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News You Can Use: 12/23/2015

sn_xmastruck_Louis Magnotti
  • What unscrupulous attorneys do to win and how to fight back

    Selectively reading

    This goes to contracts. Taking contract clauses out of context, reading them without punctuation, inserting lines that aren’t in the agreement, and making clauses up are all tactics I’ve seen used in negotiations.   Make sure you read along with the attorney and before entering a negotiation you know every major clause nearly by heart. You need to have a good grasp of the case as well so you understand the core elements of the case otherwise you can get maneuvered into agreeing to items that seem minor, but turn out to be pivotal to your effort.

    http://www.cio.com/article/3016783/legal/what-unscrupulous-attorneys-do-to-win-and-how-to-fight-back.html#tk.rss_all

  • Brevity Is the Secret to Pitches That Nail It Every Time

    We start our pitches with a 30-second introduction that covers who we are and just a couple bullet points why we’re credible. Beyond that, the focus is on delivering a tight, concise presentation about our product. Investors’ eyes glaze over when teams talk too much about themselves. Get to the point quickly.

    Use clean, well-designed slides, and always be prepared with more in-depth financial projections and analytics in case they ask.

    http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/253879

  • There’s More Value in Your Attitude Than Your Bank Account

    If you wake up every day intent on being happy and exuding happiness, success will follow. Strahan’s latest book is “Wake Up Happy: The Dream Big, Win Big Guide to Transforming Your Life”
  • MBA grad uses SCM knowledge to combat HIV in Cameroon

    Muffih said his day-to-day duties in the capital city of Cameroon, Yaounde, include improving stock management systems, coordinating with other partners, and capacitating health workers to develop accurate forecasting and efficient supply chain systems for HIV commodities. He said he is still learning a lot on the job, but his experiences at SAU have helped him cope with the demands and responsibilities of his career.

    https://web.saumag.edu/news/2015/12/16/mba-grad-uses-scm-knowledge-to-combat-hiv-in-cameroon/

  • Should You Work From Home?

    The main question to ask yourself is why you want or need office space. How will you weight the pros versus the cons? Which things are more important to you? If there are cons that are important to you, are there ways to mitigate the negatives? For example, if working at home would make you feel isolated, could you deal with this by attending networking events and working at a local coffee shop at least some of the time?

    http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/253932

  • Societal Damnation 50: Talent Tightness

    It’s not all about money, and that goes double for top talent, but that being said, money is a factor, and if your competition is offering 20%, 30%, and even 40% more, that’s a little hard to turn down. Especially if they are also offering flexible hours, training, course reimbursement for any course taken on the employee’s own time where the employee gets a minimum / passing grade, etc. So if your training budget is still 0, your corporate policy still mandates being in the office from 9 to 5 (even though your suppliers are in a time zone 9 hours shifted and this means everyone would be working 11 hours any day a supplier has to be consulted), and there are pay ceilings in effect from 5 years ago, the chances of getting anyone talented to join your Procurement department are slim to none, with an emphasis on none.

    http://sourcinginnovation.com/wordpress/2015/12/15/societal-damnation-50-talent-tightness/

  • Top 5 reasons agile is a good idea

    Perfection is not required to stay on track. As just mentioned, if something is overlooked, it isn’t the end of the world. I ran a $1.2 million software implementation project for a large government entity while at a professional services organization. The dev manager overlooked something very critical which resulted in a large amount of rework which used up all of the budget when we were only 60% through the engagement. It ultimately resulted in the cancellation of the entire engagement. What a waste. This is an extreme example and agile would not have saved that project, but in the agile world, if something is omitted from a sprint, it can go in the next functional rollout. No high costs, no big rework.

    http://www.cio.com/article/3014972/project-management/top-5-reasons-agile-is-a-good-idea.html#tk.rss_all

Photo: Louis Magnotti

Posted on

Supplier News: 12/19/2015

sn_spiral_Alexandre Perotto

Tis the season to reflect and embrace friends and close relations.  IBM is no different, celebrating a long-time relationship (AT&T) and a relatively new one (Apple).

While IBM shows the strengths of their partnerships, EMC and Dell are struggling in their new family unit. Funding continues to be an issue as Dell looks to sell Perot systems and IPO SecureWorks now that VMWare is definitely out of the VirtuStream deal.

