procurement sense magazine - apr 2015 - preview
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Senior Editor
Sean Kolenko
Art Directors
Alice Chan, Kitty Chan
// mAStheAd
Contributing Editors
Alis Sindbjerg hemmingsen,
Angus Chak, Artin Vaqari,
Bertrand maltaverne, Brittany Whitmore,
herman Chandi, Jerome Benedict,
Jon hansen, michael Fournier,
Omar Khan, Robert O’Carroll
Read the online magazine at procurementsense.com
4
the myth of ‘win-win’ negotiations in
purchasing
: : Artin Vaqari
20
tell us what works best for your company
: : Omar Khan
37
Financing the future of procurement
: : Jon hansen
50
head in the cloud
: : Sean Kolenko
8
‘Business staying in business’ is a responsibility
of the procurement function
: : Alis Sindbjerg hemmingsen
24
Back to school: Charles dominick
& doug turner
40
Builddirect: Breaking down tradition supply
chains...... and delivering heavy stuff
: : Sean Kolenko
54
the last mile
: : Sean Kolenko
12
Business is not B2B or B2C – but h2h!
: : Bertrand maltaverne
30
A few thoughts on public sector procurement
: : Jerome Benedict
42
Is nuclear power the answer to shipping
sustainability?
: : Angus Chak
56
how one skin care company is using their supply chain to
build their brand
: : Brittany Whitmore
16
the business systems challenge facing Smes
: : Robert O’Carroll
32
The case for future proofing the supply chain with
sustainable procurement
: : michael Fournier
46
Procurify: Re-writing business processes
58
tips on doing business in China
62
how technology changes everything in business
: : herman Chandi
CONTENTSiSSuE ONE : apr 2015
‘Business staying in business’ is a responsibility of the procurement function
aliS SiNdbjErg hEmmiNgSEN
Organizations have complex supply chains with a range of customers
and suppliers that influence the way it operates. While customers set
specifications and standards that suppliers must meet, suppliers constantly
strive to improve the efficiency and profitability of their operations, while
simultaneously seeking to delight their customers. therefore, successful
businesses must always be looking for ways to stay competitive.
At the same time, we have to open our eyes and start acknowledging
and acting on the fact that our resources are threatened. Our economies
motivate people and businesses to consume to such a degree that the
planet cannot regenerate itself.
We have the opportunity to re-think the way we do business.
5dISPAtCheS - StAte OF the InduStRy
OUR RESOURCES ARE THREATENEDmany natural resources are threatened. Some
are more obvious than others and, subsequently,
there are some we are more aware of. But they
all – regardless of how well-known the scarcity of
the particular resource may be – pose a threat to
companies with supply chains.
Responsible Procurement is an approach that
allows you to influence your supply chain. It can
help you make informed purchasing choices by
knowing more about where the products and
services you purchase are made
so their environmental impact
is minimized.
For instance, if you regularly buy
from the same supplier, why
not do a bit of research into
their environmental policies and
practices? If every business did
this there would be demand for
companies to green their practices
and take on responsibility in order
to remain competitive.
TAKE RESPONSIBILITYthe requirement to take responsibility for society is
not indicative of some passing trend, but rather a
cultural shift. It is a backlash to the western world’s
disposable culture and an evolution of milton
Friedman’s phrase “the business of business is
business” to “the business of business is staying
in business”. taking responsibility for the impact
of your own operations is no longer enough. the
world demands more of you. you are now also
held accountable for what goes on in your supply
chain – from working conditions to corruption
to environmental impacts. your procurement of
products and services is under scrutiny.
your challenge is to understand the impact your
procurement decisions have on local communities,
workers and the environment. And, then, you
must take action to make sure that you create a
positive impact. At the end of the day, that is what
Responsible Procurement is all about. If you plan
it well, it can promote sustainability, provide you
with cost savings and protect and
enhance your brand.
VALUE CREATIONensuring that your procurement
strategy is based on a responsible-
decision making approach has
become an important business
parameter. Additionally, it is
essential for you to understand
that Responsible Procurement, in
its optimal format, can be a value creating process.
Responsible Procurement can have a fundamental
strategic and operational impact. It can promote
competitiveness and innovation. Responsible
Procurement is a strategic tool, which can help
minimize your company’s negative impact on
people, society and the environment while
maintaining or enhancing value for customers,
business partners and shareholders.
