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News You Can Use: 9/23/2015

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  • Slack’s Workplace Revolution

    “We’re really conscious of solving problems in a way that doesn’t fetishize the purity of UI design at the expense of the user,” says Slack’s design director, Brandon Velestuk, who has worked closely with Butterfield since joining Slack in 2014. “There was always an understanding that this was a tool people were going to spend their entire day in, so we sought to bring an empathy to the design.”

    http://www.fastcodesign.com/3050294/innovation-by-design/slacks-workplace-revolution

  • The AI productivity opportunity

    I expect AI to start to play a part in most industries over the next five years, it will start in data intensive areas such as customer profiling, but before long we will have AI customer service desks and call centres. Other areas that will be revolutionised will be planning and forecasting, where computers will soon outperform humans, and security where a CCTV images can be monitored by a machine. The CCTV pictures might be coming from a drone that has decided to the factory perimeter fence.

    http://www.procurementleaders.com/blog/my-blog–thomas-seal/the-ai-productivity-opportunity-567152

  • Healthcare leads all industries in data breaches

    The key finding is perhaps that the healthcare industry had 34 percent of its total records breached, amounting to 84 million data records compromised, the highest rate of any industry. Government accounted for the second highest rate of breaches at 77.2 million records lost, or 31.4 percent.

    http://www.govhealthit.com/news/healthcare-leads-all-industries-data-breaches

  • 6 Ways to Demonstrate Kindness in Business and the Rest of Your Life

    Most often, your best clients come to you by referral. Look for ways to help others succeed by referring potential business or influencers to those you know and like. If someone is struggling with an aspect of their business and asks for your advice, jump in and offer your expertise. You’ll build a deeper relationship and a trust that will provide mutual rewards for years to come.

    http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/250738

  • Hadoop, in trouble? Only in Gartner-land

    Most companies don’t have “big data” — only many new unstructured or semistructured data sources — and they’d like to gain insight by aggregating them and hooking up a visualization tool. In fact, according to the study, most want to gain insight using Tableau or Excel. If they’re already using Hadoop, they are probably also working with Tableau (51 percent). If they aren’t, they’d like to use Excel (60 percent).

    http://www.cio.com/article/2984609/data-management/hadoop-in-trouble-only-in-gartner-land.html#tk.rss_all

  • 4 Warning Signs Your Team Is Working in Silos, and How to Destroy Them

    The best way to avoid groupthink is to model disagreement at the leadership level. This doesn’t mean hosting debates or shouting matches, but it does mean letting your teams into the room when hard decisions need to be hashed out. It also means rewarding disagreement, celebrating differences and making it clear that you, as a leader, don’t have all the answers.

    http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/250477

Photo: Bogdan Dum

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Supplier Report: 9/19/2015

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The news this week seem to be reacting to HP’s announcement that they are cutting 33,000 jobs over 3 years.  Journalists are looking at HP, IBM, and EMC and re-stating the now-familiar critique of “these companies are bloated and not nimble”.

Are the critics right?  Time will tell.  Today, three companies are trying to transform and become more responsive to the market.  IBM is focused on the emerging internet of things and supporting that entire eco-system of devices.  HP is trying to slim down and become more reactive (with an offshore consulting team).  EMC has been struggling with their own potential reorganization.

Can companies that have enough employees to fill a mid-sized American city find a way to compete with companies that can support 900 million users with 60 employees? And are the sales models that those large companies rely upon still relevant in the age of open source software and ad-driven profits?

IBM

  • IBM working on blockchain technology

    Krishna told the publication house that “they are modifying the original bitcoin ideas to build a blockchain that operates without currency, ensures that contract details remain private and makes it easier for companies to embed business rules into their smart contracts”.

    http://www.econotimes.com/IBM-working-on-blockchain-technology-91011
    What is blockchain?

    The blockchain is seen as the main technological innovation of Bitcoin, since it stands as proof of all the transactions on the network. A block is the ‘current’ part of a blockchain which records some or all of the recent transactions, and once completed goes into the blockchain as permanent database.

