News You Can Use: 10/28/2015

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  • Millennials: Entitled or Just Ambitious?
    As they come into their own professionally, millennials are shifting corporate culture and the way companies are organized. In this video, Jamie Notter, co-author of “When Millennials Take Over” digs deeply into common millennial values and how they’re changing the ways top companies compete for premium talent. Unlike previous generations, millennials aren’t satisfied with years of “paying their dues” in positions of low responsibility. They want autonomy, transparency, and a sense of mission. Expect to see the tides continue to shift in this direction as the emerging generation takes the reins in the coming decade.
  • Your Best Ally For A Big Data Budget

    Under pressure to provide better information on their businesses, CFOs are beginning to latch onto the possibilities that big data and analytics offer for their own financial reporting. A survey by Ernst & Young found that 90% of the 500 responding CFOs and others with financial titles expect to be reporting on forecasting, sustainability, and corporate social responsibility within three years. That effort will take some investment, and CPOs can perhaps make a case that with their management of the supply chain they can help, if they have the resources.

    http://www.procurementleaders.com/blog/my-blog–paul-teague/your-best-ally-for-a-big-data-budget-575274

  • Why Dell acquisitions strategy beats the industry’s Frankenstein approach

    Dell’s method was developed initially at IBM to preserve the value of the acquisition. It does that by shifting the focus from conformance to focusing on the value of the company acquired. The first step is to identify and protect the assets that were acquired and then not doing anything to damage what was purchased. In general the firms culture, process, compensation plan, span of control, executive team, hiring process, and even location remain intact.

    What gets changed are things that can be done behind the scenes to cut costs and increase execution. For instance, it is common to use Dell’s advanced supply chain to increase the speed of the acquired firm’s execution and reduce its costs. If the change makes financial sense and doesn’t put the identified assets at risk then it is put into the plan, if it doesn’t it isn’t.

    http://www.cio.com/article/2997155/mergers-acquisitions/why-dell-acquisitions-strategy-beats-the-industry-s-frankenstein-approach.html#tk.rss_all

  • How to cure the Sunday night blues
    I am definitely someone who suffers from Sunday night blues and of all their suggestions, this is the one that I deploy to keep it in check…

    While it’s tempting to dash out the door on Friday evening, you might be doing yourself a big favor if you take a bit of time to organize the following week first, O’Brien says. Or, take a few minutes on Saturday morning to plan what will need to be done on Monday, ensure you have the information and resources you need to complete those tasks, and identify any obstacles or challenges so they don’t catch you by surprise.

    http://www.fastcompany.com/3052390/how-to-be-a-success-at-everything/how-to-cure-the-sunday-night-blues

  • CIOs turn to cloud-based analytics to manage IT asset costs
    I want to know more about this Apptio services to see if it is legit…

    LaPlaine says he started off with rudimentary calculations, using Apptio to figure out total IT costs divided by total IT assets. This revealed data duplications in the general ledger, missing lease costs and other bad data. “We spent a ton of time cleaning up data … now we have a very rich model,” LaPlaine says. He counts 25 IT services in AOL’s service catalog, which produce 70 invoices every month to run and support IT services, including public cloud software from Amazon Web Services and Salesforce.com, as well as kilowatt power costs its IT systems generate. LaPlaine, who sends the corporate finance department a file with the costs every month, says he’s also using a new planning tool from Apptio to build his IT budget for 2016

    http://www.cio.com/article/2996559/cloud-computing/cios-turn-to-cloud-based-analytics-to-manage-it-asset-costs.html#tk.rss_all

  • More on Apptio… (from 2009 and not directly published from the company)
    Here is something from the company…
  • Make Your Company More Like a Family to Attract Talent
    This is easier said than done with HR policy and in companies with a downsize requirement.  That being said… I lean more towards this style than not (and did so when I had my store)

    Beyond earning insight into a company’s operating information, employees need to feel like they’re given ample opportunity for personal development and that the company is invested in making that development happen. Sixty-one percent of highly talented managers work to leverage and develop employee strengths and attributes,according to Gallup. I’ve prioritized investments into a leadership development program that teaches basic management skills to current and future managers. Better leaders help motivate and inspire employees. In turn, those new leaders will live up to a company’s values and reinforce its culture.

    http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/249793

News You Can Use: 10/14/2015

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Photo: Will Langenberg

News You Can Use: 9/9/2015

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  • Overcoming IT Budget Planning Obstacles for Risk-minded CIOs

    While having access to benchmarks plays a key role in helping CISOs keep the budget in line with peer organizations, leadership will understandably want a clear picture of how the business is investing. This is why it’s crucial that CISOs build an easy to understand investment strategy that outlines exactly where the organization intends to spend its allotment and what the return on that spend will be. The goal here is to first gain an understanding of where the organization falls short today, as well as document and communicate strengths. CISOs need to be able to address how current security investments are performing, not just what the gaps are. This is where having something as simple as a security report card can effectively demonstrate security progress in language and terms that the organization’s leaders can understand. It also helps in building an incremental plan to clearly outline how the organization can improve security.

