Category Archives: rants

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.

If You Have One Hour To Do Disaster Planning …

… then I hope you’re religious because only a miracle’s going to save you. Every now and then I run across an article that makes me cringe. This article on NewsFactor is one of those articles. It says that minimal preparation — the kind you’d have to resort to if a disaster were in fact on the way — can be accomplished in an hour by a small business.

While that will hopefully be enough time to save your people, that’s all your going to save. If you haven’t planned in advance, say goodbye to your profits as your data goes up in smoke. (Your office might also go up in smoke, but presumably you were at least smart enough to be adequately insured for your physical assets.)

If you lose your location, the first thing you need to do is get up and running again. That’s going to require a back-up location, back-up equipment, and up-to-date data. While most cities always have space available that can be leased and outfitted reasonably quickly, at a premium, this is only the case if you don’t need any proprietary equipment. But if you’re operational data wasn’t already backed up, chances are you’re not going to get it backed up in an hour … especially if you didn’t have a plan in place.

In the average small business, data recovery in the event of a disaster is an afterthought and most of the data is sitting on end-user PCs which are not part of the nightly backup which only backs up the mostly-empty server. Unless you have time to run around and pull the hard drives out of every machine and gather up every laptop, if the building is about to go up in smoke because of a forest fire raging your way, your data is going to go up in smoke too if this is your situation. And up-to-date data is often the difference between a quick recovery and a quick bankruptcy in today’s knowledge-driven economy.

But if you planned your data backup and recovery in advance, a backup process executes in the background every time a user logs into the network or, better yet, you are running virtual machines off of the server that stores all data in a centralized data store that is incrementally backed up to local tapes (with critical transaction data backed up nightly to a remote server). Then all you have to do is shut down the network, grab the tapes, run, shunt them into the backup drive at the remote location, restore, and go.

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If You Truly Want Intelligent Decisions, Get a Real Data Analysis Tool

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And before we go any further, Excel DOES NOT Count!

Backing up, a recent article over on SupplyManagement.com on “intelligent decisions” notes that BP has set up a market intelligence team to make faster and better decisions and that, to date, it has helped them to save 20M while avoiding unnecessary expenditures of an additional 690M. And I have to admit that’s eye-catching. But just setting up a team isn’t going to get you that level of savings. You’re going to have to train them and give them the tools and resources they need. While one of those resources will be access to market data feeds and analysis channels, another will be a real data analysis tool.

The reality is that your team won’t be able to amalgamate and normalize all of the data sources, identify trends, and develop appropriate predictive models if they don’t have the right tool for the job. This is a significant analysis and modelling exercise, one that spreadsheets like Microsoft Excel are not equipped to handle. Just like a carpenter needs a hammer and a nail to attach two boards, an analyst needs the right software tool to properly combine and trend two distinct data feeds. Don’t forget that.

They Killed Kenny … You B@st@rds!

Those of you familiar with South Park are aware that poor, cursed, Kenny McCormick died in nearly every episode during it’s first five seasons, before staying dead for a year, and then returning to die occasionally in seasons seven through thirteen. However, even though Kenny McCormick has died over 100 times, the number of deaths he has experienced is only a fraction of the number of companies killed last year because many companies wouldn’t pay on time!

A recent article over on SupplyManagement.com, which summarizes research from the Federation of Small Businesses ( FSB ), notes that approximately 4,000 small suppliers were forced out of business last year as a result of late payment. That’s just small suppliers tracked by the FSB! How many companies would still be in business if their customers simply maintained and adhered to fair payment schedules? How many? Think about it.

So, if you are extending your payment teems to sixty days, ninety days, and beyond … all I can say is … you killed Kenny … you b@st@rds!

When Will Organizations Learn That Complex Software Is Not Easy!

A recent article over on Procurement Leaders titled “software procurement blunder grounds vital military helicopters” has me fuming.

First of all, it contains the phrase “procurement blunder” when the blunder does not appear to be the fault of the Procurement department, but the fault of idiots higher up.

Secondly, it contains the statement that an organization should “cut costs by developing its own software“.

I guess I should step back a minute and summarize the article. The UK MoD (Ministry of Defense) purchased eight (8) Chinook Mk3 helicopters in 1995 from Boeing which were delivered in 2001 at a cost of £259 Million. As of 2007, they were still not deployable because they could not be flown in poor visibility or at low altitudes because they were missing key operational software. This software, which would only have cost £50 Million (which is only 2.5% of the purchase price of the eight helicopters), was not included in the purchase because the UK Treasury demanded the MoD cut costs by developing its own software.

This is just nuts in so many ways. For starters:

  • Over 90% of software projects fail to come in on time and on budget.
  • Complex software systems, especially operating systems, typically require thousands of man years to develop. Red Hat 7.1, which only has to operate a PC and not a complex military helicopter with dozens of systems and hundreds of controls, required about 8,000 man years of development effort.
  • Complex (operating) systems can only be built by senior developers, which, fully burdened (with salary, benefits, hardware, and software costs), will cost you about 200K / man year.
  • This says that 100 M (slightly more than £50) only buys you 5,000 man years.
  • Even if your programmers knew exactly what to do, it’s doubtful you could even match the market cost of an already developed system which is being amortized over a large group of buyers.
  • The only way the MoD could make the helicopters flyable was to spend untold millions stripping them down to Mk2a configurations, which also delayed their deployment for 2 or more additional years.

But, more importantly, you’re trying to save pounds by pinching pennies! That never works! It would have been much more logical to try and find ways to reduce the purchase price of the helicopters by 2.5%. For example, could the purchasers have worked with Boeing to help them execute more strategic sourcing projects to reduce Boeing’s cost in a savings-split? Could UK MoD manpower have been lent to Boeing? Since most purchasers believe in the old maxim that you can take 10% off of the cost of anything, how hard would it really have been to reduce costs by 2.5% to cover the software costs if Procurement was allowed to be creative instead of having to deal with idiocy pushed down from the top?