  • HCL, IBM team up to jointly develop IoT solutions

    As part of the partnership, HCL and IBM will combine their technical knowhow and manpower to enable seamless integration of device, connectivity, data platform and analytics for organisations to address some of the most complex enterprise and industrial IoT challenges.

    http://www.firstpost.com/business/hcl-ibm-team-up-to-jointly-develop-iot-solutions-2438274.html
    Additionally, IBM opens IoT & Big Data units, appoints Harriet Green as GM

    Harriet Green, now VP and GM at IBM said: “The Internet of Things will help enterprises and governments at every level unlock entirely new areas of opportunity and growth, and no company is better positioned than IBM to be the partner of choice as these organizations embrace its potential.

    http://www.cbronline.com/news/verticals/the-boardroom/ibm-opens-iot-big-data-units-appoints-harriet-green-as-gm-4670303

  • Leadership Depends on Clarity and Agility: IBM’s CIO

    “As [organizations] get bigger, we tend to isolate roles so people’s skills get too segmented,” Smith said. “We’re working to give people broader roles where people are expected to do role rotations and gain skills that enable them to get better and hone their craft. We have a concept that we’re going to take large teams and keep breaking them down so we know the purpose of each team.”

    http://daily.financialexecutives.org/leadership-depends-on-clarity-and-agility-ibms-cio/

Hewlett Packard

  • HP’s Job Cuts Reflect EDS Legacy
    HP announced 33,000 job cuts over three years this week…

    Most from the technology services group it had built from Electronic Data Systems Corp., a $13.9 billion acquisition. The job cuts are H-P’s way of creating a more nimble business that can better match customer needs for help with cloud-based computing, or off-loading computing and software to the Internet. It is also a recognition of how badly H-P miscalculated developments in the information technology services market.

    http://www.wsj.com/articles/h-ps-job-cuts-reflect-eds-legacy-1442447023

  • Hewlett-Packard Company Plans offshoring 60% of Enterprise Service

    In fact, Enterprise Services division is not an organic segment of the larger HP group. In 2008 HP acquired the H. Ross Perot founded Electronic Data Systems for $13.9 billion. At that time, HP’s CEO, Mark Hurd was intent on pushing HP towards enterprise IT services. IBM had by then a sizeable market share in this segment due to some strategic acquisitions such as PriceWaterhouseCooper’s for $3.5 billion in 2002. Hurd in 2008 wanted HPQ to acquire a big-revenue earner in enterprise-level IT services segment. The result was the expensive purchase of EDS.

    http://www.wallstreetscope.com/hewlett-packard-company-nysehpq-plans-offshoring-60-of-enterprise-service/25429003/

  • HP Plans To Keep The Struggling Enterprise Services Unit Contrary To Common Belief

    According to Whitman, Enterprise Services is essential to the success of the greater HPE as it starts a life of its own, separate from the parent. For example, she envisions a situation where companies will be hiring HPE’s consultants to help with their cloud implementations, digitization of paper processes and so on. Such consulting works perfectly fit in the domain of Enterprise Service, and that explains why Whitman believes the unit is essential to the overall success of HPE.

    http://investcorrectly.com/20150917/hewlett-packard-company-nysehpq-plans-keep-struggling-enterprise-services-unit-contrary-common-belief/

  • HP Has Enough Workers to Fill a City—And It Needs Them All

    The HPs and IBMs of the world have responded to these shifts by offering cloud services and ready-made business applications of their own. That’s a big part of why HP and IBM are shedding jobs right now. “In general software companies are better for owners than services businesses are,” Burris explains. “In a software business, a programmer can write a piece of code that can be used by millions of different customers and users. That intellectual property, that information about a problem, is now made available to a whole pile of people at the same time.”

    http://www.wired.com/2015/09/hp-enough-workers-fill-cityand-needs/

Other

  • Age-old question: Can commercial software succeed in an open-source world?

    Now, Salesforce chief executive Marc Benioff’s dream of taking on not just Oracle but SAP in other enterprise software categories puts it at risk, according to the story. That may be why Salesforce is building up its skills in PostgreSQL, an open-source database favored by many companies that are increasingly wary of relying on pricey databases from Oracle, SAP, and even Microsoft.

    http://fortune.com/2015/09/18/open-source-software-threat/
    Additionally:

    As one data point, note that Red Hat, which sells support and service for Linux, is arguably the most successful company built on open-source. It became the first $1 billion open source company three years ago and closed its last fiscal year in February at almost $1.8 billion in revenue. That is not chump change, but it’s a far cry from the run rates proprietary software companies tout. Here’s guessing that the new normal for software companies in the open-source era will look a lot more like Red Hat and a lot less like Oracle, SAP, and Microsoft. And that has to be a sobering thought.

  • Can GE buy IBM or EMC?

