Category Archives: Talent

Dangerous Procurement Predictions Part II

As per our first post, if you read my predictions post, you know SI hates predictions posts. It fully despises them because the vast majority of these posts are pure optimistic fantasy and help no one. Why are the posts like this? Because no one wants to hear the sobering reality off of the bat in the new year and the influencers care more about clicks than actually helping you.

But the predictions are not only bad, they’re dangerous. And to make sure you don’t fall for them and make bad decision based on them, we’re going to tackle some of the most dangerous predictions, which include predictions that look innocuous at first glance (like the last prediction on how a big legacy suite will go out of business) but hide the dangerous consequences of what will actually happen if a big suite finds itself in big trouble. Today we tackle the next four, and you can be sure this won’t be the last post in our series. Feeds are still being flooded with prediction posts, and I’m done ignoring the insanity.

4. The jobs market will be tough for the first half of the year, but will start to pick up in Q3 and Q4.

The job market is tied to the economy, and everyone predicts the job market will rebound when the economy picks up. But here’s the thing. Even when the economy picks back up, the job market never does quite as well as the last time. And the economy isn’t going to magically improve half-way through the year. This is the exact same thing we’ve been told the last two years, and it hasn’t happened.

First off, most of the first world economies around the world are flat, borderline recession, or in recession. Secondly, the only thing propping the US economy up right now is AI, and the money circles keeping it afloat as all the AI, Hardware, and Software companies keep moving the same money around investing in each other to keep each other afloat. If the bubble bursts, the US is in trouble, and the economy will quickly flush itself down the toilet. And the job market will go with it.

Considering only the big tech giants who have been hoarding cash for the last few years are in good shape, and everyone else is trying to conserve cash to survive not only the current market but a potential recession, the last thing they are going to do is hire unless absolutely necessary to fill a critical role as a result of a departure. Remember, they’ve spent the last two years using AI as an excuse to lay people off and are always looking for the next excuse to lay people off, not hire them!

Jobs will continue to be super scarce, and only the best will have a chance to land one.

5. We’re in the early stages of a broader pushback (against unnecessary upgrades or technology investments).

A few companies smartening up and saying no to forced big provider upgrades, eight (8) figure consultancy projects, and big Gen-AI investments is not pushback. There have always been a few leaders who have broken away from the pack, did the math, and made the right decisions, but the pack is still charging ahead on Gen-AI. Every big software shop except IBM (who hired a CEO who can actually do math) has invested heavily in Gen-AI, which still loses four dollars for every dollar of revenue, despite any hopes of a real return in the near future and a 94% failure rate.

Let’s face reality. I warned this space about The Vendor In Black nineteen years ago and how he always Comes Back sixteen years ago, no one took heed then, and no one is taking heed now. The business model of the enterprise software space, which has not changed for the two decades I’ve been covering it, is to solve the problem created by the old sh!t by selling the customers the new sh!t that comes with new problems so they can sell even newer sh!t in three years to fix those (and so on). Same old story. Only the vendor names change.

6. We Won’t Buy Things; We’ll Orchestrate Ecosystems.

This prediction likely came straight from the A.S.S.H.O.L.E. and anyone who repeats it should be ashamed of themselves. There are no AI Employees. Claims to the contrary are false and anyone making those demeaning and degrading claims is simply dehumanizing you. And, as we have clearly explained, you definitely don’t want agentic buying because it will happily spend your money not only on stuff you don’t need but stuff that doesn’t exist and, if you’re super unlikely, stuff that is highly illegal. You need wood, it will buy up all the Minecraft wood because it’s cheap and call your problem solved. And that’s if you’re lucky. If you’re not, it will fulfill your resin need with an illegal purchase of hash (the drug) on the dark web (which is labelled resin so the poster can claim they never advertised an illegal drug). And so on.

Plus, as we have already noted, most of today’s “orchestration” platforms in Source-to-Pay are really ORCestration platforms and can barely connect a handful of major Source-to-Pay offerings. They’re nothing close to what is needed to orchestrate ecosystems.

7. Boards will Zero in on Supply Chain Security and Supplier Risk shifts from quarterly PowerPoints to continuous “signalops”.