The business of business is staying in
business
REVOLUTIONIZE THE PROCUREMENT STRATEGY
I typically define Responsible Procurement in
the following way: ”Responsible Procurement
integrates requirements, specifications and
criteria that are compatible and in favour of the
protection of the environment, of social progress
and in support of economic development by
seeking resource efficiency, improving the quality
of products and ultimately optimizing costs”.
however, some companies see their Responsible
Procurement initiatives as pure risk management
and use it for compliance purposes. the strategic
and operational impact is then, typically, medium
to high, though it mitigates operational risks.
Improving efficiency, reducing demand for
materials and cutting waste all reduce your
costs and are good for the business and for
the environment. Maximizing these benefits
requires you to manage your supply chain and
integrate business activities to create value for
your customers.
Responsible Procurement is about increasing a
company’s profit, improving strategic supplier
relationships and strengthening the brand while
remaining vigilant towards competitors and
revolutionizing the procurement strategy to fit
the current business landscape.
And, of course, at the end of the day: ensuring
that “business stays in business”.
7dISPAtCheS - StAte OF the InduStRy
The case for fuTure proofing
The supply chain wiTh
susTainable procuremenT
miChaEl fOurNiEr
Sustainable sourcing is evolving into the most
important function of supply chain management.
And the impetus for this evolution is how
sustainable sourcing grounds itself in the future-
proofing of supply chains.
What does it mean to future-proof supply chains?
Future-proofing supply chains means protecting
your organization’s future performance against
a multitude of potential problems. Whether the
future involves the loss of access to key production
ingredients or logistics providers, future-proofing
attempts to mitigate potential dangers.
Trending in the environment of future-proofing
supply chains is sustainable procurement.
Sustainable procurement has proven that
i t improves e f f i c iency , e f fec t i veness and
transparency for organizations. Furthermore,
sustainable sourcing not only improves employee
and supplier relationships, it also improves an
organization’s reputation among the community
and its customers. Lastly, sustainable sourcing
can dismantle poor waste disposal practices and
reduce energy waste, which improves company
spend management.
Of course , beyond the bus iness case for
sustainable sourcing, ecological ly fr iendly
procurement pract ices are necessary for
maintaining our environment.
This article will first begin with an overview of the
benefits provided through sustainable sourcing
and how e-procurement impacts sustainable
supply chain management. Following that, the
article will offer a brief analysis of how sustainable
sourcing is achieved in Germany. The article
will then conclude with a brief capstone from
an interview with Ben Seaman, Eartheasy CEO,
an e-commerce website that promotes an
environmentally sound way of living.
What benefits can sustainable sourcing provide?Amongst the numerous benefits sustainable
supply chain management (SSCM) can provide,
the most important benefits include aligning
with a green strategy and improving market
competitiveness.
A green strategy involves reducing waste
management costs, trading ethically to attract
ethically-conscious customers and reducing
resource waste.
Improving market competitiveness involves
reducing procurement delays by adequately
projecting future sourcing activities against
potential environmental hazards, government
regulations, a shift in customer attitudes towards
environmental concerns, as well as changes in
supplier relationships.
In fact, sustainable sourcing practices can
enhance buyer-supplier relationships through
increased transparency.
It’s easy to label sustainable procurement as nothing more than a buzzword. But does sustainable procurement
hold the key to mitigating risk for your company?
9the FutuRe
Why is e-procurement often considered the best step toWards sscm?Before we get into why most organizations are
choosing to optimize their supply chain consider
this single piece of info: “One manual purchase
order can cost a company as much as $150 to
process, even if the purchase order was issued to
buy a $25 part.”
The cost of issuing manual purchase orders adds
up when one considers the time spent sending
documents back and forth between approvers,
buyers and receivers. E-procurement systems have
become significantly more popular as a means
of removing the tedious and costly travel time of
documents.
In fact, according to Tony Chien & Daniel Ahrens
there are three significant ways that e-procurement
improves the purchasing process.
Goodbye paperwork: e-procurement systems
eliminate paperwork by generating electronic
purchase orders that can be immediately routed
to the appropriate person. This system results in a
reduction in paper costs, as well as less time spent
by key personnel.
Commitment to vendors: e-procurement systems
can be used as a means of compelling end users
to only purchase from company-approved vendors.
This commitment to approved vendors is one way
of mitigating the possibility of corporate fraud
within the organization.
Spend visibility: although spend visibility may
sound like a generic buzzword, spend visibility is
an important result of e-procurement systems.
Spend visibility gives managers full control of their
company and department spending.
So how are we currently tackling SSCM in Germany?
german sustainable development strategyThe German government has made a formal
commitment towards SSCM through the German
Sustainable Development Strategy (GSDS).
