Category Archives: Technology

Technological Damnation #75: Mobile Movement

Two damning posts ago we wrote about influential damnation #75 Consortiums and how they were the damnation you couldn’t live with but yet couldn’t live without. However, consortiums are not the only damned-if-you-do but damned-if-you-don’t situation that you need to deal with this year. The other is the mobile movement.

Consumerization has been coming to supply management for almost a decade, heralded in by the likes of Coupa who lead the quest to bring B2C to B2B. And the current consumer craze is the mobile craze (which, by the way is so bad as a result of the social media frenzy that recent studies indicate that mobile devices are damaging 70% of relationships). It’s not just taking consumer sites by storm — every enterprise software provider and their doggy mascot are running around in circles trying to figure out how to implement mobile functionality in their supply management software suite.

This will be both a blessing and a curse. A blessing in that you will be able to access reports and key data on the go, your delivery personnel will be able to log deliveries on the go, and your customers will be able to check the status of deliveries on the go — but it will also be a curse. First of all, your ability to work anywhere, anytime means that you will be expected to work anywhere, anytime. Secondly, even small amounts of data entry will be painfully difficult due to small screens and even smaller keys. Third, the limited computing power and mobile bandwidth will make even simple processing tasks difficult and drive you absolutely crazy when you try.

And then there’s the social media craze that that’s going to ride the mobile movement bandwagon and bring a whole new level of craziness to the B2B world. You need to manage relationships with your suppliers, which means you have to manage relationships with your suppliers’ personnel — who believe that relationships are best maintained on FaceBook, that brief communiques are best delivered through Twitter, and that pictorial communications are best communicated through Instagram — on your phone. It’s mobile mania — and it’s going to take over your organization and your personnel. (And continue to ruin society.) Get ready!

It’s Only Been One Hundred Years

Since U.S. transcontinental telephone service was inaugurated by a call between Alexander Graham Bell, who invented the first practical telephone, and Thomas Watson, his assistant who later used his royalties from the Bell Telephone Company to found the Fore River Ship and Engine Building Company, which would become home to one of the biggest shipyards in America by 1901.

That’s right, it’s only been one hundred years since the inaugural telephone call from New York to San Francisco was made by Bell to Watson. And yet, one hundred years later we can call, email, tweet, and message in real time not just with New York and San Francisco, but with London and Shanghai.

When you consider how many years we existed as a civilization before we even had a light-bulb, it’s simply amazing.

Thirty Five Years Ago Today

Europe made its bid to get in on the space race and prepare for inter-planetary supply management with the first successful launch of the Ariane rocket. Developed by the European Space Agency, it was a four stage vehicle designed to put two telecommunications satellites at a time into orbit.

While it wasn’t a big step forward, like the Voskhod 1 which was launched 50 years ago on October 12, it put a new player in the inter-planetary game (as communication relay stations are going to be necessary, and that is going to be accomplished by way of satellites), and a player that would contribute to the International Space Station.

It may have been Christmas eve, but dedicated scientists kept working. It’s unfortunate that corporations, including General Dynamics, who promised us a convoy to Mars in 1975 back in 1963, didn’t show the same dedication.

Procurement Trend #12. BYOD Mobile Procurement

Nine trumped-up trends still haunt us, and it’s probably best that LOLCat has been trapped in a box by the Futurists as these are nine trends he doesn’t want to waste any of his nine lives thinking about. Plus, at some point we’re probably going to have to call in Scooby Doo to sniff out whatever it is that the futurists have been smoking because it’s hard to believe that anyone lucid would utter such statements.

So why do so many historians keep rambling on about BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) Mobile Procurement? Did they all upgrade their old Nokia flip phones to iPhone 6s and Sony XPerias all at once and realize that you could do more on a digital phone than just send a text? I don’t know, but I do know that:

  • everybody in the corporate world has at least one portable device
    and most people have 2 or 3 (that they carry everywhere)
  • modern smart phones and tablets have more power than early laptops
    and much higher screen resolutions to boot
  • software providers have contracted mobile fever
    and this isn’t necessarily a good thing

So what does this mean?

A plethora of portables

Go mobile where mobile makes sense and go wired where it does not. What do I mean by this? The software, and the device it runs on, should support the workflow and not the other way around. For example, inventory and procurement software should support the creation of goods receipts on a mobile device in the hands of a warehouse worker on the floor and the creation of new spend cubes by an analyst at her desk with a big screen monitor, not the other way around. Busy executives need the ability to approve requisitions and invoices on their mobile devices when they are on the go and have five minutes, but I wouldn’t let a payable clerk set up ACHs on her smartphone just because she can (for many, many reasons).

Portable power

Portables are powerful, and you can take advantage of that to allow a team member visiting a supplier to take notes on her tablet as she walks the plant, view reports that need to be discussed with the supplier, use the collaboration components of the software to message and video conference with her peers, and so on. But, as per the last paragraph, only use the power when it makes sense to do so. Just like power often drives people mad, overengineering the software just because you can leads to a maddening experience for the end user. When I want to see the shipment error rate I just want to see the $%^&* shipment error rate — I don’t want a 3-D spinning infographic that I have to twist and twirl to try and find the one number I need.

Mobile Madness

Every time your employee gets a shiny new mobile device, he’s going to want every excuse to play with his shiny new toy. Don’t give it to him. Stick to your guns and make sure the software you use only supports mobile interfaces where those interfaces make sense. Your employees aren’t paid to play on mobile devices, they’re paid to get the job done in the most efficient way possible. Sometimes that’s on the phone. Sometimes that’s on the tablet. And sometimes that’s on the old-school desktop box hardwired into the LAN that is at, of all places, the employee’s desk! Imagine that!