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News You Can Use: 3/9/2016

  • ‘CEOs’ to build on $2B in acquisition savings

    Rung named 11 category managers on Feb. 25 to bring 10 commodity buying areas under better control by conducting spend analysis, market research, financial and supply chain risk analysis, and using this information to develop strategic plans specific to the category with clear metrics and outcomes.

    http://federalnewsradio.com/acquisition-policy/2016/03/ceos-build-2b-acquisition-savings/

  • How to Advance In Your Career Without Becoming A Workaholic

    Getting involved in projects doesn’t mean you have to say yes to everything. “Successful professionals often fear saying no or not being seen as a team player,” says Sherwin. But the key to getting ahead is actually setting boundaries and being strategic about the things you say yes to. Saying yes to a project that may give you a leadership role, for example, may help you to hone your leadership skills that you don’t get a chance to use in your current role.

    http://www.fastcompany.com/3057356/lessons-learned/how-to-advance-in-your-career-without-becoming-a-workaholic

  • A Beginner’s Guide to Post-Merger Integration Sourcing

    Given time and resource limitations within the procurement organization, it is often preferable to phase sourcing efforts. Starting with Indirect initiatives can yield some quick wins. Requirements in this space tend to be similar across companies, and generally involve fewer constraints, simpler specs and qualification procedures, and greater opportunities from increased volumes. Indirect categories typically provide shorter time to realization, to the satisfaction of the c-suite and shareholders. This is why categories such as professional services, travel, or IT and telecom should be prioritized.

    http://spendmatters.com/2016/03/01/a-beginners-guide-to-post-merger-integration-sourcing/

  • Don’t let perfection be the enemy of the good…
  • Talk Isn’t Cheap: 8 Questions to Ask When You’re Booked as a Speaker

    Finally, the most important question is: What do the organizers want out of this? Are you there to solve a problem that you’re unaware of? It’s really important that they set the stage for you, so you can kill it on stage. You don’t have to change up your whole talk to cater to a specific audience. You can make tiny little tweaks that make your remarks feel more customized to the audience, and to the goals of the conference coordinator.

    http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/270091

  • 6 Ways to Encourage Autonomy With Your Employees

    The freedom of choice is a key element to autonomy, but too much choice can be detrimental. That’s why those who think autonomy means there are no boundaries are in error. In fact, firm boundaries — and a system to hold people accountable for results — are essential for autonomy to flourish. Within clear boundaries, people are empowered to determine how they will accomplish the tasks they are given.

    http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/254030

  • The Simple Thing That Can Totally Transform Time-Suck Meetings

    First and foremost, identify your objective, says Neal Hartman, management senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management. “Be critical about paring your agenda,” he says. “List key items that need discussion, a vote, or whatever other action is appropriate.”

    http://www.fastcompany.com/3057361/how-to-be-a-success-at-everything/the-simple-thing-that-can-totally-transform-time-suck-meet

Photo: Daria Nepriakhina

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Supplier Report: 3/5/2016

sn_globes_Lena Bell

IBM is like an elevator at the moment… going both up and down.  The company announced job cuts and job growth. IBM’s transformation is becoming more tangible as we can see the humans being impacted (10,000 jobs eliminated in GTS) and growth in others (Watson, Explorys, BI).

We can also see changes at EMC and Dell.  The companies announced their combined leadership team post-acquisition as well as some changes in leadership for VMWare.

After HP INC’s bad news last week, the stock market offers some hope to Hewlett Packard Enterprise.  Oracle’s hopes of being a solid #2 in the cloud space is evaporating with SAP coming on strong.

IBM

  • Explorys added 80 people after IBM deal, expects more growth

    Explorys has added about 80 new positions since it was acquired by IBM last May. Now the health care data analytics software company employs about 220 people.

    That number is still growing: Explorys had 48 open positions as of Feb. 24, the vast majority of which will be based in Northeast Ohio. The company plans to hire at least 80 people this year, according to CEO Stephen McHale.

    http://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20160228/NEWS/160229846/explorys-added-80-people-after-ibm-deal-expects-more-growth

  • IBM Cuts Jobs In ‘Workforce Rebalancing’

    On March 2, he said he began getting hundreds of emails and hundreds of Facebook messages from employees that the layoff had begun. He said the messages conveyed that cuts were hitting GTS and the Global Business Services group, with some additional reports of cuts from the software group and the cloud business. The reports of cuts are coming from workers in the US, France, and the UK. Conrad said he expects to hear more about international layoffs next week, including some from Australia.