The purpose o f the GSDS was to c lass i f y
procurement activit ies and f ind a means of
attaching measurable aspects to them. The five
procurement activities that are accountable within
the GSDS are:
1. Reducing logistics and freight intensity;
2. Reducing land use;
3. Implications against partners because of
sustainable aspects;
4. Quality of employee working conditions;
5. Enhancing quality of employment.
Within reducing logistics and freight intensity, the
GSDS measures greenhouse gas emissions, use
and disposal of truck tires and measuring driver
behaviour according to environmentally conscious
driving standards.
The purpose of measuring land use falls within the
dimensions of reducing energy waste, increasing
renewable energy for warehouses and factories,
as well as actively considering the environment in
property choices.
Under the GSDS, sustainable partner activities
measurable include whether partners use rail
or choose to ship cargo, whether partners use
environmentally friendly transport services, which
does fall into the first activity above, and whether
partners use combined transport to reduce freight
intensity.
For a long time, supply chains were overrun with
allegations of poor working conditions and low
access to essential services. However, through
the GSDS, German firms are observing whether
employees are given services during the day and
on weekends. German firms are also attempting to
maintain a standard level of pay and minimize the
use of temporary workers.
And the final measurable dimension under the
GSDS involves education and enhancing qualified
employment in all levels of supply chain operations.
The GSDS is indeed a highly ambitious effort in
attempting to measure sustainable practices within
the German procurement industry.
Eartheasy was built on the philosophy that we
need to protect our natural environment if we
want to keep the things we love. Eartheasy is
a go-to website that focuses on providing eco-
friendly products, guides and articles to its
visitors. Eartheasy is a case where sustainable
sourcing and procurement became an
important enough issue, prompting the
f o u n d e r s t o s h a r e t h e i r c u l t u r e w i t h
their customers.
Sustainable procurement is incredibly
important for the future success of an
organization’s supply chain, but also for our
environment and planet. The difficulties are
not unheard of when considering green
procurement strateg ies , however , the
strategic advantage that one could attain can
last well into the future.
And that’s what they mean when someone
talks about future-proofing their supply chain.
the eartheasy story
Read more by Michael at procurementsense.com
Have you ever noticed that when you tune into a
particular topic, it seems to pop up in conversations
everywhere?
Since announcing that I would be teaming up with
Buyers Meeting Point’s Kelly Barner to co-write The
Future of Procurement book – slated for release in
early 2015 – everywhere I turn
someone is talking about the
future of our industry.
Don ’ t ge t me wrong , as a
subject that is garnering a
great deal of attention as of
late, i t bodes very wel l for
potential book sales down the
road. Beyond literary interests, however, it is perhaps
the underlying reasons for everyone’s interest that has
peaked my curiosity the most.
Having covered the procurement world through my
Procurement Insights blog since May 2007, it is very
clear that we are in the midst of a major shift in terms
of where our industry is headed.
This shift, as I will call it, is largely driven by the
recognition that procurement or purchasing, as it’s
poorer cousin is known, is going through a major
transformation from being an
adjunct function to a strategic
imperative.
What this basically means is that
we, as well as others, no longer
view what we do through a “just
get me the best price” edict that
for far too long has defined the
industry mindset. We are now instead challenging the
barbed perceptions of those senior executives from the
2006 CPO Agenda Roundtable discussion – specifically
the assertion that they would take one strategic thinker
over 12 run-of-the-mill everyday buyers.
Financing the future of procurementCan procurement evolve into the role of new enterprise bankers over the next decade?
12the FutuRe
Quite simply,we
have to start “financing”
our own future if we hope
to finally secure a seat at
the executive table.
jON haNSEN
13
Of course, to become truly strategic, we have to start
changing the way in which we view our contribution to
an organization.
For me personally, this means addressing an Aberdeen
CFO survey. In the survey, the majority of CFOs felt that
procurement made very little meaningful contribution
to a company’s bottom line. In fact, CFOs went so far
as to suggest that they discounted more than 80% of
the savings claimed by the procurement department
as being irrelevant. If you were a batter in major league
baseball, that kind of average would get you sent down
to the farm team pretty quick. Not surprisingly, the
“minor leagues” is where most procurement people
feel they have been relegated from a corporate
presence standpoint.
So what does this all mean?Quite simply, we have to start “financing” our own
future if we hope to finally secure a seat at the
executive table. And this, of course, is why of all the
topics involved in the future of procurement I have
chosen to write about financing here.
