Procurement & Career Guidance
Companies are trying to turn everything into a monthly software subscription.
You can’t be fooled by the hype, step back and understand what the product is, and what you are actually purchasing.
Just because a supplier calls their product SaaS or PaaS doesn’t mean it is. If a company is performing a service for you and spitting out a document or a product, that isn’t software.
The last several months have been pivotal for AI chat technology. Not only is it getting better, it is becoming very accessible to everyday users.
I have been testing Chat GPT and Google’s Bard to see if they could actually help make my real procurement job easier, and I would say the answer is yes.
This video documents several requests I made of both services and I will let you know which one I think is best as of April 2023.
Exchanging business cards was an important part of the customer/client relationship. Since COVID, there are less face to face meetings and less cards being exchanged. Couple that with evolving communication technology and a person can wonder if the business card is past its prime.
This video discusses the potential demise of the business card and provides a full tutorial on making your own NFC business card (you are going to need these blank NFC cards).
The tutorial offers a solution that is significantly cheaper than Linq or Popl.
Over the last six months, several technology companies announced job eliminations. Recently, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) companies were hit hard…
Pegasystems, a software company that specializes in CRM, announced a 4% reduction of its workforce. The company cited the need to “streamline its operations” and focus on key growth areas such as artificial intelligence and cloud computing.
CRM giant Salesforce announced the elimination of about 8,000 jobs worldwide as well as closing some offices. The reductions seemingly focused Tableau employees and there are rumors of more reductions in Salesforce sales teams.
Additional job eliminations in the last 6 months:
As companies reduce their workforce and thus their redundancy, how does that impact their ability to support their customers?
According to Jeffrey Pfeffer, a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, layoffs don’t work to improve company performance. Academic studies have shown that time and time again, workplace reductions don’t do much to reduce costs:
The trend of recent tech layoffs highlights the post-pandemic economic reality of labor shortages and the disappearance of cheap money. As organizations focus on streamlining their operations and redirecting resources towards key growth areas like automation, digital, and AI – layoffs and cost reductions will continue to be the reality.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is having a moment.
Tools like Dall-E and ChatGPT are scrubbing the internet and producing AI-generated artwork, scripts, and stories.
Not only is the creative community upset, there are ramifications in the business word. Some courts are ruling that AI-generated content cannot be copywritten.
This could have a major impact on corporate intellectual property policies and impede the ability to implement AI tools.
Here are some articles on the topic:
(1) The Verge – The Scary Truth About AI Copyright
(2) Falcon, Rappaport, & Berkman – Exploring the Legal Minefield of ChatGPT
(3) CBR – AI-Created Comic Could Be Deemed Ineligible for Copyright Protection