Posts

Posted on

Supplier Report: 12/12/2015

sn_hairdryer_Ryan McGuire

This was a big week for IBM due to the acquisition of Clearleap (this is the 12th company in 2015). Clearleap focuses on scaling video, allowing greater numbers to access/stream video.

Not all news was good.  IBM’s #HackAHairDryer campaign blew up on social media with backlash from female scientists questioning why IBM would focus on a superficial item to promote girls in science instead of… rocket ships (direct quote).

The other suppliers were quiet this week… just more details on some of the topics we have been covering over the last two weeks.

IBM

Hewlett Packard Enterprise | HP Inc

  • Why It’s Time to Get Out of HP Inc. (HPQ)

    For the full year of 2016 — when I expected synergies to be reversed and some cutting-edge technology like 3D printers to potentially provide a tailwind — the company actually slashed its guidance. Management said it expects to earn $1.59 to $1.69 a share excluding items, vs. the aforementioned consensus of $1.70. The lower end of the range was 7% lower than the consensus, while the value of HPQ’s stock had gained more than 7% since I was originally bullish and snagged some shares.

    http://investorplace.com/2015/12/hp-inc-hpq-stock/

  • HP the only big firm to grow in storage market in Q3

    EMC saw its sales in the market slump eight per cent, but it managed to hang on to the top spot even though its share fell from 20.5 per cent to 18.4 per cent. In third place, Dell – which is in the process of closing a $67bn takeover of EMC – saw its sales fall 1.6 per cent, prompting its market share to fall marginally from 10.3 per cent to 9.9 per cent.

    http://www.channelweb.co.uk/crn-uk/news/2438055/hp-the-only-big-firm-to-grow-in-storage-market-in-q3

EMC

Other

Photo: Ryan McGuire

Posted on

News You Can Use: 12/9/2015

sn_darkbridge_RainerTaepper
  • Why Supply Chain Is Make-or-Break for Groupe Dynamite and Red Wing Shoes

    The reality, as those in the trenches know far too well, is exceedingly more complex, with nuanced real-world variables that make certainty a near impossibility. Apparel and footwear companies including Red Wing Shoes and Groupe Dynamite shared their experiences at Logility’s Connections conference in San Diego, revealing how improving their supply chain operations has been essential to international expansion, catering to Millennial tastes and launching new product lines.

    http://apparel.edgl.com/news/Why-Supply-Chain-Is-Make-or-Break-for-Groupe-Dynamite-and-Red-Wing-Shoes103625

  • 7 COMMON PUBLIC SPEAKING TIPS YOU SHOULD IGNORE

    If you’re a comedian, great. But, says Parker, “telling jokes is an art that few can master. The chances are it will fall flat or lead to an embarrassing silence. This means you have blown the vital opportunity to make a good first impression and will struggle to regain the audience and your confidence. A personal anecdote will be a better opener in most cases.” Bonus: You’ve no doubt been telling your best anecdotes at dinner parties for years, so you’ve got a lot of practice with format and pacing.

    http://www.fastcompany.com/3053981/hit-the-ground-running/7-common-public-speaking-tips-you-should-ignore

  • Black Monday – Supply Chain problems

    Both Argos and Tesco Direct have admitted issues in being able to deliver orders on Black Monday on time. Reading through the article there is an important quote from Stuart Higgins, retail partner at LCP Consulting. “Retailers continue to pursue a faster and freer agenda which is simply placing too much pressure on their back end infrastructure and carrier partners to deliver.” Confirms what Temando found about many retailers’ back-end shipping processes not being totally automated.

    http://www.it-director.com/blogs/the-holloway-angle/2015/12/black-monday-supply-chain-problems/

  • OK, So You’re Not Google. You Can Still Compete With It for Top Talent

    Working for a startup means that when you have a new idea, you start as small as you can, build smart, prove your concept, then scale it once you have evidence that it works. That continuous feedback loop is part of what draws people to startups in the first place. Engineering talent, for example, usually has a love of problem-solving. It’s why they entered the field in the first place.

    Dealing with bureaucracy, paperwork and being required to justify budgets are a lot less interesting, and that’s a built-in advantage for most startups. If you want to test something, you go for it. Once you want it to go live and be in production, or grow on a bigger scale, then you present data and make your case to the team.

    http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/252065

  • Black Swans and the Risks in Supply Chains

    Likewise, the ability to quickly identify a disruptive event and to respond immediately is critical to a company’s efforts to keep global operations running and to recover.

    Over the last five years the use of sensors that detect threats ranging from tsunamis to suppliers in financial difficulty has become widespread.

