Category Archives: Technology

Supply Chain Social Networks: Useful Resource or Productivity Killer?

In full disclosure, maybe I’m not the most neutral individual to be writing this post, as you already know my views on social networks and my intent to stay faceless and spaceless, but the invites to the new kids on the supply chain block, specifically, the Ning based SCM Professionals and iProcurement.org, have started to come fast and furious, as well as request to comment on them and their functionality. So, for better or for worse, here’s my take on the new “communities”.

In an effort to be optimistic, we’ll start with the positives.

  • They both have blog capabilities, and not only are blogs great sources of information, but there’s a few blogs out there that are better than most, if not all, of the publications in the space.
  • They both have news headlines from in-bound RSS feeds, however, the fact that they don’t list the article source or time is very annoying – and productivity draining. If you know a source consistently has poor articles or poor information – do you really want to waste time clicking through to it? And if you regularly click through to articles from poor sources, you’re going to quickly give upon the feature and deem it worthless.
  • They allow you share relevant presentation materials, as photos, and instructional videos from other sites. Of course, the search feature is only on the free-form video description text, which, if not carefully constructed by the uploader, can be pretty useless.
  • They allow for the constructions of “groups” within the community, so that like minded individuals can easily find each other, and with appropriate e-mail settings, geographically local groups can easily organize events and keep each other informed. Of course, the lack of a digest feature (or at least the lack of a locatable one) could lead to a very annoying amount of e-mail to the point where you feel like you are being spammed, turn off all e-mail, and negate most of the benefits the groups were designed to provide.
  • One of the sites has an expanded news amalgamation service with headlines, source, time, and the first 100 words – but the box organization that is used wastes so much real estate that you get three articles on the sidebar, which takes up a third of the screen. Not useful.

And that’s the good stuff, as not-so-good as it is. Now on to the negatives.

  • Latest activity tracker – with the exception of big brother (with his dreams come true at the sheer amount of personal data available on today’s social networks), who the hell cares who the last 10 people to log on were, or what they looked at, or when they signed out, etc.
  • Comment wall – graffiti for the virtual world. Need I say more?
  • Photo free for all – upload anything, any time, with any description, or lack thereof; how are you supposed to find anything useful?
  • Video free for all – anything, anytime, any header; think the latest Bugs Bunny cartoon has a good supply chain lesson? upload it … watch it randomly make the “featured videos” selection. Real professional.
  • “Featured” – members, groups, etc. – unless these are personally selected by real experts who have personally confirmed solid content, I don’t care; right now, most social networks are set up so that everyone gets an equal, random, shot at the rotation
  • “New” – members, groups, etc. – if a network is successful, you’ll have thousands of new members, photos, etc. a day – who has time to wade through all that? Plus, I don’t know about you, but a bunch of empty grey heads doesn’t look that attractive to me. Most new members, groups, etc. don’t have / upload pictures / logos right away. The selection logic should at least be intelligent enough not to select those profiles without images when trying to make an image montage. A single “if” statement. Junior high programming skill. Or at least I thought it was!
  • Very amateur look and layout – I’m sorry, but I don’t want to scroll down an average of four screens on the average page to see what’s going on, a header doesn’t need to take up over a third of the screen, thumbnails don’t need to be three times the average size, and an “Uncle Sam Wants You” ad-campaign rip-off isn’t going to inspire professionals from around the world to sign up. I could go on, but you get the point.

The verdict? Given the relative lack of useful content, the difficulty of identifying the sources and / or finding the content, and the over-abundance of purely social network features, for the time being, I’m definitely classifying these in the “Productivity Killer” category. When it comes to finding the relatively small amount of fresh, new, useful, and innovative content out there that is actually worth reading, I don’t see them being of any help in their current form, and actually see them as being more trouble than they’re worth. Connecting with people? Conferences, e-mail, and the good old fashioned telephone work just fine!

Maybe it’s just me, but I have no interest in ending up like the jacked in, strange talking cyberteens in love in Dowler’s bleak picture of the future or the on-liners in the “Net Worth” Sliders episode where they can’t talk to each other without going through a computer. And I guess that’s just where I see today’s social networks taking us if we continue on this road.

In summary, supply chain community: good. Social network: bad. And maybe the two should never meet.

2008 San Francisco Web Mission

I was recently contacted with a request to promote the 2008 Web Mission to San Francisco from April 19 to April 25 that will see 20 “leading” UK Web 2.0 companies converge on Silicon Valley in an effort to “explore new opportunities for growth”. My first thought was to just dismiss it, as most Web 2.0 companies these days have yet another “content aggregation and organization” spin or, even worse, a “social network” foundation (and I think you know how the faceless and spaceless doctor feels about that), but I thought I should at least check out who the invitees were just in case there were any potentials in the mix that maybe, just maybe, might be useful to supply and spend management professionals.

