Don’t let it happen to you!
To avoid this fate, start with these simple tips offered up in a recent blog post over on the Harvard Business Review on “how to avoid death by presentation”:
Requisition challenges and best practices.
The approval process needs to vary depending on what is being ordered, who is doing the ordering, the budget(s) the order is being made against, and the approval limits of the requisitioner, her supervisor, and/or the budget managers. It can be as simple as an automatic approval if the requisition is for approved items from approved suppliers at contracted rates within the purchase limits of the requisitioner, to a multi-level approval process where the supervisor has to sign off because it’s above the spending limits of the buyer, where the budget manager has to sign off because it’s for IT equipment, where the department manager has to sign off because it’s an off-contract purchase, and where the CPO has to sign off because it’s over $10,000.
As a result, the e-Procurement system needs to not only allow for the creation, management, and tracking of spend against budgets, but also needs to support the definition of very flexible routing rules of varying priority that will not only insure that all parties sign off on a requisition before it is approved (and used to generate a purchase order that is sent off to a supplier), but that it is routed to the approvers in an appropriate order. In the example above, it should not reach the department manager until the supervisor and budget manager have signed off, and should definitely not reach the CPO until the department manager has signed off. The routing should be generated automatically upon creation based upon the appropriately ranked approval rules defined in the system (which will include an automatic routing to the supervisor for definition of the approval chain for any purchase order that is not appropriately covered by other rules).
The e-Procurement system will need to either maintain an up-to-date organizational chart, or integrate with the HR system that does. This way, general rules can be written in terms of supervisors, budget managers, and other organization roles. Otherwise, rules would have to be defined using individual users, which would make maintenance a nightmare.
When evaluating the approvals capability of an e-Procurement system, which might include budgeting support and rules management, one should keep in mind the associated challenges of the approvals process, keep an eye out for best practice support, and insure that the solution will deliver the intended benefits. These topics will be addressed in the next post.
Next Post: Approvals, Part II
Editor’s Note: This is the sequel to The Vendor in Black which originally ran here on SI on February 17, 2007. And just like the sequel to The Cat in The Hat (appropriately titled The Cat in the Hat Comes Back) was even more esoteric and radical than the first, so is this sequel. Plus, it’s also quite symbolic, analogic, and terse* in a manner that is meant to obscure the deeper meaning and criticism. It is supposed to be this way. If you think about it long and hard enough, you should understand why. (And if you do not want to think deeply about it, just enjoy the rhyme. It will permeate your subconscious and one day you will have an epiphany.)
This was no time for play.
This was no time for fun.
This was no time for games.
There was work to be done.
All that deep,
deep, deep data,
all that data had to fit a schemata.
When the big boss went
out to a meet for the day,
she said, “somebody has to
clean all this away.
Somebody, somebody
has to, you see.”
Then she picked out two somebodies.
Sally and me.
Well …
there we were.
We were working like that
and then who should show up
but the Vendor in Black!
“Uh-oh!” Sally said.
“Don’t you talk to that Jack.
That Vendor is a bad one,
that Vendor in Black.
He plays lots of bad tricks.
Don’t you let him come near.
You know what he did
the last time he was here.”
“Play tricks?” laughed the Vendor.
“Oh, my my! No, no, no!
I just want to go in
to get off of the road.
Keep you mind on your work.
You just stay there, you two.
I will go to the servers
and find something to do.”
Then the Vendor went right in!
He was up to no good!
So I ran in after
as fast as I could!
Do you know where I found him?
You know where he was?
He was installing an app on the server!
He was!
The disc drive was spinning
and the hard drive heads, too.
And I said to the Vendor,
“What a bad thing to do!”
“But I like to install apps
on the server,” laughed the Vendor.
“You should try it some time,”
laughed the Vendor with splendour.
And then I got mad.
This was no time for fun.
I said, “Vendor! You get out!
There is work to be done.
I have no time for tricks.
I must go back and cube.
I can’t have you in here
installing apps like a rube!
You get out of this office!
We don’t want you about!”
Then I removed the CD
and let the timer run out.
