I encountered a particularly clear version of this while managing Kingston memory at Tech Data. The category was initially being handled through the same weekly purchasing rhythm used for many other technology products. Buyers received a price list, calculated requirements and placed an order. For relatively stable categories, that approach was perfectly reasonable because it balanced control, forecasting and operational efficiency. Memory behaved very differently.
The value of a memory module was heavily influenced by the underlying chips, and those chips were traded in a market where pricing could move quickly. Supply disruptions, production constraints or sudden shifts in demand could affect availability and cost before the next scheduled purchasing cycle had even arrived. If prices were rising and we had bought too little, customers could quickly clear the available stock and leave Sales with demand but nothing to sell. If prices were falling and we had bought too much, new stock entered the market below our existing cost while the inventory already sitting in the warehouse became increasingly difficult to move. CONSOLIDATED STORIES.docxDOCX
My first reaction was to challenge the purchasing decisions themselves. I wanted to know why we had not ordered sooner, why we had not negotiated harder, or why we had bought too much when prices were beginning to fall. Over time, it became increasingly obvious that this was the wrong level of diagnosis. The buyer was following the process she had been given, and the process was functioning much as the organisation intended. What no longer worked was the assumption that a weekly purchasing rhythm was sufficiently responsive for a market that could move materially within days.
That distinction matters because organisations often interpret poor outcomes as evidence that someone is not executing well enough. Management sees shortages, margin pressure, missed opportunities or slow response and naturally focuses on the people closest to the symptom. In some situations, greater discipline or better individual judgement is exactly what is required. In others, the people are being asked to succeed inside a system whose underlying assumptions no longer match the environment.
Once we reframed the problem that way, the solution looked different. With support from my manager, I made the case for more flexibility in how the category could be managed and eventually received a dedicated credit line for special orders outside the standard purchasing rhythm. That allowed us to change order volumes according to market conditions rather than according to a fixed weekly cadence. When prices were falling, inventory could be kept deliberately short, while stronger supply signals or upward price movement justified buying several weeks of expected demand. CONSOLIDATED STORIES.docxDOCX
The advantage did not come from forecasting the market perfectly, which would have been unrealistic. It came from reducing the gap between new information and commercial action. We monitored pricing more closely, paid attention to early indications of supply disruption, negotiated according to timing and volume, and used Tech Data's broad customer base to aggregate relatively small orders into meaningful purchasing power. Procurement became part of the commercial strategy rather than a downstream function replenishing what Sales had already sold.
This pattern is much broader than memory distribution. Many organisations operate through routines that were designed for an earlier stage of the business or a more stable market. Annual planning cycles, monthly forecasting, quarterly portfolio reviews and multi-layer approval processes can all be sensible forms of governance. They become problematic when the external environment starts changing more quickly than those routines can absorb.
The difficulty is that processes usually accumulate legitimacy over time. They exist because somebody once solved a real problem, perhaps reducing risk, improving control or creating consistency across the organisation. As a result, leaders can become reluctant to question the process itself, particularly when people are still complying with it. The conversation then focuses on why execution did not produce the expected result rather than whether the system was capable of responding quickly enough in the first place.
This is where operating models can quietly become detached from market reality. A decision may still require the same number of approvals even though the competitive window has shortened dramatically. A portfolio may still be reviewed quarterly even though customer demand is changing every few weeks. Pricing may still be set through a process designed for a more predictable environment. By the time the organisation reaches the point at which it is authorised to respond, the market may already have moved again.
More technology does not automatically solve this problem. Faster dashboards and better data can improve visibility, but visibility only creates value when the organisation can act on what it sees. A company can know almost immediately that customer behaviour has changed and still take several weeks to adjust because the decision rights, incentives and governance have not changed with the information flow. In that situation, the organisation has accelerated observation without accelerating response.
The opposite problem can also occur when leaders respond to volatility by removing too much structure. Speed without discipline can create its own risks, particularly when decisions involve inventory, margin, customer commitments or significant capital. The Kingston experience did not replace process with improvisation. It created a different operating logic for a category where the standard process was no longer appropriate, while retaining clear limits around purchasing authority and commercial accountability.
That balance is important because the objective is not to make every part of the organisation move at the speed of the fastest market signal. Different decisions require different levels of control, and not every fluctuation deserves an immediate response. The management challenge is to identify which parts of the commercial system are highly sensitive to changing conditions and ensure that their operating cadence reflects that reality.
One useful way to think about this is to compare the speed of the market with the speed of the organisation. How quickly can something important change outside the business, and how long does it take before the organisation can recognise the change, interpret it, decide what to do and act? The larger the gap between those two timelines, the greater the risk that a perfectly reasonable operating model becomes a source of commercial disadvantage.
That gap often remains invisible while conditions are favourable. A slow process can appear disciplined when supply is stable, demand is predictable and competitors are operating at a similar pace. The weakness becomes apparent when volatility increases, technology changes buying behaviour, a new competitor enters the market or a business moves into a category where the old rhythm no longer applies.
This is also why growth can expose operating-model weaknesses that previously seemed minor. As volumes rise and complexity increases, organisations have less room for manual intervention by experienced individuals. A process that could be corrected informally at smaller scale begins to create repeated delays, escalations or margin leakage. What once looked like an occasional exception becomes evidence that the system itself needs to change.
Senior leaders therefore need to distinguish between process discipline and process suitability. A process can be followed consistently and still be poorly suited to the environment in which it operates. The fact that people are complying with it should not prevent management from questioning whether its assumptions remain valid.
The more useful questions are practical. Which decisions are becoming outdated before they are implemented? Where are teams repeatedly asking for exceptions because the standard process cannot respond quickly enough? Which market signals consistently arrive too late in management discussions? Where does the organisation know what is happening but lack the authority or structure to respond before the opportunity disappears?
Those questions shift the discussion away from whether people are following the process and towards whether the process is still helping the business compete.
Markets rarely announce that an operating model has become obsolete. The symptoms usually appear first as recurring friction: too much inventory, too little inventory, slow pricing changes, missed opportunities, repeated escalations or experienced people finding increasingly creative ways to work around the rules. Treating each of those incidents separately can keep the underlying issue hidden for a long time.
At some point, however, management has to ask whether the organisation is still moving at a speed that makes sense for the market it is trying to serve.
The process may still be working exactly as designed. The more important question is whether the design still fits the world around it.
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