Most are about as useful as a deep freeze to an Eskimo in a middle of a twentieth century arctic winter (before global warming), but there were three companies that appear to show some promise. They are:

Huddle
Huddle.net combines online collaboration, project management and document sharing using social networking principles.

Huddle is taking the SaaS approach to collaboration, project management, and document sharing – on-demand, available for all, and, most importantly, affordable. For as little as £10 a month, a small business can set up 10 workspaces and upload up to 2.5 GB worth of documents. This can be increased to 50 workspaces and 25GB for a mere 40£ more. It’s not Microsoft Project or Microsoft SharePoint, but for the cost, it does what a business is going to need it to do for small, distributed, projects. Huddle offers an easily accessible product tour on their web-site.

Zogix
Zogix provides a SaaS (software as a service) platform for companies and consumers to measure and track Green House Gas (GHG) emissions, monitor and store emissions reduced from energy efficiency initiatives, and monetize CO2 saved from change in energy consumption.

Billing itself as compliant services procurement … that doesn’t cost the earth, Zogix allows procurement managers to manage, influence and control how their employees source Travel and Entertainment and other services with an ability to define alternative options that can significantly reduce this spend, as well as giving CSR Managers the tools they need to reduce emissions, and employees the ability to make better informed travel and entertainment choices. Zogix offers a demo as well as a free trial. The easiest way to define it is that it is a slimmed down Rearden Commerce platform with a zPoints incentive program and a focus on sustainability.

edocr
At edocr, you can upload your documents for sharing in the professional and business community. At the same time, you can interact with the documents uploaded by like minded professionals and businesses.

edocr, with its upload | convert | share capabilities, promotes its platform as a marketing communications channel for lead generation, knowledge exchange portal, and event collaboration platform. Pretty heady for a simple documents exchange platform that’s really just a cleaned up version of the photo-share capability on just about every social network in existence. So why could it be useful for procurement? First of all, the site also supports communities and groups, which is a great way to collect and store documents and discussions related to specific sourcing and procurement issues, without all the useless overhead of most of the supplier networks. Furthermore, it’s a much cleaner, simpler interface than many other platforms, which is what knowledge sharing should be all about. Secondly, you can use it as a free RFx platform for your open bids, and simply direct your suppliers to the appropriate documents in the appropriate group on the site for the bid package, rather than e-mailing large documents that are likely to bounce.

It’s not the Portal or the Network … it’s the Facilitation

Global Logistics & Supply Chain Strategies recently ran an article that asked “if supplier portals were so great, then what went wrong?” that had a really good history of supplier “portals” and some insights into the reasons why they may have failed. However, I have to question whether or not their statement that the survivors have evolved into networks with real value is accurate. But first, let’s review.

As the article notes, supplier “portals” were cheap and easy to set up in the early days, and this was because these “portals” were often narrowly focussed on automating the transaction, getting the buyer the best deal, or allowing a buyer to find a new supplier. As the article also notes, they didn’t take a holistic view of supplier performance management (SPM) and collaboration, and, more importantly, of the sourcing AND procurement process. Furthermore, most of these companies had ill-formed business models or a “me-too” business plan (which was a sure sign of failure – how many outlets do you need for “best-priced” office supplies?).

This meant that many suppliers, including those who originally embraced the “portals”, pushed back, as they quickly concluded that there was little value there for them and that the “portals” were just another means for a buyer to boost his or her discount. Thus, many of the original portals failed.

Today, according to AMR, you have “networks” which offer a single transaction backbone, feature common instances of software for multiple users, provide scalable communications platforms that utilize standard message formats, allow for common applications, and allow members to share customers, suppliers, and service providers. Furthermore, they create a business network that includes retailers, manufacturers, logistics providers, suppliers, contract manufacturers, and other channel partners.

Today’s “networks” are arguably better than the “portals” of yesteryear, but do they, in and of themselves, offer the “real value” purported by the article headline?

Many networks offer instant access to, and identification of, thousands of suppliers. Mostly Worthless – most companies know who their suppliers are and who the main competitors of their suppliers are. They don’t need to identify suppliers. They offer automated document exchange – for a transaction fee. Hmmm … so do most sourcing and procurement platforms, and e-mail is essentially *FREE* if you’re hosting your own servers. They centralize information in one place. So what? So does your monolithic ERP. They offer e-Payment – which is usually calculated as a percentage of the payment amount. In comparison, many banks have ACH services that allow you to do e-Payments for a fixed transaction fee. Where’s the value???

