SourceCast: Episode 07: Fortune 500 Fight
News You Can Use: 10/14/2015
- How mergers and acquisitions affect supply chains
According to Dr. Harpal Singh, in an article for Supply Chain Quarterly, post-merger supply chain assessments should focus on three major aspects: integration, optimization and acceptance. All three posts are intended to assure that supply chain systems exist on all levels, present themselves in their best form and are widely accepted company supply chain policy.
http://www.strategicsourceror.com/2015/10/how-mergers-and-acquisitions-affect.html
- ELON MUSK: “IF YOU DON’T MAKE IT AT TESLA, YOU GO WORK AT APPLE”
“They have hired people we’ve fired,” he said. “We always jokingly call Apple the ‘Tesla Graveyard.’ If you don’t make it at Tesla, you go work at Apple. I’m not kidding.”
- How feds helped Amazon make cloud ‘the new normal’
More agencies are hopping on board, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, which announced a $39 million contract with Reston-based Blue Canopy to build the agency’s advanced analytics capabilities on AWS.
http://fedscoop.com/how-feds-helped-amazon-make-cloud-the-new-normal
- 3 Supply Chain Career Requirements for Millennials
Anybody working at the moment wants these things, not just the millennial crowdHow does this translate to working in supply chain management? Best guesses, ad hoc decision-making, and antiquated forecasting and planning methodologies represent a minefield of frustration for the millennial worker. They want access to data and analytics that provide actionable insights—quickly. If you can provide them with that, their confidence in analyzing and acting on data will translate into significant operational effectiveness for your supply chain.
https://blog.kinaxis.com/2015/10/3-supply-chain-career-requirements-for-millennials/
Supplier Report: 10/10/2015
It was a very interesting news week. The big talk going into the weekend is that Dell is making a play for EMC. Dell would have to borrow a substantial amount of money to make this happen, and the rumor is that they are only interested in certain pieces, potentially breaking up Joe’s empire.
Speaking of empire building, Amazon is coming on strong this week with the announcement of their own IoT environment strategy AND a strategic partnership with Accenture to sell services. This is a very interesting combination that demonstrates Amazon’s desire to overtake the enterprise market.
Microsoft also made waves with their laptop announcement. As Microsoft unleashes their own products and hardware to go against Apple, what is left for HP Inc, Lenovo, and Dell?
Oh yeah, and IBM is creating AI to eliminate everybody’s job… just kidding (or so Ginny says).
IBM
- IBM Acquires Cleversafe To Accelerate Hybrid Cloud Storage Strategy
“The company uses unique algorithms to slice data into pieces and reassemble the information from a single copy, rather than simply making multiple copies of the data, which is how storage traditionally has been done. As a result, Cleversafe can store data significantly cheaper and with greater security,” according to a statement released by IBM.
- IBM CEO: Automation Won’t Decimate Job Market
“This is not about replacing people. It is about augmenting what man does … this helps us do things we couldn’t do,” Ms. Rometty said Tuesday at the Gartner Symposium, a gathering of CIOs and business technology professionals.
http://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2015/10/06/ibm-ceo-automation-wont-decimate-job-market/
- IBM forms new cognitive business unit to promote Watson
She pointed to AP’s “robot journalists,” IBM Chef Watson, and shopping and fashion virtual assistants as examples of early cognitive deployments across a variety of industries, but she also said that IBM’s Cognitive Business Solutions group has a ways to go before cognitive computing is a mainstream business technology. “Real growth and adoption will occur when cognitive computing becomes much less complex to adopt and manage — consumability is key,” Goetz said.
- IBM Watson: Reuters works with AI machine to increase efficiency at law firms
I know someone in the legal field who reads this website that should be very interested in this one.Among those keeping a watchful eye on Watson is Clifford Chance global head of innovation Bas Boris Visser. Last month at The Lawyer Business Leadership Summit Visser spoke about how the AI software would soon be capable of dong the same work currently carried out by trainees and paralegals.
- IBM and AT&T announce partnership to protect corporate apps and data
This time round, however, AT&T and IBM aims to help customers secure the device, connectivity and data and offers four products the two are collaborating on. IBM MobileFirst Protect helps organisations manage and control devices, apps and documents alongside IBM Cloud on the SoftLayer infrastructure, while AT&T NetBond provides a highly secure, scalable network connection and AT&T Work Platform enables separate billing of business and personal charges for voice, messaging and data usage – a concept readers of this publication will be familiar with.
EMC
- Wait… there is EMC talks that don’t involve divesting or mergers with HP?
The details surrounding this proposed merger are still very sketchy, with CNBC reporting that Dell would have to pay north of $27 a share, and the WSJ suggesting that Dell may only be interested in “parts” of EMC. Regardless, if Dell acquires EMC or picks off its best parts, there isn’t much investment upside beyond the short-term buyout pop that is likely already priced in EMC stock. However, if EMC acquires Dell, it could be a different story. Further, the Dell and EMC merger would be bad for the likes of HP and IBM.
http://investorplace.com/2015/10/dell-emc-merger-great-fit-bad-hp-ibm/
- More on the potential merger:
Hewlett Packard
- Apple Can’t Kill Microsoft But It’s Crushing HP
PC sales have declined as consumers flock to Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Android devices instead. Gartner’s data is just the latest example of the personal computer’s secular fall and is bad news for Lenovo, the top PC maker with 20% market share, and Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ), the PC maker in second place. Weak PC sales have been killing Hewlett-Packard as shares are off more than 26% year to date. Microsoft has done reasonably well with its shares up 4.23% year to date, as the company’s Office and Server products are more than offsetting Windows’ decline. Investors can only hope Hewlett-Packard’s additional layoffs and cost control measures will turn things around for the giant.
http://www.insidermonkey.com/blog/apple-cant-kill-microsoft-but-its-crushing-hp-376244/
Other
- Supreme Court sides with state, against Oracle, on executives
“Today, the Oregon Supreme Court refused to let Oracle’s executives off the hook,” Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum said in a statement. “In August, these high-level executives had complained to the court that they did not bear any personal responsibility for any misrepresentations they may have made to the state about Oracle’s work product.”