    Also:

    Job cuts are nothing new for IBM. The company was rumored to have engaged in a gigantic job-cut effort in early 2015, too, though no actual numbers were ever confirmed. IBM reduced its 2014 workforce by 12%, from 431,212 in 2013 to 379,592 in 2014, according to numbers provided in its 10-K report.

    http://www.informationweek.com/big-data/software-platforms/ibm-cuts-jobs-in-workforce-rebalancing/d/d-id/1324561

  • IBM Plans to Sell ~$150M Worth of Lenovo Stock

    Specifically, IBM will offer 182 million Lenovo shares with a price range of HK$6.26 – HK$6.42. The price is a 6.4 percent discount to Lenovo’s last closing price.

    http://www.streetinsider.com/Insider+Trades/IBM+(IBM)+Plans+to+Sell+~$150M+Worth+of+Lenovo+Stock/11380301.html

  • IBM Creates Breach Response Team With Resilient Systems Acquisition
    Last week it was a rumor, this week it is reality…

    IBM said it plans to use Resilient and its roughly 100 staff – among them security expert Bruce Schneier – as the cornerstone of a new unit called X-Force Incident Response Services, which is to help organisations plan for, manage and respond to cyberattacks, drawing on the skills of about 3,000 consultants and security researchers worldwide.

    http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/security/ibm-breach-response-resilient-acquisition-187098

  • IBM’s Watson Provides Brainpower to Turner

    “This solution addresses one of the timeless objectives of marketing leaders—infusing new levels of data and science into advertising decisions,” said Adam Steinberg, VP, IBM Cognitive Business Solutions. “Armed with deep, fact-based recommendations, Turner will hone the precision of every advertising recommendation, and in turn, lift the impact of the customers who place advertising on Turner’s award-winning programming.”

    http://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/currency/ibms-watson-provides-brainpower-turner/154189

  • Buffett Did Not Call IBM A Mistake
    I wasn’t going to cover this, but there are so many posts saying Buffett called IBM a mistake.

    If there was anything of value said about IBM, it was that Buffett still thinks it will be worth more in 10 years than it is worth today and that he generally believes the turnaround effort will pan out. It’s worth noting that Charlie Munger, his erstwhile partner, isn’t particularly convinced of that outcome, though it sounds like he’s a far cry from saying IBM was a mistake, too.

    http://seekingalpha.com/article/3940386-buffett-call-ibm-mistake

  • Did IBM Just Go ‘Full Patent Troll’?

    In the suit, IBM accuses Groupon’s website and app of using technology built by Prodigy to display content, specifically ads, as well as client tracking technology that monitors “service selections while the client is shopping and then use that information when the client decides to make a purchase,”according to PC World.

    http://chicagoinno.streetwise.co/2016/03/03/ibm-lawsuit-patent-trolls-groupon-over-prodigy-ip/

Dell | EMC

  • VMware leadership changes continue as Dell-EMC deal looms

    VMware announced Tuesday that its Chief Operating Officer Carl Eschenbach will resign. According to a Fortune report, Eschenbach is moving to become a venture capitalist at Sequoia Capital. VMware representatives said Eschenbach’s duties will be distributed among several executives. Zane Rowe, EMC’s CFO, took the reins as VMware’s financial lead Tuesday. CFO Jonathan Chadwick, also co-COO, left VMware at the end of January, the same time the company announced plans to cut 800 jobs by the end of March or mid-April.

    http://www.ciodive.com/news/vmware-leadership-changes-continue-as-dell-emc-deal-looms/414844/

  • Michael Dell unveils leadership line-up for merged Dell-EMC

    • Jeremy Burton, chief marketing officer
    • Jeff Clarke, vice chairman of operations and client solutions
    • Howard Elias and Rory Read, co-chief integration officers
    • David Goulden, president of Enterprise Systems Group
    • Marius Haas, chief commercial officer
    • Steve Price, chief human resources officer
    • Karen Quintos, chief customer officer
    • Rich Rothberg, general counsel
    • John Swainson, president of Dell Software
    • Tom Sweet, chief financial officer
    • Suresh Vaswani, president of Dell Services

    http://www.channelweb.co.uk/crn-uk/news/2449287/michael-dell-unveils-leadership-line-up-for-merged-dell-emc

  • EU clears Dell’s purchase of EMC

HP Inc | Hewlett Packard Enterprise

  • Why HP Is Suffering A Slow Death

    The first mistake was extreme outsourcing, which was supposed to cut cost and limit corporate size. But instead it ended up giving old HPQ’s advantage away to Asian PC and printer makes, piece-by-piece.

    Then came a string of bad acquisitions– in an attempt to fight ‘the last war’ in a number of segments of the technology industry — which drained Hewlett-Packard’s resources. The purchase of Compaq Computer in 2001 was supposed to provide HP with a scale advantage in the PC market and allow it to compete effectively against Dell Computer, IBM, and all sorts of emerging Asian competitors. The purchase of near-bankrupt Palm in 2010 was supposed to help the company enter the fast growing mobile devices market, which began to replace PCs. And the acquisition of enterprise software maker Autonomy in 2011 (at a hefty price of $10.3 billion) pitted the company against three major competitors – Salesforce.com, Oracle, and IBM.