The timer ran out.
And then I saw the tab!
A tab on the screen!
And, oh boy! What a tab!
An obnoxious cleansing tab!
It looked out of sync!
And I said, “Will this ever
work right? I don’t think!”
“Have no fear of that tab,”
laughed the Vendor in Black.
“Why, it will clean your input data.
Just like that!”
Do you know how he did it?
With old spending rules!
Now the data was mapped,
but our reports were April fool’s!
Then Sally looked in.
Sally saw the mess, too!
And Sally and I
did not know what to do.
We should work with the data.
But that mess! What a rot!
“It may never be fixed!”
Sally said. “It may not!”
But the Vendor laughed, “Ho! Ho!
I can clean the mess.
The way I fix report mappings
is express!”
“See here!” laughed the Vendor.
“It is not hard at all.
The way to clean up
a big mess is rule sprawl!”
Then we saw the Vendor code
more rules in the app.
Now the reports were all clean.
But the rules! What a frap!
“Oh, rule sprawl!” He laughed.
“Let me tell you some news.
The way to stop rule sprawl
is to create some more views!”
Whose views did he use?
I looked and saw whose!
And I said to the Vendor,
“This is very bad news.
Now the data is split
between S A P views!”
“But your boss will not
know about that,”
the Vendor did ack.
“She will never find out,”
Laughed the Vendor in Black.
“Her spending reports will have
no need for SAP.
I will clean up those views
with the embedded map-app.”
“But now we have too many views!”
I yelled. “What a day!
Map apps! What next?
Can you take them away?”
“Don’t ask me,” he laughed!
“Why, you know that I’m able!”
Then he popped up a dialog
and the Vendor he tabled.
“I can clean up these new views
before you count three!
No views are too hard
for a Big Vendor like me!”
He ran to the servers
and then the Vendor did twitch,
“It is good that your techs
have the right kind of switch.”
Then he mirrored the SAN!
Whoosh!
Now the views were in twos!
And all I could say was,
“Now what, Vendor?
What do I do?”
But the Vendor just stood still.
He just looked at the rack.
“This is NOT the right kind of a switch,”
the Vendor did ack.
“To axe views with this switch
will be hard, I take it all back.
I can’t do it alone,”
said the Vendor in Black.
“It is good I have someone
to help me,” he said.
“Outside in the van
at the back near the shed!
It is good that I have him
here with me today.
He helps me a lot.
This is Vendor Rep A.”
And then Vendor Rep A
took his Hat off his head.
“It is good I have some one
to help me,” he said.
“This is Vendor Rep B.
And I keep him about,
and when I need help,
then I let him come out.”
And then B said,
“I think we need Vendor Rep C.
These views are too much
for the A Rep and me.
But now, have no fear!
We will clean them away!
The three of us! Vendor Reps B, C, and A!”
“Come on! Take it away!”
Yelled Vendor Rep A.
“I will cleanse the new views
just like this! I avow!
It comes off the old SAN!
It goes to the web cloud.”
And then Vendor Rep B
cleaned up the web cloud
He cleaned it with SaaS,
put the views on dot net!
And then C replaced
all the views with ancient Vignettes!
“But look where it went!”
I said. “Look where it blew!
You blew the mess
off of the SAN. That is true.
But now our views are all free!
What are we to do?”
“Let us think about that now,”
said C, B, and A.
“With some help, we can do it!”
said Vendor Rep C.
Then pop! From the van
emerged Vendor Rep D.
Then, pop! Pop! Pop!
Vendor Reps E, F and G!
“We will clean up those views
if it takes us all day!
If it takes us all night,
we will clean them today!”
said Vendor Reps G, F, E, D, C, B, A.
They ran to the servers
and we ran to them too.
And the big Vendor laughed,
“Now you will see something new!
My Reps are all clever.
My Reps have the muse.
My Reps have good skills.
They will clean all those views!”
But this did not look
very clever to me.
Seven reps to clean views?
That just could not be!
“All those reps do is make more views!”
We yelled at the Vendor.
“Your Vendors are no good.
Take back those pretenders.”
