By Bill Aukett
I had the opportunity to make a presentation to a Higher Education Finance and Procurement conference on the Sunshine Coast. My presentation was called ‘A sustainable university: mapping the challenges’.
In preparing I struggled a bit to find a framework within which all the things I wanted to say would fit coherently. As I was approaching the deadline a friend sent me a link to a paper on Kondratieff Waves and referred me to a recent book by James Bradfield Moody and Bianca Nogrady called The Sixth Wave. The ideas of the economist Kondratieff seem to be hotly contested among other economists but it was the metaphor of the wave that gave me the idea I was looking for to put my presentation
together.
It seems to me that you can put a convincing argument that we are moving (and perhaps are already in) a new era or on a new wave. If this is the case, then among our options are surfing the wave with elegance and grace, getting our timing wrong and missing it altogether or getting dumped through lack of skill and understanding. It seems to me that those engaged in professional procurement or sourcing or supply chain management in some ways will be at the forefront of meeting and dealing with the next wave. Our surfing skills will need to be top class.
To get to a position where we can surf the sustainability wave with elegance and grace, and have some fun at the same time, there are two broad conditions for success. MORE>>
Read the full report: Sustainability: The Next Wave [PDF]
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