Recently, boingboing ran an article about a Zero rupee note that Indians can slip to corrupt officials who demand bribes. The idea of the note, pictured below, was to shock grafters into honesty. Given all of the recent bribery scandals north and south of the 49th parallel, I’m wondering if we shouldn’t have a $0 Dollar bill that honest businessmen can slip to politicians who demand bribes and kickbacks before awarding contracts. Or are our some of our politicians just too corrupt?
After reading this recent article on TechCrunch which asks How Does Compete Get Its Web Traffic Data?, which followed Jason Calcanis’ rant on “Why We Should Boycott Comscore”, and after noticing that my Alexa, Ranking, and Traffic Estimate Rankings bounce up and down on the string of a yo-yo despite the fact that my traffic has been non-decreasing since day one (as it’s always holding steady if not steadily increasing), I’m starting to wonder. (Quantcast is still pretty good, though sometimes it seems that it’s gone from reporting over 60% to missing slightly over 60%*, but that’s about it.)
What do you think? Is there anyone we can trust anymore, or is the new model of business e-bribes? And can we even trust Google?
* This could be as much my choice of blogging platform and the fact that where I have to embed the tracking code in the page compared to where they recommend you embed the code to maximize traffic capture and minimize the chance of cashing, as caching poses a problem as well as browsers that disable or block certain types of scripts.
While reading “The Talent Game”on the SSO Network (membership required) Panel Discussion transcript, I was horrified to read that one participant said that many employees are being told they are lucky to have a job — that is one form of retention. Simply put, it’s disgusting. Not only does it show an utter lack of respect for the employee, but it also shows an utter lack of competence in talent management.
Even if you recently went through a layoff, presumably the employees you retained are those employees who were best at the jobs you needed done. These are, by definition, the same employees your competitor would also keep in the same situation. And since these are the best employees, these are the employees that companies who didn’t have the same talent pool to draw from before the recession are desperately seeking in an economy where they need a workforce who can do more with less. Maybe your employees are lucky to be making a high salary, or to be receiving above average benefits, or to be working at a company that challenges them on a daily basis in a job they like, but they are not lucky to have a job. Even if she has to make a sacrifice in pay, benefits, or flexibility, a good employee can always find a job.
So if you still think that your employees are lucky to have a job, you better wake up and smell the coffee before they do. Otherwise, you might find that your best employees are leaving for your competition as soon as the economy recovers.
Rather than rant about yet another article from Purchasing.com that had me foaming at the mouth, I thought that, for a change, I’d offer Purchasing some constructive feedback and free advice. Hire Geraint John as Editor-in-Chief. For the past few years, I had tremendous respect for two supply management publications that consistently delivered high quality supply management content month-in and month-out. One is the Supply Chain Management Review, which has Robert Rudzki as one of its lead bloggers. The other is CPO Agenda, at which Geraint was Editor-in-Chief until May 2009.
To be honest, I used to think that Purchasing was a good magazine. But then again, 5 years ago, Doug Smock, who co-wrote the book (Straight to the Bottom Line), used to be the Editor-in-Chief. And ever since he left, as far as I’m concerned, it’s been a slow and steady decline for Purchasing Magazine. We’ve gone from creme brulee telling us “What Supply Chain Management Is” and that we need to “Think Like a CPO” to gruel that tells us that “spend analysis is good, but expensive” and that “it is good to be a tweeting Twit”. Sure you can live on gruel, but after eating creme brulee, do you really want to?
That’s why I’m recommending Geraint John for Editor in Chief. He did great work at CPO Agenda, has what it takes to return Purchasing to the glory days they experienced back when Doug Smock was in charge, and, to the best of my knowledge, isn’t attached to any publications. If Purchasing really wants to reach Purchasing 3.0, they’re going to need someone like him running the show. They might have good editors, but, as we’ve seen, good editors only make a great publication under great leadership. Time to bring some back. (Otherwise, I would bet that Purchasing can continue to kiss its web-traffic goodbye, as I predict that such traffic will continue to migrate to blogs like Metal Miner, Transformation Leadership, Supply Chain Matters, and Sourcing Innovation as long as Purchasing maintains the status quo.)
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this post are solely the opinions of the doctor. Furthermore, Geraint John had no prior knowledge of this post or the doctor‘s opinions.