- Amazon unveils cloud platform for Internet of Things to take on IBM, Microsoft and others
Amazon hopes to get a piece of the IoT market before it’s too late. According to a forecast from research firm IDC, the size of the IoT market will nearly triple to $1.7 trillion by 2020. “Connected does not necessarily mean useful,” said Amazon CTO Werner Vogels during a keynote address at the company’s re:Invent developer conference in Las Vegas. He said Amazon is aiming to make the process of creating services for different wirelessly-connected devices a cohesive process.
- Amazon-Accenture tie-up threatens IBM, HP in tech services
Amazon is trying to grow its Amazon Web Service cloud business by selling a broader range of services to enterprises, which requires closer collaboration with global technology consulting firms, like Accenture, that work with large, traditional businesses. That may pose a bigger threat to traditional computer-services companies such as Hewlett-Packard and IBM as corporations look for cheaper and more efficient ways to outsource management of their data and networks.
- Microsoft: Did They Just Destroy the PC Biz for HP, Dell, etc?
Doherty, who said he was on his way to buy candles for the death of the PC, was responding to the unveiling onstage by Microsoft exec Panos Panay of “Surface Book,” a laptop starting at $1,499 that turns from notebook into a tablet by detaching its screen using a specially-designed hinge between the two
Video: How Amazon’s Algorithm Gets You to Spend Money
News You Can Use: 8/26/2015
- The hazards of go-to people
For the staffers who are not the go-to people, things often don’t work out too well either. They can end up in a self-reinforcing cycle of unhappiness and poor performance. When they realize that they are not one of the go-to people they might miss out on the opportunities to work on exciting or important things, since they are not considered dedicated and capable.
http://www.cio.com/article/2973120/leadership-management/the-hazards-of-go-to-people.html#tk.rss_all
- Target’s Big Issue: Modernizing Its Supply Chain
From September, Mulligan will be overseeing a reorganization of Target’s supply chain system. CEO Cornell described the present system as “an incredibly complex supply chain, built to serve an outdated linear model in which product flows from vendors through distribution centers to stores.” Now what is needed is a new structure that goods can flow in multiple directions as orders are made, including orders from customers for store pick-up or home delivery. The outmoded way is costing Target money and time, neither cheap commodities.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/3458396-targets-big-issue-modernizing-its-supply-chain
- Amazon sounds like a hellish place to work (the complete saga):
Oh, and if you have any shred of a personal life or bodily ailment, Amazon is probably not the best place to work. The Times notes several disturbing cases wherein employees have been criticized for scaling back their hours to take care of sick and dying family members or small children. A woman who had thyroid cancer was given a low performance rating after she returned, while another woman suffering from breast cancer was put on a “performance improvement plan” because her personal “difficulties” had interfered with fulfilling her work goals.
http://gizmodo.com/working-for-amazon-sounds-utterly-soul-crushing-1724325816
To add more (from the NYT):Amazon employees are held accountable for a staggering array of metrics, a process that unfolds in what can be anxiety-provoking sessions called business reviews, held weekly or monthly among various teams. A day or two before the meetings, employees receive printouts, sometimes up to 50 or 60 pages long, several workers said. At the reviews, employees are cold-called and pop-quizzed on any one of those thousands of numbers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-in-a-bruising-workplace.html?smid=tw-share&_r=1
And now, the NYT backs off (seriously?)In addition, the evidence against Amazon, while powerful, is largely anecdotal, not data-driven. And anecdotes can be used and interpreted in any number of ways. A reader, Len Edgerly of Cambridge, Mass., wrote to object to parts of the article, particularly a story from Mr. Bezos’ childhood in which he tries to make his grandmother quit smoking by blurting out precisely how many years of her life she had already lost, causing her to burst into tears.
- Monitor Financial Distress in Your Supply Chain
Manufacturers should prioritize, understand, and address troubled supplier situations with advance awareness. That’s why companies should continually analyze their contracts to maximize leverage, and understand available legal options. To alleviate the pressures of financial distress, manufacturers should exercise common law and statutory remedies in order to purposefully tweak standard terms and conditions of new contracts (or negotiate changes to existing contracts). The terms of these contracts significantly impact the manufacturer’s ability to re-source production to a healthier supplier, recover tooling, and utilize certain remedies.
http://www.natlawreview.com/article/monitor-financial-distress-your-supply-chain
- The 4 Levels of Organizational Alignment
No matter how SMART goals are, they’re irrelevant if they aren’t actively communicated. This is a top-down process, meaning employers need to play an active role in communicating the company vision. Whether it’s through company-wide newsletters or calendars, weekly meetings or goal-management software, keep employees up to date on progress toward goals.
- 8 Team-Building Mistakes Richard Branson Would Never Make
During an Entrepreneur blog post, Branson said, “You need to give your people the freedom to get creative, to come up with their own ideas and run with them. If someone comes to you with an idea for a business, why not ask that person to launch a startup? Over the years some of our employees’ ideas have resulted in our setting up businesses. This has helped us to enter new markets and, more often than not, succeed. Your company should act as a springboard for ambitious employees, not a set of shackles.”