    GE could easily sell those parts of IBM it didn’t want, or spin them off into a new company, and get back most of the cash needed to do this deal. By installing new management and focusing on the Internet of Things, GE would give IBM a new story to tell and, in the process, dramatically increase its value to investors. Buying IBM would also cement Immelt’s own industrial strategy into place, making it nearly impossible for a successor to do to his company what he did to Jack Welch’s outfit.

    http://seekingalpha.com/article/3510876-ge-could-buy-ibm

  • Key Takeaways from the Wells Fargo Healthcare Conference: Johnson and Johnson

    “Five years ago, our pharmaceutical division at that time was about $24 billion in annual sales, and we lost $8.5 billion to patent expiry, literally over about a 18 month to 24 month period, and you know the margins in that business, you know the challenges that something like that presents. And we made a real decision not to go out and do a major acquisition, which I think would be a challenge to demonstrate value creation for many, if not most of those…We continue to invest in R&D. We’ve got much more focus in our therapeutic categories. And today, literally, five, six years later, we launch 14 compounds, seven of which have been $1 billion brand and things are really making a difference and things like prostate cancer, thrombosis, Type 2 diabetes, range of conditions, and there’s no way we could have done that, if it was an only a pharma business, because it wouldn’t have survived. We had a strong MD&E and strong consumer business. So financially, we think it’s important.”

    http://seekingalpha.com/article/3508116-johnson-and-johnson-3-key-takeaways-from-the-wells-fargo-healthcare-conference

Photo: Pablo GarciaSaldaña

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News You Can Use: 9/16/2015

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  • Strategic Or Tactical: Time To Decide And Act
    If you have been reading this blog for the last two years, I have been shouting this.  This short post sums up my views on strategic sourcing.

    IT could well be an ally too, particularly in efforts to ensure cyber security and take advantage of the analytics possibilities with big data. And engineering could learn to appreciate procurement’s value too. While engineers may think they know the capabilities of some part suppliers, they may not know of the capacity constraints those suppliers have that can prevent them from delivering on time. Procurement should know about those constraints through its studies of the suppliers’ markets and industries.

    http://www.procurementleaders.com/blog/my-blog–paul-teague/strategic-or-tactical-time-to-decide-and-act-563904

  • Screwing up the Screw-Ups in BI

    Right! Except that the Holy Grail of trying to extend a “centralized” database umbrella over completely disparate systems is both incredibly expensive and nearly impossible. Baseline suggests “[partnering] with a reputable systems integrator.” Good for them — at least they dodge this bullet rather than getting the answer completely wrong. The right answer is that business analysts should be able to construct BI datasets on their own, as needed, from whatever data sources are useful/appropriate, and it shouldn’t be difficult for them to do so. Concentrating all of the information under one umbrella isn’t necessary; many umbrellas can do the job, and if they’re easy to deploy, they’re both inexpensive and provide a better and more flexible answer.

    http://sourcinginnovation.com/wordpress/2015/09/03/screwing-up-the-screw-ups-in-bi-repost/

  • 4 Ways to Construct a ‘Data-Innovation’ Map for Your Business

    A data-innovation map can give you a bird’s-eye view of your customers’ experience and show you how you can be more innovative with data — not to mention save time and drive revenue. Without a data-innovation map, you’re likely missing out on places in your strategy where you could more effectively use data and inadvertently give your competition a leg up.

    http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/249437

  • The journey from good to great

    Shrinking the pie also requires procurement professionals to hone and broaden their skill set. I think that one of the best characteristics for someone in procurement is ‘being nosey’ (or to say this more politely, ‘being curious’). This needs to extend and broaden if you are to shrink the pie. You need to be curious not only about the business need, the supply market and the total cost, but also about the interfaces between the supplier and the customer and the supplier and its suppliers.

    http://www.procurementleaders.com/blog/my-blog–caroline-booth/the-journey-from-good-to-great-565670

  • Why You Should Not Build Your Own Contract Management System
    Interesting to see them list the core “must have features”
    http://sourcinginnovation.com/wordpress/2015/09/07/why-you-should-not-build-your-own-contract-management-system/

Photo: Skitter Photo, StockSnap

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Supplier News: 9/12/2015

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Considering summer is unofficially over, it was a slow news week from suppliers.  IBM did make an interesting move by picking up software developer StrongLoop.  This continues their strategy on cloud and mobile.   IBM also announced the opening of Watson Health Center in Boston.

Oracle is quietly cutting their Java experts while HP overtakes Cisco in providing cloud infrastructure.   Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst details how his company makes money on services when the software is free.

