Category: Industry News

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News You Can Use: 11/18/2015

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  • Provider Damnation 66: Tier 1 Suppliers

    A contract locks you in until an exit clause is hit, which, in an average contract in an average organization, typically is only invokeable when a supplier fails to deliver a significant portion of the contracted goods after a significant amount of time has passed (and your organization has been stocked out for weeks and lost millions of dollars), the quality gets abysmal and the warranty return rate hits the double digits, they violate a federal safety or import regulation, or they commit a crime — assuming you have a well drafted contract.

    http://sourcinginnovation.com/wordpress/2015/11/05/provider-damnation-66-tier-1-suppliers/

  • Technology is Harming Our Relationships, and We Can Stop It (the paradox of choice)
  • This is how millennials will change management

    Emotional intelligence is the new buzzword among millennial managers. Concepts of self-awareness, self-regulation, and relationship building will be key to millennial-managed workplaces. “Millennials are highly relational,” says Espinoza. While you may hear the old generation of managers say, “I don’t want to be friends with anyone who works for me because one day I might have to fire them,” Espinoza says millennial managers would never take that attitude. This generation of managers will put people and relationships first.

    The blend of work and life for these relationship-oriented millennial managers also means that the relationships they have at work won’t just be considered work relationships, but are likely to extend beyond working hours.

    http://www.fastcompany.com/3052617/the-future-of-work/this-how-millennials-will-change-management

  • If Coupa goes public, will it ruin the company? – YES

    In what many consider to be a controversial article titled The Myth of Ariba, a former executive for the company said the following; “Ariba was a real company with a real product that got swept up in its own hype, with unfortunate consequences,” and that “Ariba was basically a fraud . . . creating [the impression that Ariba was constructing a global marketplace]. . . even though this was seen as being “a rather impossible task.”

    According to the article and related book, they “went through the motions” of building this marketplace because “the stock was the only thing that mattered. A valuable stock gave Ariba currency it could use to buy other companies.” In the end, “Ariba started out very much as a real company, but was actually blindsided by the Internet boom.”

    https://procureinsights.wordpress.com/2015/11/11/if-coupa-goes-public-will-it-ruin-the-company-by-jon-hansen/

  • Is It time to re-evaluate your BYOD policy?

    That said, it may surprise you to find out that a growing number of security experts believe companies should follow the second option. Too many employees are skirting the policies to begin with, so you may be better off forbidding personal devices to connect to the network all together, especially if your industry is highly regulated.

    http://www.cio.com/article/3002687/mobile-security/is-it-time-to-re-evaluate-your-byod-policy.html#tk.rss_all

  • Is the IT offshore industry’s business model illegal?

    There is a “widespread practice in high skilled workplaces,” wrote Morrison, “by which jobs of United States citizens and lawful permanent residents are terminated, often in large groups, and whose work is transferred to contract workers who are present in or brought to the U.S. as employees of firms providing these contract services.” These workers are predominantly on H-1B visas.

    The use of contract workers on temporary visas “is not incidental to the process,” wrote Morrison. “Rather, it is the explicit business model of the contracting companies to staff their contracts with such temporary workers.”

    http://www.cio.com/article/3005260/outsourcing/is-the-it-offshore-industrys-business-model-illegal.html#tk.rss_all

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News You Can Use: 11/11/2015

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  • Could Detroit become the next Silicon Valley?
    I have actually talked about this before… I actually think the urban setting and rock bottom real estate costs could lure young technical people who have been passed over to make something new.  It has the right mix of social cause and opportunity.  The city just needs to get out of its own way. 

    Amazon announced plans at the end of September to help continue this growth by creating a center of technology in downtown Detroit. The tech giant plans to build a corporate office to bring more full-time technology jobs to Michigan. And as a friendly introduction to the city, Amazon donated 30 Amazon Fire tablets to the Carver STEM academy program in the Detroit Public Schools, as well as $10,000.

    http://www.cio.com/article/3001690/startups/could-detroit-become-the-next-silicon-valley.html#tk.rss_all

  • Federal IT outsourcing spend alarmingly poorly managed

    Leading companies approach IT outsourcing strategically, taking an aggregate approach to managing IT services spending rather than making such purchases on a piecemeal basis. By doing so, they achieve four to 15 percent savings on these services annually, according to the GAO. While this report noted that efforts by these federal departments to better manage their IT outsourcing has improved in recent years, with each agency designating officials and creating offices to identify and implement strategic sourcing opportunities, it found that most of these agencies’ IT spending “continues to be obligated through hundreds of potentially duplicative contracts that diminish the government’s buying power.”

    http://www.cio.com/article/2999467/outsourcing/federal-it-outsourcing-spend-alarmingly-poorly-managed.html#tk.rss_all

  • IT Vendor Risk Management: Improving but Still Inadequate

    1. Nearly half of critical infrastructure organizations DO NOT conduct IT vendor security audits on a regular basis. These are the very firms that provide us with electricity, financial services, health care, telecommunications, etc. Very scary.

