Magburaka, Sierra Leone, September 2017
All
started on the Friday before CitS 2016. Mentally already in the snow, but
physically in Paris for a pitch to do a supply chain project at Medicine
Sans Frontier (MSF). Since I started my career, I always have had the
ambition to apply some of my consulting and supply chain skills to an emergency
situation in the developing world. During the project – which we won despite
the distraction from the upcoming CitS – I decided to plan a business
secondment at MSF to work as a supply chain manager in one of their missions.
MSF is a
humanitarian organization, mainly focussed on providing medical care in
emergencies. To maintain operational autonomy, missions are set-up as
independent sub-branches. All have their own HR and finance department, as well
as supply chain and logistics teams. Together this should ensure that a clinic
or hospital full of doctors, nurses and medicine, is properly constructed,
maintained and equipped, has water and electricity supply, internet, budget,
supporting staff, and safety and security procedures.
In
February 2017 I was off to Magburaka, Sierra Leone for a nine-month mission. As
a supply chain manager I would be responsible for distribution of medical
items, stock management, order management, purchasing and supplier relations. At
the moment of writing I have four weeks to go, and without a doubt I can say
that it was a truly remarkable time. Let me try to explain why, by giving three
reasons:
1.
The
satisfaction of bringing an idea to life
2.
The
challenge of managing operational crises
3.
The
opportunity to develop some new perspectives
1)
The satisfaction of bringing an idea to life
The
thing I love most about consulting – its strategic and conceptual nature – has
one drawback: results are often visible only after a period of 1 to 3 years.
Not here. Soon after my arrival, the project circumstances required to
centralize all medical and logistical stock into a single location. To do so,
we had to redesign and rehabilitate a newly rented property and turn it into a
new warehouse including a 18 by 26 meter cool room. To manage something
tangible like a construction project and see the idea being realized by a team
of capable and motivated technicians and labourers, was truly an unforgettable
experience. In this blog you can read and see how we did it. All war stories aside, the
operational nature of this job gave instant satisfaction. And that has nothing
to do with the somewhat sentimental idea of ‘doing good’ for people in need.
2)
The challenge of dealing with operational crises
Over the
course of nine months, there have been multiple small and larger crises that
directly or indirectly affected our operations. Whether it is providing relief
supplies after the deadly mud slide of August 2017 in Freetown; selecting daily workers without tribal-bias; resolving power cuts and water
supply issues;
interpreting the fear for ‘black magic’ practices; reducing the impact of a
cold chain breach, all require to
remain calm but be decisive, stay impartial and neutral and act with
sensitivity for the local cultural context and customs. The challenge of
dealing with these crises is certainly something that made me a better and more
complete manager, equipped with a more diversified pallet of management styles.
3)
The opportunity to develop some new perspectives
Sierra
Leone is amongst the poorest countries in the world. During the nineties it has
been suffering from a civil war and more recently it was fighting Ebola.
At present, the country is very safe to live and move around. Its people are
very cheerful, hard-working and resilient, and they live peacefully in a
society that is proudly lifting itself up. Basically, the sort of stories that
people return with after their secondment abroad or holiday in Iran, Mongolia
or any other off-the-beaten-track destination. However, slightly
different from the stigmas that are attached to many African countries. Sure, I
had my own prejudices and some of them were reality. The point however is that
an occasional get-away from our little bubble works refreshing. An example is
the slaughtering of a goat for the evening’s BBQ, which made me more conscious
of my own meat consumption. Or the comparison of the national staff’s weekly
wage, which is equal to an expat’s per diem to spend on food, which
again is equal to two billable minutes of a Deloitte manager (nothing romantic
about the 60% unemployed btw, but the relative difference compared to zero is
so hard to compute). And lastly, the incredible proudness my staff expressed
when I announced the upcoming visit of my dad. They just couldn’t believe that
their town would be worthwhile visiting for someone not being an NGO worker.
All of these experiences made me reflect, laugh, cry, shiver, gave me
Goosebumps, made me homesick, or wanting to stay longer…
Full of
energy and new inspiration, I will resume at Deloitte Consulting per November 1st.
Let me know if you want to know more about a business secondment at Deloitte,
MSF and its operations in general, or anything else more specific