IBM

  • IBM Opens Watson Health HQ, Expands Watson Health Cloud
    It reads like a press release, but interesting information…

    IBM opened its new IBM Watson Health global headquarters in Cambridge, Mass., and announced that Deborah DiSanzo is joining the company as the business unit’s general manager. The IBM Watson Health Cloud for Life Sciences Compliance will help biomedical companies bring medical innovations to market more efficiently. This solution will help the companies fast-track the deployment of a GxP-compliant infrastructure and applications while adhering to stringent requirements for hosting, accessing and sharing regulated data.

    http://www.eweek.com/it-management/ibm-opens-watson-health-hq-expands-watson-health-cloud.html
    More on the office they are opening in Boston:
    http://www.betaboston.com/news/2015/09/10/ibm-announces-watson-health-office-space-in-kendall-square/

  • IBM Has Been A Terrible Steward Of Shareholders’ Capital

    One company that hasn’t shown an ability to innovate in the way that it competes in the market – especially in cloud – compared to someone like Microsoft, who is a chief competitor, is IBM. Like Apple, IBM has also been a slave to a dividend and buyback program. Like Apple, IBM has spent over $100 billion on its buyback program. And, like Apple, IBM’s stock price has lagged the overall market in the last three years.

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2015/09/11/ibm-has-been-a-terrible-steward-of-shareholders-capital/

  • IBM Acquires Node.js Developer StrongLoop (no word on price yet)

    StrongLoop is as startup based in San Mateo, California. The company focuses on the creation and development of software for enterprises by using the open-source JavaScript programming language Node.js. Software built by StrongLoop allow companies to create cloud and mobile based apps which are equipped with APIs that allows them to handle massive amounts of data through mobile, web and Internet of Things apps.

    http://en.yibada.com/articles/62707/20150911/ibm-acquires-node-js-developer-strongloop.htm

  • Box shows how a single deal with IBM can move the needle for any $2 billion company

    The partnership, announced in June, allows both companies to plug-in to each other’s technologies, while working on joint apps and sales strategies. Box benefits by gaining access to IBM’s wide array of technologies and client network. IBM gets to tap into Box’s advanced cloud storage offerings.

    http://www.businessinsider.com/box-earnings-ibm-partnership-2015-9

EMC

Hewlett Packard

  • More HP Involvement at SurveyMonkey… Hewlett-Packard’s (HPQ) CEO Joins SurveyMonkey Board

    Whitman, 59, was appointed to run the computer giant in Sep 2011. She will lead the new H-P Enterprise business group post the spilt in Nov 1 this year. Whitman stated that this is the right time for her to join the board of SurveyMonkey. She looks at the offer as an attractive one as it’s her first external board appointment since she joined H-P in 2011.

    http://www.nasdaq.com/article/hewlett-packards-hpq-ceo-joins-surveymonkey-board-cm519157

  • HP overtakes Cisco in cloud infrastructure battle – finally

    After nipping at Cisco’s heels for two years, HP finally overtook arch rival Cisco in the cloud infrastructure equipment battle in Q2, albeit by the slimmest of margins. Synergy Research Group says after tying in Q1 with 13%, HP finally wrestled top spot from Cisco which declined by half a percentage point, while HP remained consistent on 13%.

    http://channellife.co.nz/story/hp-overtakes-cisco-cloud-infrastructure-battle-finally/

Other

  • Oracle cuts Java execs

    Cameron Purdy, a senior vice president for development and a noted Java evangelist, left Oracle in August after more than 8 years at the company, according to his LinkedIn bio. In a few tweets, he indicated that this was Oracle’s decision.

    http://fortune.com/2015/09/07/oracle-cuts-java-execs/

  • SAP Finance Chief Says Company Done With Big M&A Deals for Now

    “I see no need in the foreseeable future for big acquisitions,” Chief Financial Officer Luka Mucic said at a meeting with reporters Thursday at the company’s headquarters in Walldorf, Germany. “If you talk about big acquisitions, what is left in the market?”Salesforce.com Inc. is too expensive and Workday Inc. would overlap with SAP’s product line, Mucic said.

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-10/sap-finance-chief-says-company-done-with-big-m-a-deals-for-now

  • Red Hat: How One CEO Uses Extreme Openness To Lead 8,000 People

    Adams: I have to ask: How do you make money on free software? Whitehurst: It’s very hard. The source code to all our software is indeed free. We offer services and support. You can download random Linux or open source software. But if you’re running nuclear submarines, major stock exchanges, or big banks, you want to make sure they’re secure and that you have support. We’re a business-to-business company.

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2015/09/10/how-one-ceo-uses-extreme-openness-to-lead-8000-people/