    2. Critical infrastructure organizations are especially lax around the security of third-party distributors. This is especially troubling since distributors not only source IT products as a proxy for customers but also provide value-added services (i.e. configuration, customization, installation, etc.). This gives distributors absolute carte blanche to corrupt otherwise clean hardware and software.

    http://www.networkworld.com/article/3002069/security/it-vendor-risk-management-improving-but-still-inadequate.html

  • 3 Plays Great Coaches Use to Deliver Criticism
    I don’t know if feedback has to be all sunshine and puppy dogs, but I do think it should be focused and not stated in generalizations. Critiques should be made with specific examples and then provide suggestions to avoid them (especially for younger workers).

    Good coaches don’t let an error overshadow what the player has done right all game. They complement the athlete on something they did well that half or an aspect of their game that they are improving. This shows the athlete that the coach isn’t just looking at them when they mess up, but that they recognize and appreciate the athlete’s strengths as well. The same is true in the workplace. Support your teammate and let them know where they have been excelling. The rule of thumb is five positive comments for every negative one. Interestingly, research on relationships both in and out of the business world has found that a similar ratio works for delivering criticism. Psychologist John Gottman analyzed married couples and found  the single biggest determinant  of divorce is the ratio of positive to negative comments the partners make to one another. The happiest couples demonstrated a ratio of about five positive comments for every negative one they delivered.

    http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/251416

  • Box CEO: ‘I’m the biggest anti-shadow IT person’

    CIOs didn’t get it, or chose not to, so Box initially circumvented CIOs, taking the product to departmental line of business managers. And when the software went viral, seeping its way into other parts of the business, Levie and his sales team would call the CIO and tell them. That angered CIOs, who often blocked Box. So Box ceased calling IT departments, quietly building up its technology features and bolstering security to make the software more palatable for enterprises. Now a mature, public company itself, Box counts General Electric, AstraZeneca, Proctor & Gamble and others among its customers. “I feel your pain now, I understand why you blocked us for so long,” Levie told the audience.

    http://www.cio.com/article/2999876/cio-role/box-ceo-i-m-the-biggest-anti-shadow-it-person.html#tk.rss_all

  • Is Your Team Starting to Look Like ‘The Walking Dead’? 3 Ways to Resurrect Team Morale.

    Innovate, disrupt, re-think. These are all key phrases in leadership buzzword bingo these days. Yet, all too often, companies don’t create a culture that really empowers people to take the healthy risks needed to bring about this kind of change. Speaking from personal experience, I was once fired for speaking my mind and challenging the status quo at one of my previous employers.

    You never know where the next great idea in your company might come from. So, it’s critical that leaders create a culture where employees know they will be heard and, more importantly, supported in seeing their ideas through to fruition.

    http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/252311

Photo: Jordan McQueen

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News You Can Use: 11/4/2015

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  • Millennials: Death to the Cubicle!
    Open floor plans are not the answer, having worked in open spaces and cube farms – neither are good.  It is about the culture of the work place.  If the company has their people on the phone all day, you need enclosed places.  If you are developers that need to collaborate (and spent large portions of the day in quiet), open floor plans work nicely.  

    Millennials have grown up understanding that work is an activity, not something that happens in any predetermined time or space. Accordingly, they insist on having the freedom to choose where and when they work, and they want to be measured on performance — not face time or office politics. So how does that change the way our workplaces and workflows are designed?

    http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/252164

  • Federal IT outsourcing spend alarmingly poorly managed

    The GAO analyzed agency policies, procurement and contracting data, and interviewed agency and contractor officials. While leading companies strategically manage about 90 percent of the IT procurement spending, these government agencies strategically managed just a fraction of that. The U.S. Navy, for example, which spent $3.3 billion on IT services in 2013, awarded just 10 percent of that work via strategically managed outsourcing contracts, according to the GAO. The U.S. Air Force strategically managed 17 percent of its $1.4 million IT services spend, the U.S. Army did so with 27 percent of its $3.5 billion spend, and NASA did so with 35 percent of its smaller $855 million IT outsourcing investment. DHS was the best performer, sourcing 44 percent of its $2.2 billion IT procurement budget in strategic deals.

    http://www.cio.com/article/2999467/outsourcing/federal-it-outsourcing-spend-alarmingly-poorly-managed.html

  • 11 Tweaks to Your Daily Routine Will Make Your Day More Productive
    Listicles… there are some solid points in this post once you get around the trash:

    “Eating a frog” is the greatest antidote to procrastination, and the most productive people know the importance of biting into this delicacy first thing in the morning. In other words, spend your morning on something that requires a high level of concentration that you don’t want to do, and you’ll get it done in short order. Make a habit of eating three frogs before you check your e-mail because e-mail is a major distraction that enables procrastination and wastes precious mental energy.

    http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/251989

  • Software vendors – fear and loathing

    Why? Because the most successful software firms are masters at high-pressure, bullying sales tactics. Take Oracle. The company specializes in trying to convince potential new customers that its license terms and model are harmless and easy to use.