    http://www.cio.com/article/2978284/security/overcoming-it-budget-planning-obstacles-for-risk-minded-cios.html#tk.rss_all

  • Want Early Payment Discounts? It All Starts At The Back

    More troublesome still, above all of the influencing factors outside of the buyer’s control, is the need for vigour in the technologies supporting supplier payments. There’s obviously little point negotiating early payment discounts if the purchase-to-pay (P2P) system, whirring away in the back-end is too complex, outmoded or reliant on the rubber stamp – or, in the case of a great many banks, all three, and not so much whirring away as spluttering along – to facilitate such a thing.

    http://www.procurementleaders.com/blog/my-blog–harry-john/want-early-payment-discounts-it-all-starts-at-the-back-562355

  • Amazon Launches Amazon Business Marketplace, Will Close AmazonSupply

    “For years I’ve been going to procurement software events hosted by vendors,” she said. “Amazon is always the reference point for usability. ‘Why can’t buying for my business be as easy as shopping on Amazon?’ ‘Why doesn’t this procurement system work more like Amazon?’ Now Amazon has a specific marketplace for businesses to buy from Amazon and third parties, just as consumers use Amazon.com to buy from Amazon and used book sellers.”

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2015/04/28/amazon-launches-amazon-business-marketplace-will-close-amazonsupply

  • Why Millennials’ Amazon Experience Is Shaping Vendor Selection

    Bottom line, the future of procurement, is in the hands of people who are used to total buyer control. Depending on how you look at it, platforms like Amazon’s have either spoiled or enlightened them as to what’s possible for purchasing. They’re used to finding complicated commodities (organic, top-rated, fair trade, non-GMO, free shipping, crunchy peanut butter) in 2 minutes online.

    http://www.procurementleaders.com/blog/my-blog–guest-blog/why-millennials-amazon-experience-is-shaping-vendor-selection-560877

  • Sourcing Secrets: Web Scraping
  • Email is not dead

    Also, we spend much time talking about the “right time to send an email,” but the Adobe data shows we are consuming data at all times of the day. If you knew when your customer was in bed or in his “second office,” you could better target delivery when they are reading email.

    http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/250253

News You Can Use: 8/19/2015

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  • Defusing The Internet Of Things Time Bomb

    Perhaps the most concerning issue is the ticking time bomb of sustainability, or ensuring IoT devices remain secure long-term, throughout their entire life cycle. New paradigms are present here — who would have previously considered software upgrades for garage door openers or washing machines that might impact security or privacy?

    http://techcrunch.com/2015/08/10/defusing-the-internet-of-things-time-bomb/?ncid=rss

  • Three Ways Procurement Can Gain Millennial Appeal

    Millennials make data-based decisions every day, whether it’s using Yelp reviews to pick a restaurant or Mint to balance their personal finances. Luckily for procurement departments, Millennials expect to bring the same data-driven decision-making processes and skills into the workplace. Regretfully, though, few organizations have the right tools in place that make this a possibility. Many procurement departments still rely on siloed solutions, giving employees limited access to company data and making it nearly impossible to make accurate, data-based decisions. Without having a fully integrated solution in place that collects, stores and analyzes data from across the organization, employees aren’t able to make more informed, strategic decisions—another millennial repellent.

    http://www.sdcexec.com/article/12101749/three-ways-procurement-can-gain-millennial-appeal

  • 5 takeaways for companies overseeing interns

    At many workplaces, your manager is your mentor. And, sometimes your manager is open, communicative, and engaged. However, on those rare occasions an intern ends up with a manager like Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada (someone who ends conversations with the neck-tingling “That’s all”), it’s nice to have options.

    https://opensource.com/business/15/8/five-internship-lessons-for-managers

  • Apple’s diversity numbers
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    http://www.fastcompany.com/3049862/fast-feed/apple-finally-releases-diversity-numbers-shows-incremental-improvement
  • How to Retain Millennial Employees Through Workplace Equity

    According to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median tenure of workers ages 25 to 34 is only three years. The cost of this turnover averages between $15,000-$25,000 per employee. Do the math.

    http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/249548

  • Three signs you are better off abandoning your idea

    Unfortunately, you may not be the first and only person to come up with your particular idea. The last thing any entrepreneur wants to hear from an investor is that their groundbreaking work is an “uncommonly popular idea” but it happens. When it does, differentiate yourself in a crowded marketplace or accept failure and use it as an opportunity to regroup and pivot to a better idea.

    http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/249468

Photo: Genta Mochizawa, Unsplash

Productivity Bulletin: 3/13/2015

Photo: Sean MacEntee, Flickr

Photo: Sean MacEntee, Flickr