Just like they won’t invest more in cybersecurity, they won’t invest more in supply chain security until they lose a shipment in the tens of millions. After all, they’ve got supply chain insurance, why should they care? Especially since their current security measures have been sufficient up until now.

But here’s the thing. When the economy goes down, jobs go down. And then two things happen. People get desperate and turn to crime. And criminals, when their investments in drugs, alcohol, gambling, prostitution, and other quasi-legal through illegal activities start losing money because unemployed people run out of money to spend on their vices, these criminals get desperate too — and high value theft becomes more attractive. A temporarily unguarded truck here. A container there. An entire warehouse. And so on.

If it’s critical raw materials they can move (like rare earths), in-demand finished electronics they can sell (like iPhones, where a single container will contain at least 20M worth), military equipment or weapon (component)s that are now in demand globally, they’ll take bigger and bigger chances, especially if there are weaknesses in security. It’s not just cyber attacks that are going to increase, it’s physical attacks, supply chains aren’t ready, and companies won’t even stop preparing them until they lose tens of millions, don’t recover it all through insurance, and risk losing their insurance entirely. No one likes the math of risk prevention because, when it works, you don’t see the return. Even though it’s so much cheaper than insurance! And that’s why, in the majority of organizations, nothing will change.

Primary ProcureTech Concern: Talent Acquisition/Upskilling

Despite the false promises to the contrary, AI will not replace people for critical tasks in the near future and talent will be required.

Why?

This should be no surprise since one of the biggest barriers to success is the talent gap and one of the largest risks is the loss of the critical talent the organization has. As a result, an organization worried about its future should be very concerned about its ability to identify, acquire, and retain top talent.

Impact Potential

The potential impact of being unable to attract and upskill top talent ranges from

  • inefficiency: when unskilled sub-par talent take longer to get work done and do it more poorly
  • inaccuracy: in analysis and resulting decisions along with process and tech selection
  • inability: to manage categories, design new products, mange contracts and commitments
  • inaccessibility: to key suppliers, tenders, markets, channels, etc. if there is no one that knows how to manage them, speak the language, follow the rules, etc.
  • incohesiveness: as a lack of leadership and/or competence causes teams to fall apart

In summary, a lack of capable Talent can cripple an organization!

Major Challenges/Risks

  • lack of skilled talent: in many STEM (related) areas, there is a lack of skilled talent in the market due to lack of graduates, and even a lack of an appropriate student talent pool (as the US is 19th in the OECD rankings for adaptive problem solving and 25th in the OECD ranking for numeracy overall. (See our recent post.) That’s the good news. In the 2022 PISA test, the US ranked 34th out of 81 countries. When it comes to advanced math levels in the student population, some tests put the percentage of US students at a mere 7% compared to 30% of students in Singapore. Even back office jobs which are now analytics focussed and data dependent require advanced numeracy and problem solving skills.
  • lack of experienced candidates: with every recession, market instability, purported technological advancement, etc., companies slash headcount to preserve cash and the first to go are the experienced talent; then, when they hire, they hire cheap inexperienced graduates — with no one left to train them appropriately
  • lack of leadership: leadership requires people who have been there, done that with leadership skills — the more been there, done that that are retired, and the less that are properly trained, the less there are

Final Words

In summary, there’s a lack of talent across the board and you’re competing with everyone else. A talent war is coming, and it’s not one any organization is guaranteed to win.

(Supplier) Diversity is Dead!

Editor’s Note: This is an extended version of a comment that was made in response to an inquiry by THE REVELATOR on LinkedIn about the progression of supplier diversity.

The simple fact of the matter is thus: diversity threatens fascists who want authoritarian dictatorships. This means that as long as far right wing agenda politicians keep getting elected in first world countries (which has been happening more than not over the last decade), not only is DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) not going anywhere, but it is going to be rolled back, and done so faster than most policies that came before in countries which equated diversity progress with measurable outcomes.