It is a cold time of year, and Oracle is feeling the chill.  Oracle’s cloud business is growing, but their core business is flat and declining (slightly).  Last year Oracle rallied during the holidays, but analysts are not expecting another Christmas miracle.

IBM

EMC/Dell

  • Michael Dell will IPO SecureWorks trying to raise cash for his $67 billion EMC deal

    In 2011, Dell bought a company called SecureWorks for $612 million and now it’s officially spinning it off in an IPO.

    Dell hasn’t revealed in the SEC paperwork how much it hopes to earn from the IPO. Sources told the Wall Street Journal in October that Dell was hoping to raise $1 billion and would start its roadshow in December.

    Dell CEO Michael Dell (and his family trust) essentially own SecureWorks himself, gaining it when he took Dell private in 2013. He controls 71%, the paperwork says. It didn’t reveal whether he would be selling any of his stake as part of this IPO. Sources told the WSJ that he wasn’t planning on it.

    http://www.businessinsider.in/Its-official-Michael-Dell-will-IPO-SecureWorks-trying-to-raise-cash-for-his-67-billion-EMC-deal/articleshow/50226658.cms

  • Dell is looking to IPO SecureWorks because…
    VMware (VMW) Cancels Virtustream Joint Venture with EMC

    Along with their earnings release this October, VMware and EMC had announced plans to spin out Virtustream following the acquisition. The new company was expected to be owned jointly by EMC and VMWare with each having a 50% stake.

    However, this news added to investors’ concerns as Virtustream was still not profitable. A 50% stake would have required VMware to invest a huge amount for the development of hybrid-cloud solutions of Virtustream, which would weigh on VMware’s financials.

    All these concerns had together resulted in dwindling investor confidence in VMware, as can be seen from the fall in share prices. In the last three-month period, the company lost nearly 30% of its market cap in contrast to the S&P 500 index’s gain of over 2%.

    http://www.barchart.com/headlines/story/12814666/vmware-vmw-cancels-virtustream-joint-venture-with-emc

  • Will Dell look to raise cash for EMC by selling Perot Systems?

    Dell is reportedly looking to sell its professional services arm Perot Systems to help fund its takeover of EMC. Since the deal between Dell and EMC was announced, VMWare’s shares have dropped 27%. It provides IT services to government agencies and health care providers, including handling media claims, and was founded by billionaire businessman Ross Perot. The company is in the process to search for potential buyers, some of which include Indian Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), French IT outsourcing firm Atos, Genpact-a former General Electric company, and Canadian IT company CGI. However, the negotiations came to a close when both parties could not settle on a price.

    http://theindianrepublic.com/will-dell-look-to-raise-cash-for-emc-by-selling-perot-30588.html

HP Inc/Hewlett Packard Enterprise

  • Hewlett Packard Enterprise increases hybrid Cloud and IoT play

    “From a channel perspective, this will be geared towards large enterprises or mid-market customers that are typically sitting between what to run themselves and what to put on the Cloud. We have a lot of channel partners that operate within that space and they can offer it as a next generation solution for the datacentre or offer it as a managed service themselves.”

    The solution will be available from June next year and Hewlett Packard Enterprise has already started enabling channel partners in terms of technical and sales training to take it to market.

    http://www.arnnet.com.au/article/591011/exclusive-hewlett-packard-enterprise-increases-hybrid-cloud-iot-play/

  • HPE grows enterprise data center hardware business and extends lead over Dell and Cisco

    It appeared to be a good quarter for HPE, especially. According to Synergy’s report, HPE grew its lead over Dell and Cisco, the second and third place enterprise data center infrastructure vendors, respectively. It also grew its market share to 24 percent. Not bad for a company that was in the midst of splitting itself into two.

    The enterprise side accounts for more than half of the data center infrastructure market. In comparison, the service provider market is small. But in the service provider space, the leading hardware vendors are having a much tighter race, led by – in descending order – Cisco, HPE and Dell.

    http://www.fierceenterprisecommunications.com/story/hpe-grows-enterprise-data-center-hardware-business-and-extends-lead-over-de/2015-12-14

Oracle

  • Oracle: A Chimera Or The Real Deal

    Is Oracle likely at some point in the foreseeable future to return to some reasonable level of growth-organic or inorganic perhaps defined as high single digits?