    Once the customer licenses the product, however, Oracle takes a new tack. The company launches software audits and then argues that there are license restrictions it did not talk about during the sales process but that the customer has now breached.

    How do Oracle and other vendors get away with these tactics? Path dependency. Software vendors know that once a large company has implemented an enterprise-wide or otherwise significant software tool it is hard to switch.

    http://www.cio.com/article/2997879/enterprise-software/software-vendors-fear-and-loathing.html#tk.rss_all

  • The Six Strategic Sourcing Samurai

    So who are these six strategic sourcing samurai? They are the six remaining companies that took the time and effort to not only research and build a solution, but take it to market and wait while the market caught up with the vision that a few pioneers had fifteen years ago — a vision of true best-cost global sourcing from a total cost of ownership (and, more recently, from a total value management) perspective.

    http://sourcinginnovation.com/wordpress/2015/10/30/the-six-strategic-sourcing-samurai/

  • 39% of L.A. millennials ‘chronically stressed’ about money, survey finds

    A new survey by Bank of America and USA Today found that L.A. millennials ages 18 to 34 say they have a clear understanding of their financial situation and 44% are prepared for a rainy day, with three months of living expenses saved up.

    But 75% say they worry about their finances “often” or at least “sometimes,” with 39% saying they are “chronically stressed” about money.

    http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-millennials-money-20151022-htmlstory.html

  • Are US tech giants harming national security by partnering with China’s firms?

    A report made public this week from a security firm with longstanding ties to the Defense Department, the Defense Group Inc., said IBM’s partnerships in China, which are part of a global initiative that the company calls Open Power, are already damaging US national security. “IBM is endangering the national and economic security of the United States, risking the cybersecurity of their customers globally, and undermining decades of US nonproliferation policies regarding high-performance ..

    http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/are-us-tech-giants-harming-national-security-by-partnering-with-chinas-firms/articleshow/49606797.cms

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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

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News You Can Use: 10/21/2015

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  • A FORMER GOOGLE RECRUITER REVEALS THE BIGGEST RESUME MISTAKES
    I will point out this one since I get into a disagreement almost every time I mention removing it…

    OBJECTIVE STATEMENTS ARE OBJECTIVELY BAD
    “These are a bit old school and are generally pretty generic,” Bacon explains. He believes they’re also typically too focused on what the candidate wants for themselves instead of what they can do for the company to which they’re applying.

    http://www.fastcompany.com/3052371/hit-the-ground-running/a-former-google-recruiter-reveals-the-biggest-resume-mistakes

  • Should Vendor Executives Be Held Personally Liable For Failed Implementations?

    What if company executives had to personally guarantee that they had performed a “capability audit” before entering into a contract, verifying that they could indeed deliver a working solution within the appointed time and for the agreed upon cost. This capability audit would then become the basis to hold not only the company, but the executives themselves, personally liable if said implementation did not occur has promised.

    https://procureinsights.wordpress.com/2015/10/13/should-vendor-executives-be-held-personally-liable-for-failed-implementations-by-jon-hansen/

  • China to consume nearly 30% of the world’s flash, 21% of DRAM

    “Increasing shipments of Chinese-branded PCs and smartphones in recent years have contributed to the overall DRAM demand,” said Avril Wu, assistant vice president at DRAMeXchange. “China’s top PC maker Lenovo and the global PC market leader HP are neck on neck on shipments, and this is an indication that the Chinese brand vendors’ purchasing power in the DRAM market is getting stronger every year.”

    http://www.cio.com/article/2994112/data-management/china-to-consume-nearly-30-of-the-worlds-flash-21-of-dram.html#tk.rss_all

  • Why You Might Want to Hold Your Next Business Meeting on a Boat
    Somebody needs to share this with the big boss… officially a trend setter.

    “It’s a perfect place to close a deal,” says Adrian Gradinaru, co-founder of Sailo, an online peer-to-peer boat rental marketplace where you can compare and book a boat for a day or even part of a day. “You tend to be a bit more open to things when you are really happy, so people tend to be happy on the water, looking at New York. You tend to be a little bit more cooperative when you are on the water.”

    http://www.entrepreneur.com/video/249693

  • 3 Tips to Develop a Balanced Supplier-Vendor Relationship

    While there is always room for caution, never approach a new partnership as if you are going to be cheated. Instead, remember that a bit of humility and humanity can go a long way. Even when negotiations do not go as well as expected, remaining positive can preserve partnerships for long-term success.

    http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/251578

  • Office “treehouses”…
    I am not big on the “resting places in the office” fad, be it a cocoon or a tree house or even a heavily pillowed area.  I don’t care how “cool” the work place environment is, if an owner or executive walks by and sees someone taking a powder… game over.  (But they are kinda cool)
    http://www.fastcoexist.com/3051747/open-office-getting-you-down-maybe-you-need-an-office-treehouse