The sad reality of the situation is that as soon as the board/chief/president of an organization or governmental department concluded that you were not diverse if you did not have x% of whatever minority the board/chief/president thought you should have x% of by time y, and started equating diversity success with measurable outcomes, we went from a situation where “equal opportunity” was replaced with “minority designated role”. And instead of being a further step in the right direction, it was often a step backwards. Under equal opportunity, if two candidates were roughly equal for a role, the role is to go to the minority candidate. And that’s a good thing. However, under “minority designated role”, non-minorities are banned from consideration, and this is not a good thing if there are no qualified minority candidates available for the role. A senior role that should demand a full University degree (Bachelor’s or higher), a decade of experience, and one or more certifications may end up going to someone who just has a 2 year associates degree, only 3 years of work experience (barely relevant to the role), and no certifications as that is the most qualified person who applied.

What many firms fail to take into account when considering diversity mandates is the number of qualified candidates in the minority who are actually in the vicinity of, and who are then actually interested in, and willing to take on, the position. For example, if you were to demand that half of your coding team need to be women, good luck with that when only 25% of STEM graduates in North America are female. (So if you did get 50%, a lot of other companies wouldn’t get any female hires.) Or if you demand that 1/5th of your workforce be hispanic, to mirror the US population distribution, but it’s an in office job in a major city in an expensive neighbourhood where 95% of the local population is white, good luck with that. You might meet your quota, but you know that the vast majority are not going to be qualified for the role.

And DEI didn’t stop there at some organizations and institutions in North America. As soon as people figured out that a DEI program or a particular minority designation could be used to exclude people of certain religion(s) they didn’t like, it went from a tool of inclusion to a tool of subversive discrimination. (So much for equity and inclusion!) Then came the backlash; the labelling of anything even remotely related to DEI, equal opportunity, or humanity as woke; and a full on assault by the fascists and authoritarians.

More specifically, in countries where they have enough power in the government, the authoritarians are dismantling any and all programs they have control over, barring any third party organizations with such policies from doing business with their government, and doing whatever they can to overturn all DEI and Equal Opportunity legislation they can, as far back as they can.

Moreover, given that these far right wing parties are being well funded by donations from the tech bros who spend more time meddling in global politics than running their own ventures, there are not many options for progression of ANY diversity on the global stage.

2025 Is Just Another Year … But Is It All Doom and Gloom? Part 3 (The Talent Tussle)

It’s another year, unless you decide to make it otherwise. As per our last instalment, the first thing you can do is look behind the hype and find the right tech (and not the tech the vendors and analysts are trying to push upon you.) The next thing you can do is:

Identify Talent Outside the Norms

There’s not enough talent in Procurement as there is, so STOP LOOKING in Procurement. Unless you are going to be smart enough to bring back apprenticeships, and even then, that could be long term talent (especially if you are bringing in kids with no real world experience in what the company does, how to run a company, or even how to do basic buying).

Start looking in functions that understand the business need, and find the doers with good people skills, good planning skills, and good computing technology skills. Hire them and train them in Procurement. Working for a manufacturer buying mainly direct parts — recruit engineers as sourcing professionals. Working for a department store chain selling primarily CPG, hire a distributor rep who knows all the big brands, products, and logistic networks as procurement professionals. Looking to create better contracts, hire a lawyer with a STEM background as your contract manager. What to get vendor management right, hire former vendor account managers who worked for multiple big names that match your customer profile and train them on Procurement needs so they can find a balance that will NOT p!ss off your customers. It’s a lot easier to teach basic Procurement than engineering, advanced logistics modelling and management, law and risk management. Especially to reasonably skilled and intelligent engineers, Masters of Operations Management in logistics, lawyers, and economists specializing in econometrics (and risk management). I’ll tell you one thing, learning everything a Procurement Manager did buying a nine (9) figure category was way easier than designing one of the first Strategic Sourcing Decision Optimization solutions that hit the market (and the first with multi-line item support, as recognized by Gartner 25 years ago), and that’s with a PhD and degrees in mathematics and computer science. It’s not Procurement that’s hard, it’s the people and planning skills that are hard, and that comes from doing the hard STEM (-based) degrees and getting real world experience applying those degrees. And if you can find the engineer, lawyer, economist, etc. who’d rather work with people than machines, and offer them a bit more, those are golden hires that will quickly transform your operation once you teach them what Procurement does (as they are also seekers of efficiency and outcomes).