Unless the platform offers real collaboration capabilities (and I’m sorry, but e-mail and FTP document exchange doesn’t qualify), and unless the platform “enables” the supplier, there’s no significant value to the network. What do I mean by this?

First of all, the platform, be it “portal”, “network”, or “marketplace” has to offer as much value to the supplier as it does to the buyer. Not only should it make it easier for the buyer to do business and get a good deal, but it should make it easier for the supplier to do business and negotiate a good deal as well. Capabilities should be bi-directional. If buyers can find new suppliers, then suppliers should be able to notify potential buyers about their capabilities as well and easily query “open” RFIs. If buyers can create questionnaires, then suppliers should be able to create questionnaires and ask questions to clarify a buyer’s need with just as much ease. Document sharing is one-thing – real time collaborative document creation is another.

Furthermore, in addition to allowing a buyer to pay electronically, it should allow a supplier to electronically submit its invoices and manage its payment terms. For example, if the supplier agreed to 90 days net, they should be able to offer *different* discounts for 30 days and 60 days. It should allow a supplier to manage all of their purchase orders, shipments, and goods receipts as well as allowing a buyer to manage the same. It’s all about enablement – and if the “portal”, “network”, or “marketplace” doesn’t enable the supplier to serve the buyer, and themselves, better – the value of such a solution is limited and it too will disappear as fast as some of the dot-com busts of the last decade.

 

Successful Supply Chain Solution Implementations Require Planning

A recent Industry Week article on “Implementing Supply Chain Management Solutions” made a good point — the biggest factor in the collapse of supply chain management (SCM) implementations is … change — the type of change inflicted on an organization with little regard for how greatly it will impact the people and processes that serve as the engine of the business.

Statistics say that somewhere between 70% and 85% of software implementations, including those in SCM, are at least partial failures. And I believe those statistics – even though it should be the case that between 70% and 85% should be smashing successes because we’re not in the software dark ages anymore. However, as the article points out, the use of [SCM] systems brings [about] a new way of doing business, and with that, monumental change in how people do their jobs and, unfortunately, even though most project implementation teams do a great job of communicating the benefits that will be accompanied by the new system, they often do a poor job of communicating the impacts of the new system on the daily life of the impacted users.

It’s one thing to talk about new processes, it’s another thing to convey that understanding, and another thing still to convince people that they want to change the way they go about their daily routine — and have them do it successfully. In other words, you need to do good change management.

Good change management requires proper planning, which includes not only what needs to be done, but how it needs to get done, who needs to do it, and what they need to know to do it — and do it right. Then, as the article points out, you need to develop good training plans that will lessen the impact of change and ensure that your colleagues are ready to enter the brave new world you’re leading them into. After all, that’s where the savings are, and where you all need to be.

Making BI Available to Everyone

A recent article in Information Week on “The Road to Making BI Available to Everyone” noted that, on average, only 25% of workers use BI. Considering that we’re in the information age, this is rather pathetic. Why is this?

According to the article, there are five major reasons for this:

  • The tools themselves … as most of them are not very usable
  • Company managers … that promote gut-feel decision making
  • Company cultures … that essentially promote information hoarding
  • Failure to convey the value … to business executives & decision makers
  • Lack of training … which promotes use of all-too-familiar Excel

Which are all-too-true, but I’d also add:

  • Cost … costs per user are often ridiculously high for many of today’s BI tools

So how can we change this? Good question. The author believes that several roads must converge before BI will get widespread adoption. Namely:

  • Businesses need to fully appreciate the data gold-mine
  • Vendors need to provide lower-cost ways to license and deploy BI
  • BI interfaces need to be upgraded to present data in a manner amenable to the user
  • BI tools need to be able to work on relevant data stores

These points are also correct, but what really needs to happen is:

  • The tools need to allow the user to build as many data cubes as they need, on as many data sources as they have available – as a stale data warehouse is not very useful to anyone
  • The tools need to be available on-demand – current tools overload IT resources and limit implementation
  • Users have to think outside-the-cube when it comes to recognizing what a BI tool is and how they can use it
    – and
  • Users have to understand that a few of today’s on-demand spend analysis tools can be used for more than just spend-analysis

For example, tools like BIQ can be used for more than just spend analysis. This post details how the tool was used to detect overspending, find fraudulent claims, determine when failed equipment under warranty is worth reclaiming, and detect questionable resource usage patterns. Plus, compared to traditional behind-the-firewall BI tools, they’re very affordable for massive deployments across your organization.

In other words, even though they’re not perfect, with their built-in ETL, cube generation, and pattern-based rules engine, they’re significantly more powerful than Access and Excel and would allow the vast majority of office workers who need BI to use BI today.