News You Can Use: 2/3/2016

sn_dogs_Ismael Nieto

  • C-suite career advice: Werner Knoblich, Red Hat

    Actually, there are three great pieces of advice that I’ve really taken note of and I’d find it hard to choose between them:
    i) Always strive to make sure that your ego doesn’t get in the way of making the right decision. Successful people always question themselves and continually seek new approaches to problem solving.
    ii) Take the time to make sure you have the right people in the right roles and don’t be afraid to move people around, if you can see a better fit for the team.
    iii) Never take short-cuts when hiring, it can take time to find the right person – but it’s worth the wait.

    http://www.idgconnect.com/abstract/11922/c-suite-career-advice-werner-knoblich-red-hat

  • Why 47 Percent of Your Best People Are Ready to Leave — and What You Can Do About It
    This is an alarmist headline, but the post goes on to discuss communicating with your employees and what you think may be positive feedback, might not register with them that way.

    According to Gallup’s research, 47 percent of your best employees are looking to leave you right now! Furthermore, during the course of surveying over 1.4 million employees, Gallup found that “65 percent of American employees said they had received no recognition from their manager in the last year.” Sixty-five percent is a staggeringly high number — but what if it’s actually incorrect?

    http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/254416

  • Data Breach Response Planning Part II

    Procurement will need to support supplier selection, contracting, engagement, and performance management of all necessary outsourced response services. Procurement will be managing different priorities and requirements from various stakeholders involved in a breach, i.e. all of the departments above, and will be expected to act as a cornerstone in ensuring that different requirements are met and balanced when and where they need to be.

    http://sourcinginnovation.com/wordpress/2016/01/28/data-breach-response-planning-part-ii/

  • You Can Become a Data Scientist. Yes, You.

    You can stay in tune with your business by identifying a handful of key statistics, such as average sales price or revenue per customer, and forcing yourself to track them over time. Soon you will see patterns in the data and identify trends much earlier. Trends that don’t seem to change much week over week may change significantly in the course of three to six months. Tracking over time gives you powerful insights that will help you to improve your business, making you an invaluable asset to your company.

    http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/254665

  • SCMR Columnist Co-Authors New Book on Supply Chain Disputes

    Squire Patton Boggs partner Sarah K. Rathke has published a comprehensive legal and operational guide to successfully managing supply chain relationships. The book, Legal Blacksmith: How to Avoid and Defend Supply Chain Disputes, is co-authored with Rosemary Coates, President of Blue Silk Consulting and Executive Director of the Reshoring Institute.

    The first book of its kind, Legal Blacksmith explains how to optimize supply chain relationships, starting with the first stages of supplier-buyer relationships through handling legal disputes when supply chain relationships fail.

    http://www.scmr.com/article/scmr_columnist_co_authors_new_book_on_supply_chain_disputes#When:14:26:42Z

  • Here’s Why Every Employee Should Have Unlimited Vacation Days

    It’s sad that we’re still compensated according to an assembly-line mentality. We work from whenever and wherever necessary to get results, so it only makes sense that our compensation and benefits reflect that shift.

    http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/269989

  • Which disruptions lose you more money: Black swans or routine risks?

    Dwelling over past risks which have altered the course of business, images of the September 11th attacks, or the 2013 Japanese tsunami or the global financial crisis first spring to mind. Similarly, when managers build their resilience plans, they worry about terrorist attacks or major political events.

    Past Procurement Leaders research has found that procurement professionals spend a lot of time worrying about events which have a low probability of occurring. Whereas the more routine risks of poor weather or machine downtown tend to catch out business and cause higher number of incidents.

    http://www.procurementleaders.com/blog/my-blog–jonathan-webb/which-disruptions-lose-you-more-money-black-swans-or-routine-risks-596025

  • HOW THIS WEEK’S TWITTER DEPARTURES REFLECT TECH’S CULTURE WOES

    But there’s another question worth asking, too, and it’s bigger than Twitter’s own woes: What message does the company send about what it takes to succeed in the tech world when time off is only “well deserved” by those who’ve failed? One source who spoke to Mashable claimed that the four departing Twitter execs “were not people in whom Jack has the highest faith.”

    http://www.fastcompany.com/3055937/lessons-learned/how-this-weeks-twitter-departures-reflect-techs-culture-woes