The reality is that Procurement skill is not buying skill, it’s relationship management skill; it’s strategic planning skill; it’s logistics management and supply assurance skills; it’s quality management; it’s risk identification, mitigation, and management; it’s everything but buying. You can automate an e-auction or a multi-round RFP to do buying, or outsource it to a GPO if you don’t even want to think about it at all. The value of Procurement is not just cutting costs and keeping them down, but it’s keeping the business running, and that requires, as they say, mad skillz, and those aren’t found in traditional Procurement departments staffed by the island of misfit toys, despite what some bloggers may claim.

And then, once you have that talent, remember that they need good solutions and that

There Are Affordable Solutions

If you think solutions still cost mid to high seven figures when all is said and done, I have news for you. It’s not the noughts (even though you may feel like it because budget requests always end in the nots and get you in knots), it’s the twenties. (And if you don’t start roaring, the 20th century showed us what awaits in the thirties.) And good cloud-native SaaS solutions cost two orders of magnitude less. Enterprise licenses for BoB modules that can do everything an average mid-sized plus business needs to do (and more) start in the five figures, with starter solutions for SMEs and smaller mid-sized businesses being cheap enough to put on a P-Card. We’ve already told you about Spendata for spend analysis, but there are solutions for every step of the cycle.

You have (pay-as-you-go) solutions like Market Dojo or Serex Procurement for sourcing. New players like Bedrock and Canopy for SXM (and if you just want survey powered SPM, check out Vendor Score IT). CLM, check out Curtis Fitch or an AnyData Solution. SME Procurement — get yourself a Blue Bean. Or, if you want a full Procurement Suite with proven performance at the mid-market and F500 levels, bundle up everything you need, pay a reasonable six figure fee, and off you go to a Vroozi or Eyvo. Can’t manage those categories? Go do an Airflip. Not enough service management, it’s trivio with Zivio. Vendor Data Nightmare. You don’t need a team of overpriced Big X consultants, you just need a Tealbook. Too many apps? Get a Focal Point. SaaS subscriptions out of control, lock them away in SaaSrooms. And so on. (More information on most of these can be found in the SI Vendor Archives. Also, while the dives are not nearly as deep, Mr. Meads does his best to catalog the mid-market providers on his Procurement Software.site. It may not capture the Mega Map, but trust when I say that’s a good thing!)

Moreover, these solutions don’t take months to implement and years to integrate. They take a flip of a software switch to activate, usually a few hours to days at most to configure, and the only delay is usually your IT department providing the integration details to the necessary systems or producing the data dumps for flat file upload (which will then have to be cleansed, enriched, and mapped because your data will be dirty.) Some of these (like true DIY analytics, vendor performance assessment, and e-Procurement enhanced with full internal catalog [cross-indexed with active contracts and agreed to pricing], punch-outs, GPOs, and third party marketplace support) will deliver an ROI the DAY you start using them.

So get them … and use them!

Talent is About to Become MORE SCARCE!

I thought already made this rant in my myth busting of 2025, sorry, 2015 procurement trends, Part 3, but after reading THE PROPHET‘S grand vision based on what can only be a fanatical belief that “AI” systems will magically become intelligent at some point in the near future, despite the fact that the majority of these systems are based on the dumbest technology ever created and cannot possibly become intelligent as they can’t even reason, it seems I have to make it again. The point is, as long as anyone believes that technology will solve the talent problem, we have a problem. And if someone thinks it will make the situation better when it’s only going to make the situation so much worse … ESPECIALLY IN PROCUREMENT, we have to start shouting from the rooftops!

