Tag: Risk Management

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News You Can Use: 12/9/2015

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  • 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

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News You Can Use: 11/11/2015

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  • Could Detroit become the next Silicon Valley?
    I have actually talked about this before… I actually think the urban setting and rock bottom real estate costs could lure young technical people who have been passed over to make something new.  It has the right mix of social cause and opportunity.  The city just needs to get out of its own way. 

    Amazon announced plans at the end of September to help continue this growth by creating a center of technology in downtown Detroit. The tech giant plans to build a corporate office to bring more full-time technology jobs to Michigan. And as a friendly introduction to the city, Amazon donated 30 Amazon Fire tablets to the Carver STEM academy program in the Detroit Public Schools, as well as $10,000.

    http://www.cio.com/article/3001690/startups/could-detroit-become-the-next-silicon-valley.html#tk.rss_all

  • Federal IT outsourcing spend alarmingly poorly managed

    Leading companies approach IT outsourcing strategically, taking an aggregate approach to managing IT services spending rather than making such purchases on a piecemeal basis. By doing so, they achieve four to 15 percent savings on these services annually, according to the GAO. While this report noted that efforts by these federal departments to better manage their IT outsourcing has improved in recent years, with each agency designating officials and creating offices to identify and implement strategic sourcing opportunities, it found that most of these agencies’ IT spending “continues to be obligated through hundreds of potentially duplicative contracts that diminish the government’s buying power.”

    http://www.cio.com/article/2999467/outsourcing/federal-it-outsourcing-spend-alarmingly-poorly-managed.html#tk.rss_all

  • IT Vendor Risk Management: Improving but Still Inadequate

    1. Nearly half of critical infrastructure organizations DO NOT conduct IT vendor security audits on a regular basis. These are the very firms that provide us with electricity, financial services, health care, telecommunications, etc. Very scary.

    2. Critical infrastructure organizations are especially lax around the security of third-party distributors. This is especially troubling since distributors not only source IT products as a proxy for customers but also provide value-added services (i.e. configuration, customization, installation, etc.). This gives distributors absolute carte blanche to corrupt otherwise clean hardware and software.

    http://www.networkworld.com/article/3002069/security/it-vendor-risk-management-improving-but-still-inadequate.html

  • 3 Plays Great Coaches Use to Deliver Criticism
    I don’t know if feedback has to be all sunshine and puppy dogs, but I do think it should be focused and not stated in generalizations. Critiques should be made with specific examples and then provide suggestions to avoid them (especially for younger workers).

    Good coaches don’t let an error overshadow what the player has done right all game. They complement the athlete on something they did well that half or an aspect of their game that they are improving. This shows the athlete that the coach isn’t just looking at them when they mess up, but that they recognize and appreciate the athlete’s strengths as well. The same is true in the workplace. Support your teammate and let them know where they have been excelling. The rule of thumb is five positive comments for every negative one. Interestingly, research on relationships both in and out of the business world has found that a similar ratio works for delivering criticism. Psychologist John Gottman analyzed married couples and found  the single biggest determinant  of divorce is the ratio of positive to negative comments the partners make to one another. The happiest couples demonstrated a ratio of about five positive comments for every negative one they delivered.

    http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/251416

  • Box CEO: ‘I’m the biggest anti-shadow IT person’

    CIOs didn’t get it, or chose not to, so Box initially circumvented CIOs, taking the product to departmental line of business managers. And when the software went viral, seeping its way into other parts of the business, Levie and his sales team would call the CIO and tell them. That angered CIOs, who often blocked Box. So Box ceased calling IT departments, quietly building up its technology features and bolstering security to make the software more palatable for enterprises. Now a mature, public company itself, Box counts General Electric, AstraZeneca, Proctor & Gamble and others among its customers. “I feel your pain now, I understand why you blocked us for so long,” Levie told the audience.

    http://www.cio.com/article/2999876/cio-role/box-ceo-i-m-the-biggest-anti-shadow-it-person.html#tk.rss_all

  • Is Your Team Starting to Look Like ‘The Walking Dead’? 3 Ways to Resurrect Team Morale.

    Innovate, disrupt, re-think. These are all key phrases in leadership buzzword bingo these days. Yet, all too often, companies don’t create a culture that really empowers people to take the healthy risks needed to bring about this kind of change. Speaking from personal experience, I was once fired for speaking my mind and challenging the status quo at one of my previous employers.

    You never know where the next great idea in your company might come from. So, it’s critical that leaders create a culture where employees know they will be heard and, more importantly, supported in seeing their ideas through to fruition.

    http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/252311

Photo: Jordan McQueen

Posted on

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

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News You Can Use: 8/5/2015

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  • Gartner Announces Rankings of Its 2015 Supply Chain Top 25
    sn_gartner25supplychain_forbes
    http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3053118
  • Detroit Is Cultivating Local Entrepreneurship to Secure It’s Future

    What have I been saying about Detroit and Camden?  It is going to happen…Detroit is also a city that is made of 82 percent African-American residents and 52 percent women residents, with an annual median household income of $26,000. When witnessing this new business growth we must ask ourselves, is everyone able to participate? Can all have the opportunity to start a business and grow? Nationally, according to our database, minority entrepreneurs make up 15 percent of businesses and contribute $591 billion in revenue to the economy. Will Detroit capture and foster this growth?