Now I am sure that everyone who is reading this
article is already familiar with recent announcements
regarding Washington’s launch of the SupplierPays
initiative. I also have no doubt that you have been
following industry news, in which P2P vendors are
beginning to team-up with non-traditional finance
companies. The goal of these pairings is to provide a
mutually beneficial buyer/supplier service centered
around timely payments.
The fac t tha t a 2013 Ins t i tu t ion o f F inanc ia l
Operations survey disclosed that only 5% of the
organizations that participated had offered trade
f inancing to their suppl iers means that i t is a
largely untapped service area with huge upside
benefits. In other words, it is one of the main game
changers in how our industry, and the business
world in general, will view procurement’s importance
going forward.
Within the context of the aforementioned developments,
it would not be unreasonable for procurement to
evolve into the role of new enterprise bankers over the
next decade.
Think about it for a moment. Everything we do as
procurement professionals ultimately touches all
areas of the global enterprise. From keeping the
lights on in the office, to the manufacturing of a
product for end-user consumption, procurement,
a t some po int in the process , has a hand in
everything. It only makes sense that this reach
should now include the abil ity to incorporate a
f inancing model that ensures t imely payments
to suppliers.
Once again, this is the reason why non-traditional
financing within the procurement process is one of
the areas I will be watching over the coming months
and years.
The irony, of course, is that in the previously referenced
CPO Agenda Roundtable d iscuss ion the same
executives also indicated that the best person to
run a purchasing department is not someone with a
purchasing background. Who did they choose as the
ideal candidate? Someone from finance.
I wonder if there is ever a CFO Roundtable that those
executives will conclude that the best person to run
a finance department is not someone with a finance
background? Note to all procurement professionals . . .
time to update your resumes.
is nuclear power the answer to shipping sustainability?the future of marine transportation should include nuclear-powered vessels
aNguS ChaK
15the FutuRe
more than 70% of our planet’s surface is covered
in water and, yet, few people concern themselves
with anything past the first couple miles off the
beaches. even fewer, still, are aware that 90% of all
the world’s products are transported on massive
container ships – the length of multiple football
fields – that travel the oceans.
maersk’s new triple-e vessel is advertised to carry
up to 18,000 teu (twenty Foot equivalent units)
containers, with each container generating only
three grams of CO2 per kilometre en route from
europe to Asia. this is incredibly efficient: the
same products would generate 560 grams of CO2
if it were transported by air.
In the aggregate, however, marine transportation is
one of the world’s heaviest polluters, contributing
4% of the world’s total annual greenhouse gas
emissions. A 2009 study found that the 15 largest
ships in service – of the more than 10,000 total –
produced emissions equal to that of 760 million
cars. In context: that is more than the number
of registered cars in Canada, uSA and China
combined. If marine shipping were ranked among
nations, it would be the sixth heaviest polluter in
the world.
Faced with all these statistics, the question is:
What can be done to change the industry to
be more environmentally sustainable while
maintaining profitability?
the alternative I propose is nuclear powered
container ships. this alternative comes with
immense challenges, granted, but I believe may
lead to a future of sustainable transportation.
Before you start imagining thousands of floating
Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters waiting
to happen, what I am advocating for is not an
unprecedented concept. In fact, there have
been 13 nuclear powered cargo ships and ice
breakers commissioned, half of which are still
active. moreover, it is not uncommon for military
submarines to be nuclear powered. A July 2014
BBC article about the uSA’s decommissioned
nuclear cargo-passenger vessel, the NS Savannah,
even quoted the chief engineer stating: “In due
time it will happen, the prospects are reasonable
for a resurgence of nuclear power, there is a future
for nuclear power ships, it’s just a matter of time.”
the sentiment behind his statement is that more
of the public will eventually start to notice the
environmental problems of ocean shipping and
the industry will be forced to change. With nuclear
powered vessels, the industry can progress
towards ships that contribute zero CO2 and
produce zero greenhouse emissions.
there is a future for nuclear power ships, it’s
just a matter of time
Aside from the environmental benefits, a corporation’s
bottom line will also benefit greatly. A medium-sized
container ship uses 260 tons of heavy fuel oils to
power 51,480 kilowatts from a diesel engine. this
results in a daily cost of $52,000. the same amount of
nuclear powered energy would cost slightly less than
$9,000. While it is undeniable that nuclear-powered
ships would have a substantially greater initial cost, it
is realistic to believe a corporation would eventually
profit over a ship’s average 26-year lifespan.
