Baseball and Procurement

January 16th, 2018

What you can learn in your business from the sport.

 

Today’s blog is by Margaret Stewart, Manager of HR and Administration at SafeSourcing Inc.

Baseball is widely considered America’s pastime with a colorful history and a nostalgic place in many people’s lives. Some of the lessons learned in baseball can also apply to everyday life, including your business. Here are quite a few common teachings that many of us learned from baseball and how they apply to your business.

  1. Hit a home run – to be very successful. This can mean successfully completing your project, gaining a new client, making your goals, or exceeding your goals. While just one person in baseball will hit a home run at a time, the whole team benefits. In business, the whole team can be responsible for hitting a home run.
  2. A ball park figure – an estimate. When this phrase is used, it can have a wide range of estimation. For example, a person may offer a ballpark figure for a new hire, which may cover a range of a few thousand dollars, whereas a ballpark figure of a company’s entire spend may range from several million dollars to tens of millions.
  3. Strike out – to fail. This phrase is often used in business, and especially sales. Often sales teams will try a pitch a few times, like in baseball, before they deem it a strike out and will not spend any more time or effort continuing, but rather try a new approach.
  4. Batting a thousand – maintaining a perfect record. This is when a person has been exceptionally successful in their ventures to a point where failure never seems to be an option. While such a high record in anything cannot be expected or maintained indefinitely, it is always a goal for everyone to strive for.
  5. Play hardball – use extreme measures to ensure success. This phase can be used to describe individuals or businesses that take more extreme stances when it comes to compromise. They may maintain a firm position on an offer, which may or may not work out in their favor.
  6. Go to bat for someone – to aid or support someone. This can describe when someone comes to your aid in some way, whether to reiterate strategies or points, defend positions, or just take some of the burden of a person or team for an amount of time.
  7. Throw a curve ball – to do something unexpected. This phase is very common in business and many businesses take great care to avoid curve balls, even hiring analysts and researchers to ensure no signs of an upcoming curveball were missed. However, like the definition states, curveballs refer to the unexpected, so being prepared for anything can help your organization combat any curve balls coming.
  8. On the ball – very aware, responsible, and intelligent. This phase in business is commonly used to describe a person or team who takes initiative, is proactive, or generally takes care of the things necessary without trouble, hassle, or complaint.

For more information on how SafeSourcing can help you cover your procurement bases, or on our Risk Free trial program, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service representative. We have an entire team ready to assist you today.

 

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