Is Purchasing Magazine trying to give me a heart attack? Isn’t it enough that they refuse to acknowledge the presence of Sourcing Innovation (which, as you know, is one of the few blogs that brings you real supply management content you can use day-in, day-out six days a week, every week) which they dropped from their “News from the Web” feed years ago (when I first ripped apart one of their sloppy articles)? After reading a few of their recent articles, my blood is boiling!
That’s right! That bullcr@p that Spend Analysis is expensive (see last Thursday’s post) is just the tip of the iceberg. And even though many of the quoted individuals had good advice to share, in the end, Purchasing’s recent article on “Purchasing 3.0” is just as bad and filled with absurdities … which start on the first line! (If Purchasing had their way, we’d regress to Purchasing 0.3!)
Have you used Social Networking to build supplier relationships?
I Hope Not! Since all Facebook is good for is Facebook parties that result in “Million dollar homes being trashed” (Metro.co.uk) …
If you want to build drinking buddies relationships, yes, Facebook will work great … but what you want is productive and professional relationships where you can work together to make each of your businesses better.
Are you sure you’re using Excel effectively?
You can’t use Excel to manage your supply chain! How many fracking times do I have to say it? Spreadsheets are bad strategy, prevent innovation, and cost you billions! You’re better off using an etch-a-sketch like the dork in It’s All About the Pentiums (2:54 mark). (And just because it’s still all about the pentiums, baby, that doesn’t mean it should be!)
Do you, uh, Tweet?
Are you kidding me? Hasn’t Twitter Turned Too Many Into Twits already? It appears that Twitter has already made twits out of at least 3 in 10 students! The only things that should go “tweet” are Tweety Bird bird and Rockin’ Robin (Muppet Version).
With the prevalence of ERP systems in large companies, more purchasing professionals … should be focusing on developing advanced database skills.
Uhhm, no. Purchasing professionals should be focussed on learning advanced data analysis skills. This is not quite the same as learning advanced database skills. Purchasing managers don’t need to know how to configure, manage, scale, back-up, restore, and replicate databases … that’s what DBAs are for. Purchasing managers know how to use today’s spend analysis tools, which require them to learn how to build and manipulate cubes through dimension-driven UIs, not how to optimize 4 level nested SQL statements … that’s what the tools do! (And frankly, even your average CS graduate would have a hard time optimizing 4-level nested SQL statements across multiple tables, if they could even write them in the first place!)
The article also promotes the new Microsoft Online Services
which will only work if everyone on the team is using a supported version of Windows. And even then, it might not work. (Furthermore, even though they claim that LiveMeeting works on Safari and Firefox on Mac, even if your system meets all the requirements listed, it often doesn’t.) Mac is around 15% of the market and growing, Linux is on the rise (especially in Netbooks), and a number of organizations still use AIX and UNIX based platforms (which could become popular again if thin-client desktops [e.g. SunRays] take off). Not everyone is in the Microsoft eco-system anymore. (And the majority of supply management systems are NOT built on .NET.)
And then the last paragraph indicates that mobile devices are the answer to requisition approval (to keep projects moving), commodity price updates, and procurement communication!
This is probably the most dangerous message of all, because now we’re in Yes, … but territory. Not all requisitions can be approved on a 3×5 screen. What if there are 20 (or more) line items? What if your system flagged 5 as off-contract? What if it’s an unusual request for a significant amount? You’re going to need more data to make the right decision than you’re ever going to fit on that itsy bitsy teeny weeny tiny Blackberry Storm or Curve. It’s one thing to approve a new laptop or mobile phone for an employee that needs it right away to continue working, but another to approve an order of 10,000 units of SKU XYZ123, when the contract is for ZYX321! Why is the order off contract? Oversight? Have requirements changed? Or is your supplier out of ZYX321 and you need an acceptable substitution right away? And what good is a commodity price update if you can’t see the history and the trend graphs. Unless you’ve already done the analysis and figured out that you should buy when it hits 75 or sell if it hits 100, because you’re hedging risk on the commodities markets, that update is useless. And communicating in 140 byte tweets? That would just make you a Twit!
Let me finish by saying that I’m so glad that you, dear reader, are an educated, informed, and intelligent individual who would drop this blog from your feeds faster than a hot potato if I ever published anything as ridiculous as what Purchasing and other publications are getting away with these days!