    A new crop of software applications are able to take such data, along with other information about worldwide events and translate that into recommended actions for a company. Applications can use tailored knowledge of supplier locations, bills of material, and the role certain products and customers play in supply chains to prioritize responses. Such systems are becoming essential to fast detection and efficient response.

    http://www.wsj.com/articles/guest-voices-black-swans-and-the-risks-in-supply-chains-1446056584?cb=logged0.2729217391461134

  • Why Office Singing May Be the Next Yoga
    No…just…Hell No.

    Andrew McCrea, account executive at the Los Angeles-based public relations firm, PMBC Group, says office karaoke nights have helped the company’s employees bond more deeply. Karaoke nights were originally done when the company brought on new team members as a way to introduce the team to one another but they soon realized singing together helped develop a sense of unity year round. “You learn to be vulnerable around your colleagues and develop a sense of trust,” he says.


    http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/253470

Posted on

Supplier Report: 12/5/2015

sn_bridge_TimSwaan

This week seems to be all about the scrappy underdogs taking on the champs.  Rocana wants to take a piece of splunk, Google (okay not so scrappy) wants a chunk of Amazon’s cloud business, and Amazon (also not an underdog) wants to take a bite out of Watson.

Hewlett Packard Enterprises

  • The market responded well to the HPE/Microsoft partnership…

    Gartner predicts that IoT connected devices will represent 6.4M of the total devices connected to the internet in 2016. It is extremely similar to the same deal Microsoft cut with HPE’s arch competitor, Dell, back in October. HPE also serves as a conduit to Microsoft’s growing Azure cloud computing ecosystem. Analysts on the street covering shares of Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE: HPQ), are projecting a one-year target price of $15.153, according to Zacks Research.

    http://waltonian.com/2015/12/hewlett-packard-enterprise-shares-rally-on-expanded/

  • BT partners with HPE on Cloud services

    British Telecom has partnered with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) to allow the telco’s IP VPN customers to connect directly to HPE Helion Managed Cloud Services. BT’s service will use HPE’s Rapid Connect capability to bypass the public Internet when connecting to HPE Helion Managed Cloud Services.

    http://www.arnnet.com.au/article/589846/bt-partners-hpe-cloud-services/

  • HP Inc exits low cost Android tablets, to focus on high-end devices

    HP’s new strategy is akin to that of Apple and Microsoft, which both offer more expensive, premium tablets. Dell has also scaled back its cheap tablet product line-up instead focusing on profitability. Dell says it wants to sell only premium tablets and hybrids with advanced features like hi-res screens and even 3D cameras.

    http://www.streetwisejournal.com/hp-exits-low-cost-tablet-market/
    Note: Hmmm… that sounds oddly similar to what I said on a certain podcast last week…

  • The Sad Story of HP Printers

    At HP Printers, they were fully aware back in the late 1970s that the market was moving to go paperless, but spent the following decades in denial rather than in pivoting to take advantage of the opportunities that this move would create. Recent surveys indicate that a majority of firms will be paperless shortly, yet with four decades of warning, HP doesn’t appear ready.

    HP Inc.’s numbers are out and they are getting pounded by the decline in printing supplies. As a result of this long-anticipated move, they now serve as a lesson of what not to do. They also showcase why so many dominant companies, even with lots of notice, don’t survive an industry event like the paperless office

    http://www.itbusinessedge.com/blogs/unfiltered-opinion/the-sad-story-of-hp-printers.html

Other

  • Microsoft Overtakes IBM as Most Buggy Software Vendor

    “The reason so many Microsoft products are in the Top 20 lists this time is that both Microsoft Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge come bundled with Adobe Flash, adding the 35 Flash vulnerabilities listed in August to Windows 8 and upwards,” he said.

    http://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/microsoft-overtakes-ibm-most-buggy/

  • Forrester: Google cloud business a concern for AWS, IBM

    Google does not break out its cloud revenues separately when reporting results, but at a recent event, the firm said it thinks its cloud revenue will surpass its sales from online advertising in five years’ time. Its aim is to be referred to as a cloud company by 2020.

    http://www.channelnomics.com/channelnomics-us/news/2437017/forrester-google-cloud-business-a-concern-for-aws-ibm

  • So Larry Ellison wrote a book about Oracle…

    I learned many important things from this book, but I found this quote to be most useful: “People — teachers, coaches, bosses — want you to conform to some standard of behavior they deem correct. They measure and reward you on how well you conform — arrive on time, dress appropriately, exhibit a properly deferential attitude — as opposed to how well you do your job. Programming liberated me from all that. I could work in the middle of the night. I could wear blue jeans and a T-shirt. I could ride my motorcycle to work. And I’d make more money if I could solve the problem faster and better than anyone else.”

    http://www.gurufocus.com/news/375356/the-oracle-of-software-

  • Startup Rocana wants to be everything Splunk is and more, bringing big data to DevOps

    Years back, Omer Trajman, Eric Sammer, and Don Brown met while working together at Cloudera. They were early executives and field employees charged with helping customers understand Hadoop and how to use it to solve business problems. They did this, possibly, hundreds of times and, while they were able to help many business better understand Hadoop, they always seemed to hit a snag when it came to getting it into production.

