Posts

Posted on

Productivity Bulletin: 4/3/2015

sn_good_boss

  • Convince someone you are correct by asking the right questions:

    For example, “Why do you think this would be a good idea?” or “What do you think the advantages would be?” It sounds obvious, but letting someone persuade themselves will mean they are more confident of their decision in the long term – as if it had been their idea all along.

    http://lifehacker.com/subtly-convince-someone-youre-correct-by-asking-the-rig-1693349163

  • Marie Forleo: Secret Weapon For Leading A Happy Team
    I am not a big fan of Marie, but I am curious what you guys think about this video and her overall presentation (I generally opt to not include her content, but will change that if you see value). Seriously… what is her background?
    Link: http://www.marieforleo.com/2015/03/love-languages/
  • Isaac Asimov’s Advice for Being Creative (Hint: Don’t Brainstorm)

    As someone who makes a living on creative insights (how else to describe proof solving), I’m sympathetic to Asimov’s take. While group activities like brainstorming might be useful for lightweight projects, like coming up with a new slogan for an advertisement, if you’re instead trying to solve an unsolved proof, or, more pressingly, improve ballistic missile defense, there’s no way to avoid learning hard things and then thinking hard about what you learned, hoping to tease out a new connection.

    http://calnewport.com/blog/2015/03/27/isaac-asimovs-advice-for-being-creative-hint-dont-brainstorm/

Posted on

The Supply Chain: 4/1/2015

sn_SupplyChainManagement_o2

  • Supply Chain News: Strategic Sourcing Software Enabling Companies to Continue to Raise the Bar on Capabilities, Gartner Says
    http://www.scdigest.com/ONTARGET/15-03-26-1.PHP?cid=9138&ctype=content
  • Dunkin Donuts saves $114 million thanks to SCM cooperative

    Formed following the successful merger of five different operating companies in 2012, NDCP opened its corporate office in metro Atlanta in August 2013 as a more geographically central location to support customer expansion plans and access best-in-class supply chain resources. Leveraging more than 30 years of proven expertise in sourcing, purchasing and distribution, the organisation is passionate about delivering the best service and products at the lowest sustainable price to members.

    http://www.supplychaindigital.com/supplychainmanagement/3889/Dunkin-Donuts-saves-114-million-thanks-to-SCM-cooperative

  • Resetting supplier relationships should be top of the board agenda

    Procurement has often been viewed as the poor relation when it comes to business strategy, but there is clear evidence that corporate reputation and customer satisfaction can be directly affected by poor or non-strategic purchasing decisions. For example, an organisation we have worked with took a strategic decision never to charge a customer for speaking to the customer service department, only to discover some months later that one of its outsourced call centre providers was still using premium rate numbers. Clearly no one had told the procurement department about the strategic decision, let alone involved them in formulating the strategy in the first place. Being more joined up can only be good for business

    http://www.supplymanagement.com/blog/2015/03/resetting-supplier-relationships-should-be-top-of-the-board-agenda

  • Procurement professionals split on how to tackle maverick spend

    Almost one third (31 per cent) of respondents from public and private sectors said control of indirect spend should be handed to the procurement function to solve the problem, even though indirect costs appear to be the shared responsibility of a number of different departments within the respondent organisations: procurement (63 per cent), senior department heads (42 per cent), finance (39 per cent) and operational staff (25 per cent).

    http://www.supplymanagement.com/news/2015/procurement-professionals-split-on-how-to-tackle-maverick-spend

Posted on

Supplier Report: 3/28/2015

sn_mainframe_IBM

IBM

Oracle

  • Oracle Primed To Leverage New Cloud Solutions, Says Cantor Fitzgerald

    Analysts Brian White and Isabel Zhu wrote, “Just over a year ago, Oracle held its first Cloud Forum for analysts, and the progress made across its cloud portfolio is nothing short of remarkable, in our view. Yesterday’s event only furthered our enthusiasm for Oracle’s cloud initiatives, which we find the most aggressive of any of the large, global IT vendors in our coverage universe, and we believe Oracle has the highest probability of success.”

    http://www.benzinga.com/analyst-ratings/analyst-color/15/03/5363034/oracle-primed-to-leverage-new-cloud-solutions-says-canto

  • Oracle Making Progress Taking On Workday In Cloud

    “We came away incrementally more positive after Oracle HCM World, given our conversations with customers and SIs,” he wrote. “Interest in (Oracle’s) Fusion HCM (cloud product) has picked up over the last six months, with a key Oracle SI partner indicating that Oracle added approximately 580 Fusion HCM customers following the Release 8 product, with maybe one-third, or 150-200, live over the past two quarters.”

    http://news.investors.com/technology/032715-745417-oracle-catching-up-in-cloud-hr-software.htm

HP

Other

Posted on

Good to Great Review (Jim Collins)

  • Joey’s Book Report: Good to Great by Jim Collins
    In an effort to do more than just regurgitate URLs from other websites, I will share my thoughts from books from time to time.

    Good to Great essentially shows the difference between companies that exceed solid market performance and are able to grow in value 3 to 4 times over their other successful competitors.

    The major theme of the book is that these companies did well because they had strong (and generally humble) leaders that had a singular vision and stuck with it and that they developed solid succession plans.  The term the book uses is Level 5 Leadership.sn_level5leader

    The singular vision morphs into the Hedgehog concept.  It is one thing you are really good at and can defend from all angles.  Other might come and attack, but they will keep being deterred due to strong strategy and defense.

    In his essay, he argued that foxes are sleek and shrewd animals that pursue many goals and interests at the same time. Because of this wide variety of interests and strategies, their thinking is scattered and unfocused, and they are limited in what they can achieve in the long run.Hedgehogs, however, are slow and steady, and people often overlook them because they’re quiet and unassuming. But, unlike the fox, they are able to simplify the world and focus on one overarching vision. It’s this principle that guides everything they do, and helps them succeed against all odds.

    I enjoyed this book.  It belabors some ideas way too much and most of the companies Collins calls out as great have completely destroyed themselves since 2001 (Circuit City, Fanny Mae). But the book itself says it isn’t about the companies, it is about the idea of having solid leadership and strategies – principles that these companies abandoned over the years and paid for it dearly.

  • Accel Bets Big On Startup-To-Startup APIs

    Developers are constantly posed with the question of whether to buy or build. You either pay for a specialized API or you spend the resources trying to replicate them. But as the cogs get more complex, and the talent wars rage on, in-house development keeps looking slower and more expensive.

    http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/18/battle-for-the-building-blocks/

  • Industries where network matters and where it does not:
    Computing and gaming is really high, cosmetics and textiles are low
    http://blog.linkedin.com/2015/03/09/industries-where-your-network-matters-more-than-you-think/