Photo: Ismael Nieto

News You Can Use: 10/28/2015

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  • Millennials: Entitled or Just Ambitious?
    As they come into their own professionally, millennials are shifting corporate culture and the way companies are organized. In this video, Jamie Notter, co-author of “When Millennials Take Over” digs deeply into common millennial values and how they’re changing the ways top companies compete for premium talent. Unlike previous generations, millennials aren’t satisfied with years of “paying their dues” in positions of low responsibility. They want autonomy, transparency, and a sense of mission. Expect to see the tides continue to shift in this direction as the emerging generation takes the reins in the coming decade.
  • Your Best Ally For A Big Data Budget

    Under pressure to provide better information on their businesses, CFOs are beginning to latch onto the possibilities that big data and analytics offer for their own financial reporting. A survey by Ernst & Young found that 90% of the 500 responding CFOs and others with financial titles expect to be reporting on forecasting, sustainability, and corporate social responsibility within three years. That effort will take some investment, and CPOs can perhaps make a case that with their management of the supply chain they can help, if they have the resources.

    http://www.procurementleaders.com/blog/my-blog–paul-teague/your-best-ally-for-a-big-data-budget-575274

  • Why Dell acquisitions strategy beats the industry’s Frankenstein approach

    Dell’s method was developed initially at IBM to preserve the value of the acquisition. It does that by shifting the focus from conformance to focusing on the value of the company acquired. The first step is to identify and protect the assets that were acquired and then not doing anything to damage what was purchased. In general the firms culture, process, compensation plan, span of control, executive team, hiring process, and even location remain intact.

    What gets changed are things that can be done behind the scenes to cut costs and increase execution. For instance, it is common to use Dell’s advanced supply chain to increase the speed of the acquired firm’s execution and reduce its costs. If the change makes financial sense and doesn’t put the identified assets at risk then it is put into the plan, if it doesn’t it isn’t.

    http://www.cio.com/article/2997155/mergers-acquisitions/why-dell-acquisitions-strategy-beats-the-industry-s-frankenstein-approach.html#tk.rss_all

  • How to cure the Sunday night blues
    I am definitely someone who suffers from Sunday night blues and of all their suggestions, this is the one that I deploy to keep it in check…

    While it’s tempting to dash out the door on Friday evening, you might be doing yourself a big favor if you take a bit of time to organize the following week first, O’Brien says. Or, take a few minutes on Saturday morning to plan what will need to be done on Monday, ensure you have the information and resources you need to complete those tasks, and identify any obstacles or challenges so they don’t catch you by surprise.

    http://www.fastcompany.com/3052390/how-to-be-a-success-at-everything/how-to-cure-the-sunday-night-blues

  • CIOs turn to cloud-based analytics to manage IT asset costs
    I want to know more about this Apptio services to see if it is legit…

    LaPlaine says he started off with rudimentary calculations, using Apptio to figure out total IT costs divided by total IT assets. This revealed data duplications in the general ledger, missing lease costs and other bad data. “We spent a ton of time cleaning up data … now we have a very rich model,” LaPlaine says. He counts 25 IT services in AOL’s service catalog, which produce 70 invoices every month to run and support IT services, including public cloud software from Amazon Web Services and Salesforce.com, as well as kilowatt power costs its IT systems generate. LaPlaine, who sends the corporate finance department a file with the costs every month, says he’s also using a new planning tool from Apptio to build his IT budget for 2016

    http://www.cio.com/article/2996559/cloud-computing/cios-turn-to-cloud-based-analytics-to-manage-it-asset-costs.html#tk.rss_all

  • More on Apptio… (from 2009 and not directly published from the company)
    Here is something from the company…
  • Make Your Company More Like a Family to Attract Talent
    This is easier said than done with HR policy and in companies with a downsize requirement.  That being said… I lean more towards this style than not (and did so when I had my store)

    Beyond earning insight into a company’s operating information, employees need to feel like they’re given ample opportunity for personal development and that the company is invested in making that development happen. Sixty-one percent of highly talented managers work to leverage and develop employee strengths and attributes,according to Gallup. I’ve prioritized investments into a leadership development program that teaches basic management skills to current and future managers. Better leaders help motivate and inspire employees. In turn, those new leaders will live up to a company’s values and reinforce its culture.

    http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/249793

Productivity Bulletin: 3/13/2015

Photo: Sean MacEntee, Flickr

Photo: Sean MacEntee, Flickr