In addition to the direct benefits, this change would
also inject vast amounts of investment dollars into
the nuclear physics community resulting in further
innovation, cheaper and safer reactors and netting
greater benefits.
As I stated earlier, this change would come with
immense challenges and strong opposition. With the
Fukushima disaster still vivid in much of the public’s
mind, nuclear power has a bad reputation. Germany,
for instance, is vowing to close all of its nuclear
power plants by 2022. And, there have been multiple
events where the reactors on container ships have
forced the dump of mildly radioactive water into the
ocean, none of which have come remotely close to a
catastrophe in the vein of the Fukushima event. Finally,
there would, likely, be substantial lobbying efforts
by oil corporations, as such changes would result
in the loss of collective sales of one billion tons of
fuel annually.
Without a doubt, it is only a matter of time before the
marine transportation industry will be forced to answer
the question of how to become more environmentally
sustainable. Of the alternative modes of energy
available, I believe nuclear to be the only one powerful
enough to transport 90% of the world’s goods across
vast oceans. Only time will tell, of course, whether
the industry agrees and adopts nuclear power as the
solution, but it must warrant considerable discussion.
hEad iN ThE ClOud
Noted investor and businessman Jeff Epstein talks cloud technology, the procurement space and the classroom in our exclusive interview.
SEaN KOlENKO
18 the FutuRe
Menlo Park’s Jeff Epstein, operating partner at Bessemer Venture
Partners, knows his way around a startup. As an investor, he’s tasked
with finding, evaluating and supporting some of the world’s most
promising companies.
And, as the former chief financial officer and executive vice president
at Oracle, epstein knows a thing or two about running a massive
corporation.
An impressive and varied resume, to be sure.
In addition to his day-to-day responsibilities in the venture capital world,
epstein uses experience in the classroom as well.
Along with Steve Blank, noted creator of the Lean Startup movement,
and Steve Weinstein, chief technology officer at Deluxe Services
entertainment Group, epstein teaches an entrepreneurial course, the
Lean Launchpad, at Stanford university. the course is designed for
graduate engineering students to “get their hands dirty” and “test the
business model” of the startups they’re designing.
We caught up with epstein recently to talk startups, the procurement
space and why he invested in Procurify.
let’s start at the beginning, with a bit of an involved question: what trends, in your opinion, defined the business software of the past? and, what will define the future? For the last 20 years, the biggest, most influential part
of enterprise software has been on-premise software
from major companies. In the last five to eight years,
the biggest trend has been cloud software.
There are three very important trends. The first is, if
you were buying a lot of software products in an on-
premise world, you may have 20 different products
from 20 different vendors. The cost of integrating all of
this stuff together is enormous. What that lead to was
suites of products by very large companies such as
Oracle and SAP and IBm. As a result, companies would
end up becoming an all Oracle shop or an all SAP shop.
they had this phrase, “one throat to choke,” because
something always went wrong and people wanted
“one throat to choke” when it did.
In the cloud world, it is very different. If you are buying
cloud software, you have no software and no hardware
in your own building – it’s all online and delivered
through the Internet. the major cloud software
companies have all built easy-to-use integrations with
each other. So, it’s pretty easy to buy 20 cloud software
products from 20 different vendors and have them all
work well together. As a result, the optimal choice has
moved from a suite to best of breed.
now, we’ve all used consumer applications such as
Gmail or shopped on Amazon. these applications are
beautiful, easy-to-use and don’t require any training
classes. enterprise software was always the exact
opposite. the new world of cloud is taking consumer
ease-of-use to the enterprise.
Nimbleness is the final big trend – nimbleness for the
company and the user. So, in the on-premise world
you would have small updates to the software once
a quarter and big updates once every three or four
years. the big updates, too, required an expensive
re-implementation. In the cloud world, those
updates happen everyday and users don’t have to do
anything, the updates are there when they turn on
their computers.
What excites him about the procurement space? the thing that excites me most about it is the
leverage. Let’s say that a white-collar worker buys a
piece of software to make him or her more efficient.
And let’s say a company has 50 of those employees,
each of whom is going to be 20% more efficient. As
a result, it is as if you had 10 more people. there is
some value there.
But in procurement, those 50 employees might buy
$5 billion worth of products. If you could be 20% more
efficient, you could save the salaries of 10 people.
Because each procurement professional is dealing
with, potentially, hundreds of millions of dollars in
spend, if you can make the procurement person more
effective and efficient, the value is not just saving that
person’s salary, the value is being more effective on
the money the company is spending. Procurement is
a unique sector where the leverage is, literally, 10 to 1
or 100 to 1.