    The problem was that the operations team, the folks in the data center, didn’t know how to run it or weren’t able to. So, they started solving the operations problem as well. They screwed it up plenty of times, Trajman said, but they also got it right many times as well.

    http://www.techrepublic.com/article/startup-rocana-wants-to-be-everything-splunk-is-and-more-bringing-big-data-to-devops/

  • Teradata restructures leadership, cuts co-president

    Teradata (NYSE: TDC) said its board of directors moved Tuesday to dissolve its co-president management structure in light of the recent decision to exit the market applications business. The co-president position held by Hermann Wimmer has been terminated. The company has appointed Robert Fair as chief operating officer. Michael Koehler, CEO of the company, has additionally been named president.

    http://www.bizjournals.com/dayton/blog/morning_call/2015/12/teradata-restructures-leadership-cuts-co-president.html

  • Why Dell Might Sell Quest Software & SonicWall

    The rumors began flying Wednesday night that Dell is shopping its portfolio companies — Quest Software and SonicWall — to buyout firms KKR & Co LP, Thoma Bravo LLC and Vista Equity Partners Management LLC.

    http://www.cmswire.com/information-management/why-dell-might-sell-quest-software-sonicwall/

Photo: Tim Swaan

Posted on

News You Can Use: 12/2/2015

sn_umblrella_AdriannaCalvo
  • Would 50% of all procurement professionals really choose a different career?

    Once again, a certain level of job dissatisfaction within any sector is nothing new. However, the 50% number should be of concern to those occupying the executive suite both within, and external to the procurement industry. After all, it is hard to operate at maximum capacity when half your team is disenchanted and/or disengaged.

    https://procureinsights.wordpress.com/2015/11/23/would-50-of-all-procurement-professionals-really-choose-a-different-career/

  • Your Company Was Acquired. Now What?

    In my transition out of my company and my move into that of a board member, their team was pleased to see how well I had adapted from being the sole decision-maker into a role that was a bit more low-key, yet still highly influential. My philosophy is the same as when I ran my business. I listen more, speak less and let the team fail or succeed on their own merits. I have trust that they have the company’s best interests in mind and will succeed.

    http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/253177

  • Nestle admits to supply chain problems

    The investigation began at the tail end of 2014, according to the source. Around the same time, reports from the AP “tied brutal and largely unregulated working conditions to their shrimp, prawn and Purina-brand pet foods.”

    Apparently, many of the laborers come from poorer areas such as Myanmar and Cambodia, upon arrival they are charged a fee to work and then are trapped into working off unreasonable payments, explained the AP.

    http://www.strategicsourceror.com/2015/11/nestle-admits-to-supply-chain-problems.html

  • 7 Traits That Define Work Productivity Superstars

    5. Builds a reservoir of goodwill without asking for anything in return
    Good business and good working relationships must always be seen as unconditional, meaning not motivated by an expectation of future payback. The result will be people and organizations wanting to help you, rather than feeling an obligation to contribute.

    http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/253149

  • Do You Know the Rules for Ethical Supplier Interaction?

    Donations for charitable organizations are less obvious because everyone just wants to help a good cause, and what does it hurt if a supplier makes a decision to support your favourite charity? Well, it depends. How much? Does the supplier expect favouritism for the donation? Will the donation unconsciously bias you toward the supplier? Will there be a perception of bias? It’s tough.

    http://sourcinginnovation.com/wordpress/2015/11/27/do-you-know-the-rules-for-ethical-supplier-interaction/

  • Big Data: The Latest Rage in Supply Chain Management

    We’ve found with our clients, again and again, that big data can have a measurable impact on driving greater accuracy in planning, ensuring that companies make the right amount of the right product. Advanced algorithms and machine learning can facilitate increased forecast accuracy across a company’s SKUs, which drives greater turns, less waste, less inventory, and fewer stock-outs, which leads to higher EBITDA, lower working capital, and greater competitiveness.

    http://ww2.cfo.com/supply-chain/2015/11/big-data-latest-rage-supply-chain-management/

Photo: Adrianna Calvo