“Take your Vendor Reps G,
F, E, D, C, B, A.
Shove them back in your van
And you take them away!”
“Oh no!” said the Vendor.
“All they need is more help.
Help is all that they need.
So keep still and don’t yelp.”
Then Vendor Rep G
took the phone off his hip.
“I’ll call Vendor Rep H
here to help us, ” he quipped.
“Vendor Reps H, I, J,
K, L, and M.
But our work is so hard
we must have more than them.
We need Vendor Rep N.
We need O. We need P.
We need Vendor Reps Q, R, S, T,
U, and V.”
“Come on! Kill those views!
Kill the mess!” yell the Reps.
And they jumped at the servers
with SQL and greps.
They coded in basic
on terminals Citrix!
Green and black! DOS attack!
The views were transfixed!
Oh, the things that they did!
And they all worked so proud,
It was all one big mess now
all over the cloud!
But the big Vendor stood there
and he said, “this is good”.
This is what they should do
and I knew that they would.
“With a little more help,
all the work will be done.
They need one more Rep.
And I know just the one.”
“Look close! In the back
You’ll see Vendor Rep V.
By his side are Reps W, X, Y, and Z.”
“Z’s a Rep you rarely see.
Don’t ask why. Or what’s up.
But Z is the Rep
who will clean the views up!”
“Now here is the Z
you will see,” said the Vendor.
“And I bet you can’t guess
where he gets all his splendor!”
“He has something called Voom.
Voom is so hard to get,
you never saw anything
like it, I bet.
Why, Voom cleans up anything
clean as can be!”
Then he yelled,
“Time to get going,
Vendor Rep Z!
Do your job, use the Voom!
Time to put on a show!
Hurry! Now Vendor Rep!
One! Two! Three! Go!”
Then the Voom …
It went Voom!
And, oh boy! What a Voom!
Now, you know what the Voom did?
It put everything back!
The views were deleted.
The reports were unhacked!
“So you see!” laughed the Vendor,
“Now your screens are all tight!
Now your work can be done!
Your reports are put right!
And you know where my Vendor Reps are?”
asked the Vendor.
“They all went back to the van
services tendered.
And so, if you ever
need views, now and then.
I will be very happy
to come here again …”
“… with Vendor Reps A, B, C, D …
E, F, G …
H, I, J, K …
L, M, N …
and O, P …
… and Q, R, S, T …
and Vendor U and Vendor V …
and Vendor Reps W
X
Y
and Z!”
* It’s so much more esoteric, radical, symbolic, analogic, and terse than the first, partially because of the forced meter, that the editor sat on it for almost a year while deliberating whether or not the time had come to post it!
Procurement leaders recently summarized a new study by A.T. Kearny that found that “CPOs [are] slow to focus on indirect” categories such as IT, Marketing, Professional Services, Facilities Management, and MRO. This is worrying when you consider that not only do some of these categories represent an organization’s biggest savings opportunity, but that indirect spending accounts for up to 50% of spend in many manufacturing organizations, 60% of third-party spend in non-manufacturing companies, and 90% of spend (or more) in the financial services industry.
This is doubly worrying when you consider that:
There are ample savings opportunities where indirect spend is concerned, and they can all be uncovered with good visibility and analysis. To find out how, start with the recent Sourcing Innovation Illumination on Strategic Spend Visibility.
It’s hard to say, as it depends on what the technology is, what it can do, and how readily (and often) it’s embraced by your people, but it’s probably worth it. Video conferencing reduces travel (which not only takes up time, but costs money at an average of over 1,000 a trip per person), online document sharing reduces wait-times (when you have to rely on mail or courier), and online inter-enterprise information sharing reduces issue resolution time (as compared to phone and fax tag).
If the tools enable collaboration, and you use them with the intent of collaboration, they certainly have ROI, as evidenced by this recent article in Talent Management on “What’s Your Return on Collaboration?”. According to the article, an implementation of an online meeting and conference solution at SAP generated the following returns for the company:
Now, this is only one case study, but it’s still impressive. Make it easy for your employees to work together, and they will.