By Gregory L. Schlegel, CPIM, CSP
1997 APICS President

As I mentioned last January in APICS—The Performance Advantage, the theme I chose for my year as APICS president was "Target Breakthrough Ideas," which was also the theme for the 1997 APICS International Conference and Exhibition. I foresaw a push-the-edge-of-the envelope year ahead — especially in helping to move APICS more towards a learning and knowledge-based organization.

In 1997, APICS lived and breathed that mantra with:

• more new ideas coming to the board than ever before

• more free exchange of ideas, thoughts and knowledge

• more dialogue before deliberation and decision

• more leveraging of technology to further enhance our decision-making and to reduce our decision-making cycle time

• a breakthrough conference — and a 40th birthday!

A management guru once stated that "good leaders do the right things and good managers do things right." I believe 1997 was a year filled with many "right things" and many "things right," as the APICS leadership continued its focus on the larger, longer term mission and critical issues. This past year we:

• vigorously pursued and developed an institutionalized three-year operations and financial plan

• began to formalize our strategic planning process, which will drive our operations/financial plan, and subsequently ensure a better alignment of our funds and resources to support our strategic goals

• ran the "family" business more like a business

• continued the development of an integrated education strategy to leverage our strength in, and synergy between, our professional staff, C&C council, E&R Foundation, SIGs and our body of knowledge

• initiated a new Service SIG, which I firmly believe could get as large as APICS itself

• developed a new certification maintenance initiative to support our life-long learning mission

• developed an entirely new CPIM/CIRM product line profile.

In 1997 we also leveraged technology to enable the organization to compete in an ever-competitive market. We:

• expanded and enhanced our computer-based testing worldwide network

• enhanced the APICS Web site with a new provider; placed our educational materials catalog on the Web; added more hyperlinks to other organizations, our regions and chapters; and developed listservs to enhance our internal and external organization communications capabilities.

APICS '97 keynote speaker Tom Peters remarked about a learning organization that "it is an obsessive journey about constant renewal," and on empowerment, he stated that "the objective is not to get people to support change. It's about giving people responsibility for engendering change." APICS has been doing just that by strengthening the bonds with and between the society, regions, chapters and the entire membership. We all are, and always will be, catalysts for change.

APICS is transitioning, positioning and planning for the growth of our knowledge-based learning organizations into the next century. With our new business management processes in place, our continuous commitment to constant renewal and the leadership of our 1998 president, Thomas R. Hoffmann, I am confident APICS will continue its journey to further the APICS mission of being the "premier provider and global leader in individual and organizational education, standards of excellence and information in integrated resource management."

As the 1997 society president, I'd like to say good luck, God bless and good APICS!

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