by Josh Dials, Solutions Consultant
Robert A. Rudzki, contributor to the Spend Matters blog, brings up a great point in a recent post. “’Strategic’ is perhaps one of the most overused (and misused) terms in business today,” he says. “Simp…
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Reading Scott Anthony’s Innovation Notes from India over on the HBR blogs, I can’t help but noticing that India is about to face the growing pains that North America went through during the information technology revolution of the last few decades. Consider Scott’s points one-by-one: India is a land of contrasts Every revolution, from the telephone through television to the PC made North America a land of contrasts between the haves and the have nots. The culture of entire communities, cities, and counties, literally changed overnight. Take silicon valley for example. It was a …
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FieldGlass, which provides a unified platform for contingent workforce management, service provider management, and direct hires, is determined to tear forward through the tens, which also happen to correspond to its second decade of corporate existence. Founded in Chicago in 1999, it celebrated its tenth birthday with a bang by adding 33 new customers in 2009 before tearing into 2010 and adding over 30 new customers year-to-date to double its customer base in less than two years. With localized support for sixty-three (63) countries and counting, over one third (33%) of the new customers it has added in …
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A recent article over on Industry Week pointed out how Simulation is Empowering Product Engineers to Save Time, Money (and the Planet Too). According to the article, simulation helped: NatureWorks design a new biodegrade chip bag for SunChips, Balzer Pacific Equipment Co. design and manufacture a new barge to carry 6,000 tons for a client that required less steel and saved $20,000 in steel costs, and Unverferth Manufacturing Co to create a new strip-till subsoiler in only …
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Mostly Harmless, Part XXIV Previous Post The first post of the series indicated that this brief guide will define what e-Procurement is, isn’t, and how it relates, or fails to relate, to e-Purchasing, EIPP, P2P, and e-Sourcing. Now that the basics of e-Procurement have been covered, this post will address the terminology before the series concludes. EIPP stands for Electronic Invoice Presentation and Payment. It is not the same as e-Procurement because any system capable of accepting invoices, processing invoices, and queueing them up for payments can be labelled an EIPP system. Such a system …
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I’ve told you many times that spreadsheets, the cockroaches of the workplace, can cost you billions, but I’m not sure that you’ve been listening. So I’m going to remind you of two situations where poor spreadsheets literally cost a company billions. As per this classic article in CIO on eight of the worst spreadsheet blunders ever: Fidelity Loses $2.6 Billion In January 1995, an accountant omitted the minus sign on a net capital loss of $1.3 Billion when transcribing the net realized gain from the funds financial records from one spreadsheet to another. As a …
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By: Kevin Smilie
Cloud computing is changing the way IT leaders deliver IT services and value to their customers. As companies learn about the value of the cloud through pilot projects, they gain insight into the technology, its commercial benefits, an…
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Today’s guest post is from Sudy Bharadwaj, ex-analyst extraordinaire of the Aberdeen Group, former VP of MindFlow, former CMO of Informance, and, most recently, a star at Inovis. There has been considerable emphasis in improving working capital among large and small enterprises alike. While the reasons may seem obvious, to state a core objective: unleashing working capital provides more cash for other areas in the business and reduces dependency on credit. According to a recent benchmark by CFO Magazine(c) the working capital metric, DWC – Days Working Capital, of the top-1000 US-based public companies (excluding financial service …
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Tomorrow, I am moderating the monthly member call for the LinkedIn Strategic Sourcing & Procurement group. This month’s topic is KPIs. So please join us if you have KPI questions or insights, or if you’d just like to hear your peers engaged in a lively discussion of the subject.
The details:
Tuesday, August 31st
9am Pacific Daylight Time
No [...]
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Ever since the recession hit full swing, it’s been working capital this and working capital that. And I’m getting tired of it. And it’s not because I don’t like working capital management. In theory, when it’s done right, working capital management is worth its weight in gold. The problem is, at most companies, it’s still done very, very wrong, and ends up being the lead weight that drags the company down until it drowns. Here’s what usually happens. The company starts by: Paying some invoices early …
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