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James Marland

Global Vice President, Sales Excellence, Intelligent Spend & Business Network at SAP

London, United Kingdom

Storyteller. Educating companies of all sizes the benefits of Going Digital with Business Networks.

Having worked at both SAP and Ariba prior to the acquisition, James is uniquely positioned to drive the connection of the world's companies together with the SAP Business Network. For too long companies have focused on their internal processes, data and employees: its time to look "Beyond the Wall"? to customers, suppliers, contractors and the "Intelligent extended value chain".

Active on Twitter (https://twitter.com/JamesMarland)

Available For: Authoring, Speaking
Travels From: London

James Marland Points
Academic 0
Author 74
Influencer 206
Speaker 42
Entrepreneur 0
Total 322

Points based upon Thinkers360 patent-pending algorithm.

Thought Leader Profile

Portfolio Mix

Company Information

Company Type: Company
Theatre: Global
Minimum Project Size: Undisclosed
Average Hourly Rate: Undisclosed
Number of Employees: Undisclosed
Company Founded Date: Undisclosed
Media Experience: SAP Media training
Last Media Interview: 05/22/2018

Areas of Expertise

AI 30.03
Analytics 30.04
Big Data 30.13
Cloud 30.03
Culture 30.08
Customer Experience 30.06
Digital Disruption 30.29
Digital Transformation 30.10
Emerging Technology 30.59
ERP 30.07
Innovation 30.07
Leadership 30.12
Management 30.04
Predictive Analytics 30.12
Procurement 33.57
Sales 30.10
Supply Chain 31.94
Sustainability 35.96

Industry Experience

Publications

49 Article/Blogs
How Suppliers Drive Innovation
LinkedIn
March 05, 2021
Supplier collaboration continues to be under-recognised and under-leveraged, Customers are getting more fickle, and supply chains are under pressure like never before. In this workshop James explored why it's so challenging to deliver on these goals, how we can work more collaboratively with our suppliers to do so, and what we should use as our measure of success. We also looked at what strategies Procurement teams are putting in place to supplement their development teams with innovations from suppliers.

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Tags: Innovation, Supply Chain, Procurement

Building A Network One Node At A Time
The DIgitalist
January 08, 2020
All networks are originally pitched on the efficiencies that their participants will receive. But when they achieve critical mass, network effects take off, and the real value is in data, information, and insight. This blog celebrates the life of George Laurer, the inventor of the humble UPC barcode.

Reach down to any item on your desk, turn it over, and study the building block of a network that started off delivering efficiency but ended up delivering information. Then consider your own participation in business networks. You may have joined for efficiency, but the real value of these connections is the intelligence they can yield.

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Tags: Digital Transformation, Procurement, Sustainability

Predictions For The Future Of Procurement
Digitalist
December 16, 2019
Technology holds huge promise in the procurement sector, but making the most of it requires a rethinking.

Observers have been predicting the evolution of procurement for many years. Yet the results of new technology initiatives have been disappointing, according to the latest research from the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply (CIPS). Why is procurement failing to evolve, and how can leaders turn this around?

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Tags: Procurement, Supply Chain, Sustainability

The Value Of Experience Data Involves More Than Just A Survey
Forbes
December 12, 2019
Businesses also struggle with getting good experience data from their customers. Its tempting to relentlessly badger them at the point of sale, just like the nervous husband handing over a hastily bought scarf. “Do you like it?”, “Do you like it?”

With gift-giving you have the opportunity to correct your mistake next year. It would be a foolish husband who monitored his wife's non-usage of the shoes he carefully selected, or ignored the relentless mocking of the embroidered oven-mitt from the year before. But many companies collect the experience data, employ clever data scientists but don't take the final step of doing anything about it.

After all, your wife may humour your annual failure to come up with an innovative present: your customers will not be so forgiving.

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Tags: Customer Experience, Procurement, Sustainability

Getting Experience Data needs more than just a survey
LinkedIn
December 03, 2019
As I think about choosing my wife's Christmas present, I have a nagging fear than I am a poor present-chooser. But she always says she loves the present. What's going on? Just asking people if they like something is not enough to truly evaluate their experience. Just like your wife and kids, your customers don't always tell you exactly what they think. You won't always get brutal honesty from formal channels such as customer surveys or focus groups. Just asking “Did you like it” does not give all the information, because it lacks the context, and tends to measure a single point in time rather than a long term experience.