    http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/248844?ctp=BizDev&src=Syndication&msc=Feedly

  • Big Data and Risk are a Match Made in Heaven

    Tier one automotive supplier Borg Warner, for instance has developed a Supplier Performance Monitor using huge amounts of readily available data from its own SAP system plus third party data all fed through an artificial intelligence algorithm similar to Google’s search engine to stay ahead of problems.  Rather than periodically assessing risk and paying for protection with working capital, Borg Warner constantly listens for tremors and responds before the problem gets out of hand.

    sn_riskexposure_forbes
    http://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinomarah/2015/07/30/big-data-and-risk-are-a-match-made-in-heaven/

  • Amazon CTO: ‘We Still Consider Ourselves a Startup’

    It’s very important to realize today that with minimal investment you can start building applications. Five, ten years ago you would need millions [of dollars] in investment. It allows entrepreneurs to truly focus on new products without having to worry about the infrastructure, without having to get additional investment to buy hardware. And if you look at the big household names these days, Airbnb, Spotify, Instagram, Pinterest – all of these are born in the cloud. Without cloud, if you asked them, they would probably say they would not have been able to reach this scale at the speed they did, without it.

    http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/248884?ctp=BizDev&src=Syndication&msc=Feedly

  • Summer Break: Procurement’s Day in the Sun

    Added Miller, “the demand for supplier transparency and high-quality, responsibly-sourced offerings has never been higher. Cost containment will always remain a key sourcing objective, but today, it’s equally important that a company can find and retain reliable and reputable sources of supply.  How and where a product gets made can have far-reaching implications on an organization’s sales effectiveness and brand reputation.”

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulmartyn/2015/07/28/summer-break-procurements-day-in-the-sun/

  • Exploring Investment Drivers for Global Supply Chain Risk Management

    a new concept is emerging: global supply chain risk management (SCRM).
 Quite often, the decisions to invest in SCRM are often driven more by the fear of negative press – and of course regulatory penalties – than the opportunity to make the supply chain more resilient and maintain top-line revenue and market share, even in the case of a supply chain upset.

    http://spendmatters.com/2015/07/31/global-supply-chain-risk-management-investment-drivers/

Photo: Christian Joudrey

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News You Can Use: 6/15/2015

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  • Generation Y: A New Challenge For Travel Procurement

    When it comes to business travel, these digitally-savvy employees expect a sleek, consumer-like experience from corporate booking tools: when they don’t get it they turn to the consumer applications they already have to hand, and book outside the corporate environment. Not only can this lead to irresponsible spending, and weaker negotiated rates in the future, but it poses significant risks to a company’s “duty of care” responsibility towards its employees. If you don’t know where they are, you can’t help them in an emergency. So how can procurement help to bring Generation Y back into the fold?

    http://www.procurementleaders.com/blog/my-blog–guest-blog/generation-y-a-new-challenge-for-travel-procurement-542624

  • IBM and Procurement Transformation: By the Numbers, Risk Management and More
    [While this is interesting, I really want to know more about the AI/Watson solutions that IBM just started talking about]

    From a numbers perspective, IBM’s procurement performance KPIs and performance improvement metrics are more than impressive. Michael noted IBM saved $6.9B in approved and measured savings targets in 2014 compared to before the program was put into place. Payment terms now stand at close to 60 days rather than 30 days. Spend and contract compliance has increased from 50% to over 90%. Sourcing experts now look at 100% of spend compared to less than 10%. Electronic invoicing has increased from 20% to 90%. And 83% of POs never touch a buyer.

    http://spendmatters.com/2015/06/04/ibm-and-procurement-transformation-by-the-numbers-risk-management-and-more/

  • The Basics of making small talk:
  • This Calculator Will Tell You If A Robot Is Coming For Your Job

    For now, those with the highest-skill, highest-paid jobs are probably safe, and low-skill workers are not. “Inequality is probably the foremost challenge,” says Osborne. “It’s not going to be a problem of there not being enough wealth. We’re fairly confident that all of these technologies will continue to generate vast amounts of wealth—we’ll be generating a cornucopia of increasingly cheap and wonderful goods that will be able to be produced for next to zero marginal cost. But those benefits we’ll see as consumers might not necessarily be realized by workers.”

    http://www.fastcoexist.com/3047269/this-calculator-will-tell-you-if-a-robot-is-coming-for-your-job?partner=rss

  • 3 Reasons ‘Casual Flex’ at Work Doesn’t Work

    What’s more, one-third of workers worldwide feel stressed about work-life issues, according to a study by Ernst & Young about work-life challenges. And flexible-work policies that are merely informal may cause other systemic problems: A Boston University study found employees at a Boston consulting firm faking their 80-hour work weeks over fears that asking to use flexible-work options would cause negative reactions from management. These fears were well founded, it turns out. Employees who faked 80-hour workweeks were given excellent performance reviews, while those who openly asked for flexibility were negatively reviewed, even though they worked the same number of hours as their faking colleagues. That sort of scenario undermines trust and confidence in working relationships, to say the least.

    http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/246802?ctp=BizDev&src=Syndication&msc=Feedly