20 the FutuRe
as an investor in procurify, what excites you about the company? every category of software in the on-premise world
is migrating to cloud. It is very difficult for the legacy
companies to come up with a new cloud version
because, typically, the cloud version is better, faster
and more expensive. It is a very rare company that
will tell its customers that they will move them to a
new product and charge them half the price.
In every category of enterprise software, new, fast-
moving companies are building products that are
better, faster and cheaper – Procurify is clearly one
of those companies. I think it is very easy to use,
intuitive and the people who use it love it. When you
look at a product like that and you see how effective
it is, that is a company I want to be involved with.
What is your advice for startups/companies in the business space? What lessons, for example, do you teach? the class that we teach is very experiential. What
we teach them is that even though they have an
idea of what their product should be and what
their customers want, they’re probably not going
to be right. So, what we teach is that you have a
hypothesis about what customers want and you
need to collect data to test that hypothesis. We
require, for example, that students speak with 100
people during the three months they are in class –
customers, partners, suppliers or distributors.
then, midway through the course you build and
advertise your product and see if you get any
feedback. And, based on that, you constantly iterate.
technology, rightly or wrongly, is associated with social - but what about enterprise? are more people actively tackling the enterprise space today? the consumer press follows consumer products
because consumers understand it and use it. In
contrast, enterprise software companies are selling
to companies and the consumer doesn’t see it.
In the technology press, on the other hand, it is
pretty well split. A huge part of spend is spent by
enterprise and not consumers, so it gets press. JP
morgan spends $10 billion on technology and you
can bet there are a lot of people who want to know
what JP morgan is thinking.
With students – people coming right out of college
or grad school – they are interested in the things
they know. But as they get older, they start having
problems at work and they begin to think of
products to help that environment.
how technology changes everything
in business
Notifications
your order #3190 has arrived!
A new order has been created.
A new order has been created.
3 Reminders
hErmaN ChaNdi
22 the FutuRe
It’s the year 2020 and you are a manager on a
project site for your company – a small 50- person
organization. you need to buy something to complete
the project, so you hop on your smartphone or tablet
and spend 10 seconds with an application. your goods
arrive the next day. you take a picture of the goods
and packing slip. Voila, your project is done on time
and, most importantly, on budget.
So... what’s going on behind the scenes?
your order was already approved by an executive at
head office, a purchase order was sent electronically
and recorded automatically in your accounting
system, and your supplier has sent an electronic
invoice with a shipping notification.
Sound too good to be true?
If you already own a smartphone and you have an
iPad at home, you surely have an inkling that this kind
of enterprise reality should already exist. And not just
for the large corporations that can afford multi-million
dollar systems – but for companies of all sizes. If you
can go on Amazon and buy goods that are shipped
free in seconds, or book your travel plans within
minutes on your phone, why can’t you get the same
software experience at your office?
the proliferation of handheld devices and the
popular acceptance of cloud services are two
monster trends that have finally reached an inflection
point in our society, and not just for consumers or
households. Combined with the next generation
of workers growing up on these devices around
the world, and the expected massive baby boomer
retirement wave, we are in for a wholesale change
in both workforce composition and expectations
of what the future worker will do. the very idea of
treating software on the cloud as a public utility,
where you just flick on the lights, is revolutionary in
this space.
this will be a both scary and disruptive time for some,
and a great opportunity for others.
Job titles such as administrators and coordinators
will be under threat as simple, affordable and
easy-to-use software products proliferate across
web browsers and mobi le devices, a l lowing
companies to automate many mundane tasks.
Quite simply, if your role today is simply filling out
spreadsheets or photocopying paper and stapling
it to invoices, those manual tasks will be a thing
of the past.
For those that see the change coming and are
opportunistic, this presents an opportunity to spend
time on more value added activities in a company
and improve their skills to be top contributors in the
workforce.
unfortunately, some companies may lock in these
productivity improvements to the bottom line, but
the smarter ones will take those savings and reinvest
them in a smarter, well-trained workforce that can use
those same technologies to increase revenues and
innovate across the organization.
that 2020 scenario is starting to happen today, and
the impact of these changes will be felt for many years
to come. Whether you are a business owner, a working
professional or a new entrant to the workforce, we
are all entering a period of disruption. the one’s that
are prepared for it will be the one’s that will have the
greatest opportunities.
Read more by Herman at procurementsense.com
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