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Tags: Customer Experience, Procurement, Sustainability

Towards 2020: Predictions for the future of procurement
Procurement and Supply Australia
November 27, 2019
Technology holds huge promise in the procurement sector but making the most of it requires a rethink. Observers have been predicting the evolution of procurement for many years. Yet the results of new technology initiatives have been disappointing, according to the latest research from the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply (CIPS). This article looks at why procurement is failing to evolve, and how leaders can turn this around.

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Tags: Procurement, Supply Chain, Sustainability

Adopting the rigour of the Clinical Trial
LinkedIn
November 02, 2019
Optimal decision making needs Experience Data, not just Facts and Figures. In a clinical trial, as well as numerical data such as blood pressure or pH levels, a good test protocol will ask the patient about any side effects such as headaches, sleep loss or fatigue.

Procurement also needs to move beyond Facts and Figures and look at Experience Data, driving data-based decision making to add Value. That’s why we say that more than ever, the CPO needs to move out of their traditional role and assume the role of the CVO, the Chief Value Officer. And just as the BMA injects rigour and discipline into the pharmaceutical world, Procurement Leaders need to be in the vanguard of moving to decisions based on data: both Operational and Experience Data.

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Tags: Customer Experience, Procurement, Sustainability

SAPAribaLive, Sydney : That's a Wrap
LinkedIn
September 10, 2019
Over 700 Spend Management professionals joined SAP Ariba and SAP Fieldglass in Sydney on September 10th 2019. Here's James's write-up of the action and a sketch of the content, as he saw it.

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Tags: Procurement, Supply Chain, Sustainability

Autonomous Procurement – the next evolution
LinkedIn
August 23, 2019
Welcome to the world of Autonomous Procurement, where Procurement Professionals are augmented by Machines, and focus strategic relationships which require their human creativity and empathy.

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Tags: AI, Procurement, Sustainability

Intelligent Spend Management can be the key to Experience Management
LinkedIn
August 02, 2019
To improve Customer Satisfaction, you may be looking in the wrong place: frequently Suppliers hold the key to an improved Customer Experience. The only way to satisfy this discriminating consumer is to hold your suppliers to account, to make sure that they also have values aligned to yours. Suppliers hold the key to an enhanced customer experience.

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Tags: Procurement, Supply Chain, Sustainability

Leadership lessons from the Maestro
Import from medium.com
June 19, 2019
Roger Nierenberg conducts at SAPAriba Live, Barcelona 2019We’ve done sports metaphors to death: what can business leaders learn from the relationship between an orchestra and its conductor?An evening like no otherAt our recent SAPAriba LIVE in Barcelona, we were treated to an evening like no othe

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Tags: Leadership

10 Trillion Dollars Later: 20 years of Ariba Network
Linkedin
April 25, 2019
On April 2nd 1999 a small burst of XML was sent via a new web service called ariba.com. This XML coded the purchase of 10 3m Cat5 cables to be sent from Compucom to Cisco. The order was for $47.50 and was order number 000000001 on what was to become the Ariba Network.

Twenty years later, on April 2nd 2019 at the recent SAP Ariba LIVE event, Ariba veteran James Marland looked back at the previous 20 years, and how the foundations of the world's largest network were laid.

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Tags: Digital Transformation, Procurement, Supply Chain

Sydney Opera House: the Architect & the Engineer
Medium
January 29, 2019
Earlier this month I made my first visit to Sydney. Like most first time visitors I was suitably impressed with the Opera House. The engineer called upon to build the Opera House (who has just died) had challenges similar to the demands on modern Supply Chain Professionals. Lets take a moment to remember engineers, and Supply Chain Managers, who stop the roof caving in.

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Tags: Digital Transformation, Supply Chain, Sustainability

Sydney Opera House: the architect & the engineer
Import from medium.com
January 28, 2019
Sydney Opera House: The Architect & the EngineerThe engineer called upon to build the Opera House had challenges similar to the demands on modern Supply Chain Professionals.Sydney Opera House. Picture Credit James Marland © 2019Earlier this month I made my first visit to Sydney. Like most fir

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Tags: Supply Chain

The Lunar Eclipse and the Nature of Predictions
Medium
January 21, 2019
Earlier this morning I set my alarm for 0300 for the Great Lunar Eclipse, where the shadow of the earth would full across the face of the full moon. This movement of astronomical bodies had been predicted literally hundreds of years ago.

