A framed mission statement on the wall outside the office of Ken James, the new chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply, sums up the tasks he faces. It outlines the aims of promoting the profession of purchasing and supply management, developing high standards, improving methods, educating individuals and developing their skills.

Like most mission statements, it’s a mixture of ideals and aspirations. But for James, who took over the top job this month, it is the last point of the statement that is most relevant. It says: “Promote the value of membership of the institute.”

After all, as James is quick to point out, the institute needs a wide range of members, covering all aspects of purchasing and supply management, if is to be able to achieve anything.

With a career marked by several senior management positions in industry, James is well aware of the need for the institute to prosper if it is to work to provide maximum benefit for its members.

“The big challenge for us is to make sure we get things right in an environment that’s going to get tougher,” he says. “We have to accept that we’re in an increasingly challenging world and we have to be quicker on our feet and make decisions more quickly and effectively.

“I’ve spent most of my career in companies working to make money for the shareholders. Now I want the institute to make money so that it can do things for its shareholders, who in this case are its members.”

James has a vision for the institute’s future that he believes can lead it to success in the competitive world of the 21st century. The key to this, as he sees it, is to draw together its council, its management board and its full-time employees at the institute’s head office in Easton-on-the-Hill, near Stamford, in Lincolnshire.

Objectives

Many of the objectives set four years ago when he joined the institute as director of business development, on the same day that Charles Holden became CIPS’s first chief executive, have been met. But he believes that there is still room to develop membership, although this will be quite a challenge.

James believes that his background in industry gives him the edge in the battle to raise membership. “I’ve been around a fair bit,” he says. “I’ve worked in lots of different businesses. I’ve turned companies round from just getting by to being successful. My job is to spot where the challenges are going to be and make sure that we thrive in a rapidly changing environment.”

He was educated at a state grammar school in his hometown in the Forest of Dean, close to the Welsh border. He went to Cambridge University to study natural sciences where he enjoyed undergraduate life, playing rugby and hockey. He found the intellectual environment stimulating and his degree success warranted a career in academia, but he opted instead for the world of industry.

James joined the graduate training programme at nearby Fisons. Those four years, he says, gave him a “brilliant” introduction to crucial functions, including marketing, sales, research and production. He was with the company for four years and rose to the position of brand manager with responsibility for a range of garden products.

In 1980, after a couple of marketing director roles elsewhere, he was lured to his first managing director’s post at Homeworthy Furniture, a Lonhro company with factories in north London and Sunderland producing low-cost kitchen and bedroom furniture. James recalls how he was recruited to the company on the understanding that it had been through some difficulties but was now on course. But when he arrived he was told that the firm was still in deep trouble and that he had three months to come up with a recovery plan. Fortunately, the strategy he put together worked and before long the business was back on its feet.

It was around this time that James, with the help of his chairman, became aware of the importance of supply chains. “I started to see how the business could benefit from spending time working with suppliers and forming a relationship with them, not just trying to knock the price down,” he recalls. “I was lucky. Many MDs go through life without realising that the supply side can be key to the success of the business.”

In 1988, James moved to developers Crest Nicholson as chief executive of the sports and leisure division, building tennis and hockey pitches in the UK, US, Australia and Hong Kong. It was a line of work particularly appreciated by the sports-loving James, who still plays hockey for his local team in Beeston, Nottinghamshire.

Culture shock

After a brief period in consultancy, James was invited to join the staff of the Institute of Directors, where he was responsible for developing its branches and membership among small and medium-sized firms. It was his first experience of a membership organisation and he admits he found it a culture shock to work for a body where making money was not the sole measure of success.

“I decided that rather than going back into running a business, it would be interesting to help other people to run theirs,” he says.

This experience stood him in good stead for his next move, in early 1997, to CIPS, where he was the director responsible for business development. During this period the training operation has shown significant growth and a new marketing team has been established. In April last year he was promoted to deputy chief executive while retaining his commercial responsibilities. Now in the top job, he believes his previous experience will help to take the institute into the 21st century.

“I felt that the supply side in business was undervalued, but the time was coming for it to have a chance of getting onto the agenda. In the past five years, business generally has started to recognise that if you shine a light on that area it can really add value,” he says.

When he and Holden arrived four years ago, he says, there was a clear need for change. “There were a lot of enthusiastic people here, but they needed mentoring by people with experience. They had to move from being reactive and administrative to being more proactive and businesslike. But it was clear that the workforce were willing to change and make things hum.”

Radical change

James believes that the institute has changed radically in the past four years. It’s now a more professional organisation, has invested heavily in IT, recruited a string of new people and carried out training initiatives. There is now a better understanding of the marketplace, he says, and the institute is more able to respond to it. “We’re moving along the right lines.”

Probably the biggest challenge ahead is the advance of Internet technology. James believes that the e-world will need organisations such as CIPS to react quickly if it hopes to advance. But the institute is already moving to adopt the new agenda. James points to a recently produced guide to the subject on the CIPS website that explains the latest

e-commerce terms.

The institute’s new membership development team, under Chris Gallagher, faces three key challenges, James says. First, it must understand where its potential membership is. Second, it has to identify what it must do to attract those potential members, as well as ensuring that the interests of existing members are satisfied. Third, it has to develop effective, professional communications to make sure it is getting its message across to the membership as a whole.

The institute, he says, must continue to develop its policy base so that it can raise its public profile and argue the case for purchasing and supply management to be given greater recognition in the business world.

“We should have more to say on relevant issues. But we need to make sure we’ve got the facts and arguments to back it up. We need to identify the relevant areas, research them thoroughly and then go for it.”

At 55, James, who is married with two children, is up for the challenge. He describes himself as a “strong, consultative leader” - a team player who believes in fully consulting colleagues, then putting decisions firmly into effect. His style is aimed at gathering the workforce into a team and motivating it to perform to its best ability.

“The job of the chief executive is to manage the thinking ability of the team,” he says, choosing words that reflect a sportsman’s approach to tactics. “CIPS is a complex organisation that operates globally with a wide range of products and services for both individuals and organisations. There’s nothing more satisfying than the challenge of getting people together in a team and winning the game.”

Career file

Ken James

Chief executive, Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply, aged 55

1967: Degree in natural sciences from Christ’s College, Cambridge

1967: Fisons, graduate trainee; rose to brand manager

1971: Crown Decorative Products, marketing director

1979: Jaycee Furniture, sales and marketing distribution director

1980: Homeworthy Furniture, managing director

1984: Sheerpride/Sankey Sheldon, managing director

1988: Crest Nicholson, chief executive, sports and leisure division

1992: Consultant

1993: Institute of Directors, director of branches and private companies

1997: CIPS, director of business development; promoted to deputy chief executive in 2000

2001: CIPS, Chief executive