Still More on Supplier of Choice II

More details about Supplier of Choice II …

At the dinner announcing SOC2, Nicky Oppenheimer stressed that 1)  De Beers was committed to new mining projects, and 2) his family was committed to the diamond business, noting his son Jonathan was in in the audience, and that he hoped he would remain in the family business. He also seemed very sympathetic that many sightholders did not have a great year. At least one person thought it was one of the best talks Oppenheimer ever gave.

One thing I don't think I stressed in my previous post is De Beers' newfound commitment to letting sightholders run their business their own way. The DTC is now saying  that it is up to sightholders to determine what their business should be, since it is ultimately they who know their companies and their customers. It is even asking sightholders not to fill out the now-simplified applications just to please the DTC. 

This does, however, seem to contradict De Beers' continued commitment to the concepts of "adding value" and "efficiency."  I just spoke to a sightholder who I think has a very clear take on the situation, which I share with you now:

"[Under Supplier of Choice 1] sightholders threw money in all sorts of ridiculous directions. There were some people who did anything in the world to get into certain retailers, anything to look good to the DTC. And if a business model isn't built on the bottom line, it will suffer, and many people did suffer. A lot of sightholder money went down the drain on poorly conceived projects, and none of that would have happened without Supplier of Choice.

But he said SOC 2 is not “all the way back to basics.”

"This is an industry that was very complacent. Supplier of Choice shook that up, but it went to an extreme. Now it’s back to the middle. They are saying, ‘Do your niche, do what you do best, but don’t be asleep at the switch either.’”