Category Archives: Miscellaneous

Why We Need Trusted Sources

Some people think that everyone should be a blogger because they believe that the wisdom of crowds will find and filter the best content to the top and this, in turn, will give us better news, opinions, and commentary.

Well, I for one don’t. First of all, not everyone can write well. Secondly, even most of the well written stuff would probably be about Amy or Britney or Christina etc. Thirdly, the internet crowds (or at least the heavily active ones) are not very wise. Just ask Zach Braff who was scrubbed yesterday by crowd wisdom and had to post an impromptu video on YouTube to assure his fans, and his mom, that he is indeed very much alive.

Now, while I welcome the commentary of those more brilliant than myself, and sincerely hope that some of the former sourcing blogger heavyweights like Dave Stephens and Doug Hudgeon will make a triumphant return to the space, I don’t want to read the fantasy of the average moron or the debris that the “crowd wisdom” currently floats to the top on many of the social news selection sites. I want credible, reliable, and intelligent sources, not candidates for Zach’s Douche of the Day Award.

It’s Still All About the Pentiums, Baby!

It was exactly 3724 days ago today, or 10 years, 2 months, and 10 days ago today that Weird Al Yankovic proclaimed that It’s All About the Pentiums. I wonder if he knew that when he proclaimed:

 

My new computer’s got the clocks, it rocks

But it was obsolete before I opened the box

You say you’ve had your desktop for over a week?

Throw that junk away, man, it’s an antique

Your laptop is a month old? Well that’s great

If you could use a nice, heavy paperweight

 

that the trend was only just starting and that ten (10) years later it would still be about the latest generation of the Intel Processor (the Core 2 Duo), that your database would still be a disaster, that windows would still take a “day-and-a-half” to boot up, or that, regrettably, supply chain managers would still be king of the spreadsheets?

I’m wondering because 3724 happens to be the RFC on The Rise of the Middle and the Future of End-to-End: Reflections on the Evolution of the Internet Architecture. The end-to-end principle just happens to be the core architectural guideline of the internet. Addressing concerns of openness, reliability, robustness, user choice, and ease of new service development, the end-to-end principle, which was originally a question of where not to put functions in a communication system to insure that applications could survive partial network failures, is still as relevant as it ever was. While not a standards proposal, like most RFCs, it put forward some good questions as to how the internet should evolve, questions which are becoming increasingly important with the rapid proliferation of the internet across a wide range of wired and wireless devices on which you will want to seamlessly access your supply chain applications.

Simply put, you’re going to want to be able to run your apps whether you’re working on your server, working on your desktop, working on your laptop, or working on your mobile, and you’re going to want to be able to do it using an open architecture built on open standards. This is because you don’t want to be spending thousands upon thousands of dollars for proprietary products that use proprietary APIs on each platform that do nothing more than convert your data from proprietary format A to proprietary format B so your mobile can talk to the server. You just don’t.

So remember, it’s all about the pentiums, baby.

All Brands are Niche Brands

I loved the title of this recent article in Strategy + Business. All Brands are Niche Brands. It’s true. It doesn’t matter what you sell — automobiles (which the article was about), computers, music players, clothing, fast food, etc. You name it, it’s niche. It doesn’t even matter if the industry has a clear “market leader”, like Microsoft in operating system software, because, when you get right down to it, even though Microsoft might still have 85% of the OS market, they have so many versions that there is no true majority leader. Furthermore, as Linux and Mac OS X gain market share, their market is shrinking.

As Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt, authors of Freakonomics, and Chris Anderson, author of the Long Tail, have noted, with a global population approaching Seven (7) Billion, two standard deviations from the mean is fast becoming a sizable market in its own right, with a potential market size of up to 280 Million (as only 95.4% of the global population is within two standard deviations of the mean). If we subtract the 39% living in poverty, and then restrict our market size to the middle class (about 45% in non-third world economies), that still leaves a potential global market size of up to 76 Million. And if even only 1% of that market would be interested in your product, that’s still a sustainable business for a small company.

Plus, with product proliferation almost out of control in some verticals — such as cell phones, media players, and clothing — it should be easy to see that niche markets are fast becoming the norm.

So next time you’re sourcing, remember that you’re not just sourcing a commodity, you’re sourcing a niche product for a niche market and, sometimes, differentiation does help.

Share This on Linked In

Employers Getting Tough On Social Networks … About Time!

While I have no problem with business networks like Linked-In and Plaxo, and web 2.0 tools like Slideshare and Trip-It, and see the great value they have to offer, I still have a great disdain for social networks like Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter (and that’s why I’m faceless, spaceless, and twitter free) which have yet to bring useful applications to the table.

Even though you can argue that these networks do have some useful features, as Facebook allows you to create groups, MySpace allows you to share video (like YouTube and its YouTube channels), and Twitter allows you to post (tiny) urls to job openings and useful articles, the fact of the matter is that these sites are just filled with too much junk and too many distractions to truly allow you to be productive (unless you have the wavering focus of a hungry Indian cobra). I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be poked, prodded, bitten, shaken, and stirred when I’m trying to learn about cost reduction best practices; I don’t want to be pinged, walled, or buzzed when trying to watch an interview with a logistics expert; and I certainly don’t want to hear about someone’s latest foray to the restroom when trying to find a link to an article on procurement performance. Thus, I was thrilled to see this recent Industry Week Analysis that 76% of companies are now choosing to block social networking sites because while business networking sites, when properly used, can be good for business … having you constantly distracted at work isn’t good for anyone. Maybe that makes me an old fogey who should just go fuddle-duddle, but as you know, sometimes I just don’t care.

Finding the doctor This Fall

As you all know the doctor, who, unlike most (former) academics, doesn’t like to hear himself talk (which explains his predilection towards blogging), can be an elusive character to find (especially since he can only be found on the business networks). Nonetheless, he does emerge from the blogging burrow every once and a while and make a public appearance.

Right now, he is scheduled to be at the Mpower Group’s Best Practices Xchange (BPX) “Gaining a Voice in the Boardroom” Executive Roundtable on October 23, 2009 in Oak Brook (Chicago), Illinois. Speakers at this event will include Mpower’s CEO Dalip Raheja who will present recent research on identifying the main roadblocks that prevent sourcing and supply chain groups from achieving world class performance and Professor Lloyd Rinehart of the University of Tennessee on creating cross-functional reality-based relationships to elevate the roles of sourcing/procurement. The event will also present case studies from a major Fortune 500 manufacturing company and a major Fortune 500 services company (that happens to be one of the largest utilities in the US and) that overcame the challenges of elevating their organizations from cost centres to strategic internal partners as well as a breakout session on success metrics.

If you are a director-level or above executive who is interested in attending this event, please contact Nicolas Hummer (nicoh <at> thempowergroup <dot> com or 630 268 8963) for more information on this invitation-only event. (They’ve promised me that they won’t be stingy with invitations, but space is limited.)

He’s also planning to attend the 7th Annual International Symposium on Supply Chain Management on Managing Global Supply Chain Networks in Uncertain Times in Toronto, Ontario on October 29 and 30, 2009. The full program for this event can be found on the web-site and this year it will cover country specific studies, management in turbulence, supply chain optimization, supply chain performance, technology, process management, and transformation. Keynotes will be given by Craig McLaughlin, the Vice President of NA Logistics at Cadbury, who will be giving a talk entitled “Leading in Uncertain Times” and Joseph Cavinato, the ISM Professor of Supply Chain Management, who will be giving a talk entitled “Procurement/Supply: The Most Opportune Time Ever”.