If Eclipses are so easy to predict, how come no-one in the London saw the recent Lunar Eclipse, and what does this teach about the nature of predictions.

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Tags: Analytics, Big Data, Predictive Analytics

Looking at B2B sales from the other side
LinkedIn
January 18, 2019
In Sales, as in Chess, sometimes to get insight you need to look at the position from the other side of the table. So, if you sell into B2B it would be useful to hear how Procurement teams are viewing 2019 and what priorities and strategies they are putting in place.

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Tags: Sustainability, Procurement, Sales

Understanding Your Customer’s Experience: Are You in Orbit or Just Flying By?
Medium
January 02, 2019
The two NASA probes both successfully executed critical maneuvers this week: one was a fly-by and one was a close orbit. This got me thinking about the way that companies engage with their customers in the Experience Economy.

The next evolution of enterprise applications requires a real-time connection between the system of action and the system of record. You need both the trajectory to visit all of your customers, yet at the same time the ability to develop deep relations with them so you can deliver the experience they want.

No longer do companies have to make a choice between the fly-by and the close orbit.

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Tags: Big Data, Customer Experience, Predictive Analytics

How many ghosts do you need?
Medium
December 19, 2018
Scrooge needed three separate spirits to answer questions about the Past, Present and Future. Today’s Business Leader needs just one. The blog looks at the three fundamental questions of business: What happened? What is happening Now? What will happen in the future? It used to be the case that three separate IT systems were needed, but modern Intelligent Enterprise systems can answer questions about the past, present and future at the same time.

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Tags: Big Data, Digital Transformation, Predictive Analytics

Moving from Anecdote to Empiricism
Medium
December 06, 2018
Modern science has its origins in medieval alchemy: the difference was in the use of data. Businesses also need to transition to data-backed decision-making. Its comforting to want to stay in the world of anecdotal-decision making. Stories have mighty persuasive power, but business leaders need need to get away from alchemy, and introduce data-backed decision-making into the Enterprise.

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Tags: Big Data, Predictive Analytics, Procurement

Advancing Decent Work in Global Supply Chains
Import from medium.com
November 30, 2018
Extract from a presentation to the UN Forum on Business & Human Rights making the case for why procurement departments should be perceived as part of the solution to improving Human Rights in Global Supply Chains.Human Trafficking, Forced Labour, Child Labour, Indenture Workers, Decent Work. Th

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Tags: Sustainability, Supply Chain, Procurement

SAPAriba showcases the Intelligent Enterprise at Network Live
linkedin
October 17, 2018
SAP Ariba announces live Cloud Infrastructure in the Gulf to support the Intelligent Enterprise.

What's old is new again. While my ancestors were running around in Dark Ages Britain, Arab scholars were building the foundations of mathematics with Al-Gebra, and the Al-Gorithm. More strikingly, at the same time, Arabic traders were popularising a new number system, which we now call Arabic Numbers. So this seemed a fitting place to talk about how mathematics and algorithms are underpinning the Intelligent Enterprise.

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Tags: AI, Big Data, Cloud, Procurement

Whatever happened to Data Mining?
Import from medium.com
October 13, 2018
The concept of Data Mining has been increasingly displaced by Machine Learning. So why is that?You don’t hear much about Data Mining these days, so I pulled up a quick Google Trends analysis to compare usage over the last 5 years. The trends are quite compelling, and show that since August 2015 t

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Tags: Big Data, Digital Disruption, Procurement

The Evolution of Procurement
LinkedIn
October 11, 2018
In a spirited panel at the SAP Ariba London Summit, panellists debated the evolution of procurement
As noted on my previous blog (The Changing World of Procurement), it is surprising when a technology company organises a conference, and technology is not the main part of the conversation.

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Tags: Procurement

The Changing World of Procurement
LinkedIn
October 10, 2018
When an IT company hosts a conference, surprisingly, not once talking about IT can provide the most compelling reason to invest in technology after all. James Marland reviews the Future of Procurement event hosted by SAP in London, where the topics were career, talent, purpose and change management in the profession.

