend the work, then Ms procurement will escalate to executive management.

But then...what? Ms procurement says she can’t force IT to comply. Then why go through the process? It is slow, tedious process to award and consumes a lot of manpower. The reason we go through the process is there have been too many examples over the past few years of awarding work to buddies,etc. are we running expensive RFP processes to just check a box but it really means nothing? If we want to be fair to our vendors than the process must be followed and adhered to. There are legal ramifications to not following through. It is naive for anyone to shrug their shoulders and say I can’t force someone to do that. Of course you can if you want to, you continue to make noise until you are heard. I hear this same attitude day in and day out about so many things and it has contributed to a culture people who don’t care and are just are collecting paychecks.

Come on ms procurement you can do way better than that and so can the entire IT staff

 

Wow-pretty snarky response! "Ms. Procurement?" Perhaps if you worked in Procurement you could have convinced CD, or SW, or SM to comply with the RFP results better than they could? How exactly would you have forced them? Would you have called Alex?? It's easy to put down another organization if you've never lived in their shoes.

The bottom line is that IT is responsible for following the rules according to J&J written policies and our Credo, just like all groups within J&J are. Don't blame their failure to do so on Procurement or on anyone else. If/when the press finds out about this or someone files a Credo violation, which has happened in the past, people will be held accountable.

 

Snarky? perhaps, but sadly the writer speaks the truth. If necessary someone (doesn’t matter who: procurement, IT, someone) should have called Alex. We all should do whatever it takes to make sure the right things happen, that is a big gap today in J&J, no one feels that responsibility anymore. I would think Alex would have much preferred a heads-up before another legal situation makes the front page.