First of all, he quoted an “All-In” Podcast — which apparently is a favourite among the AI zealots because it claimed that “the speed with which we are about to automate jobs through AI will result in a return to socialistic government policies because so many will be out of work — as his backing, even though, just like automated transaction classification and analysis (when “AI” was first introduced into our space in the early 2000s) didn’t eliminate analysts, commodity buyers, and AP clerks, this iteration of the technology won’t eliminate those jobs either! It will make them more productive, to the point that one AP clerk, accountant, data analyst, report writer, or any other person who spends 90% of their time doing repetitive tasks that are capable of being 90% automated can do the work of 10 of these individuals. So yes, if a department is oversized, some people who only, and can only, do these repetitive tasks will be put out of work, but not all of them. First of all, many of these systems can only do these well defined tasks when they can be performed the same way every single time with little to no variance. Humans will always need to process the exceptions. This is especially true when an error could result in massive loss (approving a request from an impersonating entity to change the bank account correlated with a supplier to one that belongs to the fraudster, executing a contract for a desperately needed good or material at an unaffordable price, hiring the wrong person due to algorithmic bias and getting hit with a massive lawsuit, etc. — and yes, these AI systems are MASSIVELY biased based on the data sets they are trained on. Why? They are not based on pure automated-reasoning systems based on pure, unbiased, logic. They are based on probabilistic correlations in input data, all of which is, sadly, at least mildly biased to the views of the writer who wrote the materials.)

More importantly, since AI actually sands for “Artificial Idiocy”, especially in the case of Gen-AI which can’t even do basic reasoning (but fools many of you because this new generation of neural network technology can process and train on an order of magnitude more data than previous generations of deep neural network technology and build responses from partial responses that are highly correlated to partial inputs compared to previous generations that could only return fully canned responses to full inputs), it can’t be counted on to make strategic decisions, and shouldn’t most important decisions in business be made strategically???

The reality is that all jobs in a modern business (and especially white-collar jobs) should be centered on strategic decision making and collaboration vs. tactical data processing. Even the most simple job. Take the lowly AP clerk. That’s seen as tactical invoice processing and a role that should be 100% automated. Neither should be true. First of all, no machine can catch all potential issues, or fix all the issues it detects. There will always be exceptions that humans will have to address, with real Human Intelligence (HI!). Secondly, while these clerks should be following rules, they should also be analyzing the rules, especially around payment terms, payment options, investment opportunities vs. early payments, etc. Cash is royalty in most organizations, and organizations need to manage their cash strategically on a daily basis, not just in quarterly or annual planning. Expenses are not static over time, revenue is not 100% reliable, interest rates change regularly, tariffs can come and go on the whim of a single demented individual in most countries, and regular analysis of payment terms, early payment (discount) offerings, investments, and cashflow needs to be done. Moreover, while we wholeheartedly agree that a clerk should not make the decision, you can’t expect the head accountant to have the time to do, and review, all the analysis that should be done while also being responsible for all financial planning and all financial reporting, but if her staff does all of this and brings their analysis to her on a weekly basis, the right decisions can be made at the right time and the organization can evolve with the market. The last thing an organization should be doing is paying suppliers Net 15 when only Net 30 or Net 45 is required and it’s the time of year when revenue is less than expenses, or paying suppliers Net 45 or Net 60 when the organization is cash rich and suppliers are struggling (and forced to take loans, which increases their overall costs, and the overall costs they pass along to the organization).

In other words, we should only see massive layoffs of people who have no strategic skills and shouldn’t be in white collar jobs to begin with. (And maybe this is the solution to the lack of trades workers who are desperately needed across North America. When they are no longer able to fake their aptitude for a white collar job they aren’t suited for, they’ll have to shift, especially in the USA where socialism gets further and further from the agenda every year. Those Billionaires aren’t pouring Millions into Political Campaigns via SuperPACs because they want socialism!)

So while half of current white-collar jobs may be eliminated, it won’t eliminate the other half of white-collar jobs, even though it will shift where the white collar jobs are and what they are. Even though department sizes may decrease 75% in the new AI Agent-based organization, it will create almost half as many jobs as it eliminates. We’ve been told for 60 years (and yes, you read that right, SIXTY years) that a super generic AI would come along and solve all our woes, and for 60 years it hasn’t happened. (And we are no closer now than we were then, despite claims to the contrary.) However, as technology has progressed, specific technologies focussed on particular applications have become better and better and many individual task workflows can be mostly automated with specific RPA, ML, or “AI” technologies. Each of these specific technologies needs to be individually built/trained, installed, configured, maintained, and improved over time as the process needs to evolve with business and marketplace realities. This requires appropriately trained and experienced people. So, while the jobs in the business back-office will decrease, jobs in specialist “AI” tech shops making specific applications will increase. (And no, the majority of these applications, once created, won’t auto-install, auto-configure, auto-retrain, auto-adapt, etc. etc. etc.)