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/panosmourdoukoutas/2016/02/27/why-hp-is-suffering-a-slow-death/#1ece80ca44c2

  • HP Enterprise rises on reassuring demand

    The Silicon Valley company, reporting its first quarterly results since it split in November from printer and personal computer maker HP Inc., on Thursday said net income in its first fiscal quarter fell 52%, including restructuring costs. Revenue declined 2.5%. Excluding the effects of a stronger dollar, however, the company said revenue rose 4%–the third consecutive quarter of growth on a constant currency basis–and both revenue and adjusted profit beat Wall Street expectations.

    http://www.marketwatch.com/story/hp-enterprise-rises-on-reassuring-demand-2016-03-03

Oracle

  • Oracle CEO Safra Catz advises ‘don’t eat dog food’

    Larry is fond of saying we should eat our own dog food. First of all, don’t eat dog food. It’s bad for you. It’s dangerous. We eat our own cooking. That’s correct. We have to eat our own cooking. You know why? Because the entire scale of our business is to the point where I cannot meet the demands of all our customers unless I transform myself, meaning Oracle.

    http://www.businessinsider.com/oracle-ceo-advises-dont-eat-dog-food-2016-2

  • Oracle Corporation Falls Victim to Hubris as SAP Overtakes Its Cloud Business

    Not only has SAP outperformed Oracle recently, but since Bill McDermott took the CEO reigns in February 2010, SAP stock has increased 77%, outpacing Oracle which is up about 60% over the same period.

    SAP beating Oracle in the cloud, it is doing so by taking a page out of Oracle’s own playbook — making savvy acquisitions. Over the past five years, the software giant has spent $16 billion acquiring SuccessFactors, Ariba, and most recently, Concur Technologies, a travel and expense software provider. All three company’s solutions already do or will run on HANA, SAP’s application server that includes an in-memory database management solution.

    http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/03/01/oracle-corporation-falls-victim-to-hubris-as-sap-o.aspx

Other

Photo: Lena Bell

Posted on

News You Can Use: 3/2/2016

sn_glasses_Dmitry Ratushny
  • How To Keep Your Cool When Your Friends’ Careers Are Moving Faster Than Yours

    Instead of moping, view the success of your friends as an opportunity, says Michael Kaminowitz, creator of New York City-based Welli, a mental well-being app. “Ask yourself how they got ahead faster than you,” he says. “Did they work harder? Learn faster? Play the office politics game better?”

    http://www.fastcompany.com/3056793/hit-the-ground-running/how-to-keep-your-cool-when-your-friends-careers-are-moving-faster-tha

  • Overcoming 5 major supply chain challenges with big data analytics

    Sixty-one percent of companies regarded as leaders in supply chain management consider supply chain risk management very important. Those same leaders also recognize the need for capabilities that provide greater visibility and predictability across their supply chains (Source: Accenture). Big data can help assess the likelihood of a problem and its potential impact, and support techniques to identify supply chain risk. Combining the analysis of historical data, risk mapping, and scenario planning can enable a risk management approach for early warning.

    http://www.cio.com/article/3035655/data-center/overcoming-5-major-supply-chain-challenges-with-big-data-analytics.html#tk.rss_all

  • What To Say When You’re Stuck In The Elevator With Your Boss’s Boss

    Offer your congratulations. You can also congratulate your boss’s boss on an achievement, either his own, his department’s, or the company’s. If you saw him give a talk recently, don’t just say you liked it, explain why. If his department received an honor, mention that. If Q4 results were impressive, comment on that. People love to be recognized for success, and if you stay current with this sort of information—as you should—you’ll put a glow on the executive’s face.

    http://www.fastcompany.com/3056838/what-to-say-when-youre-stuck-in-the-elevator-with-your-bosss-boss

  • Pirates: a cyber threat to supply chains

    Among the central features of this new cyber-supported piracy, and certainly the feature which most proliferates media representations of the problem, is the vision of navigation systems attacks- pirates successfully diverting vessels with false GPS and Automatic Identification System data.

    http://www.procurementleaders.com/blog/my-blog–alex-johnston/pirates-a-cyber-threat-to-supply-chains-602484

  • Former Disney IT worker to Congress: How can you allow this?

    An internal meeting was called and Perrero gathered with co-workers, expecting good news of some sort. Instead, they were notified that had 90 days remaining at Disney and would be laid off on Jan. 30, 2015. But before that happened, they would be training their foreign replacements.

    http://www.cio.com/article/3038414/careers-staffing/former-disney-it-worker-to-congress-how-can-you-allow-this.html#tk.rss_all

  • Bill Gates “Blindsided” By Report That He Sides With FBI In Apple Dispute

    In an interview with Bloomberg TV this morning, Bill Gates said he was “blindsided” by and “disappointed” with reports that he sides with the FBI in its dispute with Apple over unlocking an iPhone connected to the San Bernardino killings. He said: “That doesn’t state my view on this. I do believe that with the right safeguards, there are cases where the government, on our behalf—like stopping terrorism, which could get worse in the future— …that is valuable.” He called for a healthy debate on the issue and said that we should strike a balance between privacy rights and legitimate security concerns. Gates also noted that the government has historically abused its powers, citing the case of former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover.

    http://www.fastcompany.com/3057046/fast-feed/bill-gates-sides-with-fbi-says-apple-should-unlock-that-iphone

Photo: Dmitry Ratushny