    I really don’t think that that is possible. Oracle essentially sells two major product families – databases and enterprise applications. Neither of these have a particularly high growth rate; indeed the growth rate for database seats is probably zero these days. Oracle already has a commanding market share in the database market. It is approaching a monopoly in some categories. And while relational databases will be around for a long, long time, at the margin specialized data stores such as those built around Hadoop and other technologies are starting to limit the market potential for relational technology.

    http://seekingalpha.com/article/3763596-oracle-a-chimera-or-the-real-deal

  • Oracle Corporation: After Such An Outlook, Where Can It Go?

    While cloud revenues impressed the stockholders, guidance for the upcoming quarters was disappointing. Oracle expects 3Q EPS within $0.60–0.63 as compared to a consensus of $0.65. For 3Q, SaaS and PaaS revenue is expected to grow in the range of 49–53% YoY in constant currency terms. IaaS revenue growth is calculated to fall within 3–7%YoY.

    http://www.businessfinancenews.com/26847-oracle-corporation-after-such-an-outlook-where-can-it-go/

 

Posted on

News You Can Use: 12/16/2015

sn_beachfire_Patrick Fore
  • 6 Ways to Salve Burnout Before It’s Career Terminal

    Do more of what you enjoy.
    Are you really spending your work time doing what you really enjoy? Or does that get pushed to the side while other, mundane, tasks take priority? Take an inventory of how you spend your day by keeping a journal. Divide a page into two columns, one for the things you don’t enjoy and one column for those you do. Each time you perform a task during the day, record it in one of the two columns along with how much time you spent doing it. Tally the number of tasks and hours spent at the end of the day, or week. If your “don’t like” column towers over the “like” this may be what’s causing your burnout.

    http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/253618

  • Procurement Study Pays Attention to Younger Generation

    “In our experience,” says Rudzki,, CPOs can dramatically improve their internal credibility with the executive staff by relating their proposed agenda (including the need to transform supply management) to the metrics that the senior staff and the Board of Directors already monitor.

    “Rather than having Procurement introduce a new metric for itself (which may come across as self-serving), we have generally found it to be more productive — and quicker at achieving credibility — to relate the proposed CPO agenda directly to the particular metrics currently in use by the company’s senior management,” he says.

    http://www.scmr.com/article/procurement_study_pays_attention_to_younger_generation

  • HOW TO MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR YEAR-END PERFORMANCE REVIEW

    Remember, the reason you’re having a review in the first place is to give you feedback that will hopefully help you improve at your job. Avoid going on the defensive or blaming others for your performance failures. In fact, don’t discuss your teammates at all and focus solely on your own performance.

    http://www.fastcompany.com/3054456/how-to-make-the-most-of-your-year-end-performance-review

  • Why There Will Always Be Human Sourcers

    Will we, sourcers, become obsolete? I am not sure about that…..As a global sourcer, I pride myself in my creativity. Sometimes I use a gutsy approach and I approach candidates that would not be the first choice for this role – They could be either too senior, he may have just started a new role, he may be of another industry – Hell – when I start being creative? I have no idea on how to anticipate where my search is going to take me… In the mid of one search, I open another window (One? 20!) and perform another search there with another idea that came up to me on a spur of a moment.

    http://www.eremedia.com/sourcecon/why-there-will-always-be-human-sourcers/

  • Your Best Employee Is Your Weakest Link

    When I ask business owners and managers to identify their weakest link most of them will start a mental inventory of their team’s attitude and skills. But in almost every case the weakest link isn’t the slacker, or the prima donna or the dim bulb who is costing the business the most. Even without a tragic wake-up call, the weakest link is nearly always the person who knows how to do things no one else in the business can do. If that link breaks, even for a sick day or short vacation, it costs your business in small, but cumulative ways that you might not even notice. If they are able, or unwilling, to return to work those costs will accumulate fast.

    http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/253827

  • Why I Give Everyone Hugs — Even Clients
    [This one is for you Tracy]

    As for work, as odd as this may sound, a hug de-personalizes work situations in a flash. I guess nothing can be more personal than body contact, but for me a hug says, “This isn’t about you or me individually; it’s about us as a team.”

    After a discussion in which you’ve been given feedback, especially tough feedback, a hug says that those comments weren’t personal. It says that those comments are just business and that it’s my job to give you that feedback.

    http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/253619

Photo: Patrick Fore