Even though Google might suggest that we will soon have “Agents” that will “extend the capabilities of language models by leveraging tools to access real-time information, suggest real-world actions, and plan and execute complex tasks autonomously” and the mass layoff will soon happen, it won’t. You see, very smart humans who are expert in both technology AND the task they want to replace a human with are needed to design, build, test, refine, and make these tools real-world ready. Guess what? These smart humans are few and far between (especially since the rate at which we are getting progressively dumber in western societies is accelerating year after year ever since the introduction of social media, and Twitter in particular). Most white collar office worker process experts are not deep techies and most deep techies have very little understanding of how real world tasks are actually done, and you need someone who is deep in BOTH realms to appropriately design and lead the building of such tools. The reality is that there just aren’t enough of those resources, which brings us to why TALENT IS ABOUT TO BECOME SCARCER … ESPECIALLY IN PROCUREMENT.

You see, the same people who are needed to lead the construction of this next generation of systems are the same people with the skills you need to effectively select, implement, integrate, and manage these new systems, and the team who will use them, at a super-human level, which is necessary if you want to reduce your tactical workforce by a factor of 2, 3, 5, or even 10. Moreover, this also the talent that the new niche consultancies need in order to deliver the same value of the big shops at a much more affordable price tag.

So while the “AI Agents”, once deployed, will allow the average tech-adept employees who are responsible for a set of tactical tasks to be way more efficient, they won’t be sufficient to lead the transition and manage the “AI Agent” technology going forward. And they will also be in short supply because these are the same resources that will be needed by the AI Agent builders as testers and, more importantly, the SaaS-backed consultancies delivering projects using this technology. So while one may think this technology will enable everyone to be productive, they really won’t.

In other words, the introduction of “Agent” technologies is just going to accelerate the war for talent, and you’re going to become even more desperate for it as time goes on (given that you haven’t invested in talent in decades). Very, very desperate!

However, at this point we should note that THE PROPHET gets one thing right — if you’re going to invest in a ridiculously expensive college or university education (that rarely teaches true critical thinking anymore, as they have become more focused on maximizing enrolment to maximize dollars and allow class sizes as large as 300, 500 or more as long as they all fit in the auditorium), focus on STEM, and, in particular, on degrees that focus on applied aspects and will allow you to build systems (software, physical, hybrid) or their components (chemistry, material science, etc.). “Agents”, even though they aren’t going to work nearly was well as advertised, are going to either drive jobs upstream to strategic jobs that make extensive use of technology (requiring a strong STEM education in addition to an understanding of what the business function you are in is doing) or downstream to traditional trades (as machines can’t, and won’t, be able to generically build things, serve us, etc. for quite a while; any robotics that does work is orders of magnitude too expensive for the average business, and totally out of reach of the average person).

It’s also why we need to note that THE PROPHET gets another thing right — you need formal apprenticeship programs as you need to start nurturing your own talent, as it will soon be so scarce you probably won’t be able to hire top talent anymore at what you can afford to pay as they will all be earning top salaries at “Agent” development tech shops or “Agent” enhanced services shops.

But sadly, this is the last thing he gets right and his third suggestion telling you to “go online and learn how AI and agents work” is totally off the mark if you want to become more than just a consumer of such technology. To truly understand how this technology works, so you can understand where and when it won’t work (and why), you need a solid understanding of not just the algorithms it is based on, but the underlying mathematics. You need a solid STEM education to truly learn why what you are doing works, or doesn’t. Furthermore, English will never be the language of real coding. COBOL was abandoned for a reason — it was too wordy for real coders, and the reality is that English is too imprecise to ever be a formal programming language!