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Tags: Procurement, Supply Chain, Sustainability

What this week’s Nobel Prize can teach us about data
Medium
October 02, 2018
This weeks Nobel prize for medicine shows that the body’s own immune system can be activated against malignant tumours. There are parallels to the way companies should activate “dormant” data to protect themselves.

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Tags: Big Data, Procurement, Supply Chain

3 Keynotes
Procurement's role in re-balancing the market economy
LinkedIn
November 01, 2019
Opening presentation at SAP ValueX conference. Introduced themes of how capitalism needs to be re-balanced.

As we think about Innovation, the very narrative of capitalism is being challenged: you see it happening with Extinction Rebellion, protests at Davos, or the G20. They make the valid observation that some of life’s basic, essentials (like housing, energy, water, education or transport) are slipping out of reach of large sections of our citizens. It’s as though each generation, my own daughters included, have to re-tune the concepts behind a free market economy to make sure it continues to be the value creator that has delivered a better society to previous generations.

The people to do that may just turn out to be that unglamorous, often- mocked department – Procurement.

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Tags: Emerging Technology, Sustainability, Procurement

Intelligent Spend Management at CEE e-Procurement Summit
SAP Ariba
April 11, 2019
James Marland, Global Vice President at SAP Ariba, was one of the keynote speakers at the Central & Eastern Europe eProcurement conference in Slovakia, April 11th.

The presentation started with a photograph of a Prague taxi driver who had connected 9 devices inside his cab (a DVD player, two phones, a GPS, a printer, a credit card reader etc). This is what some companies try to do when they go digital: they end up with huge complexity, multiple systems which don't talk to each other.

The presentation moved on to what does it main to manage Spend Intelligently in an organisation (see picture). This needs to take into account the changing role of procurement, as they move from the age of Mandate to the age of Guidance. James observed that as his own daughters enter the workforce they expect corporate systems to work the same why as the rest of their digital lives. Simple. Mobile. "Just say Yes".

Finally the speaker explained that a vision for Intelligent Spend Management needs to support a "one-to-many-to-one" flow. Suppliers and Policies need to be brought together in one place for risk management,then franchised out to the appropriate system to actually do the transactions for Direct, Indirect, Services and Travel, then to be brought back together for analysis and to derive intelligence to feed back into the policies.

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Tags: Procurement, Supply Chain, Sustainability

"Risks of reputational impact"
Odesma, UK
September 12, 2018
Just as the Tower of London protects the Queen’s Crown Jewels with stone walls and cannons, procurement teams need to likewise protect their company’s reputation in the age of 24-Hour News Cycles, Social Media and Globalisation. James Marland will share how procurement is the most critical department in corporations to not only protect the brand, but also to help the company achieve its social and environmental goals.

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Tags: Procurement, Sustainability

5 Media Interviews
Mind the Gap between insight and action
LinkedIn
November 14, 2019
Procurement journalist Jon Jonoski talks with James Marland, VP of Spend Management at SAP, about the use of data in managing Spend.

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Tags: Emerging Technology, Procurement, Supply Chain

Interview with T360 on becoming an Influencer
Thinkers360
April 19, 2019
Interview with Thinkers360 on the nature of influence. Key quote "I find that following a stable of people whose content I trust is more satisfying than my Twitter Feed of 20,000 followers. Like many, I am moving away from that kind of mass participation megaphone into a smaller circle of people I respect."

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Tags: Culture, Leadership, Procurement

Digital Disruption is happening across all industries
Twitter
September 24, 2018
In this short interview, from the Gartner Supply Chain Conference in Sep 2018, James reports that digital transformation is not just restricted to some industries. What was once evident in book and media publishing is washing over all industries, don't think you're immune. You need a Digital Supply Chain to stand up to this wave or you run this risk of getting swamped.

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Tags: Digital Disruption, Procurement, Supply Chain

The Changing nature of Procurement
SAPAriba
August 02, 2018
Ronald van Loon interviews James Marland who explains how procurement is changing, and how Ariba is responding with services and technology.

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Tags: Procurement

Procurement with Purpose
Procurious
June 01, 2018
Listen to james discuss why Procurement is best placed to help cmpanies with their Corporate and Social Responsibilities.

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Tags: Sustainability, Supply Chain, Procurement

3 Panels
A Panel Discussion on the Evolution of Procurement
LinkedIn
October 11, 2018
In a spirited panel at the SAP Ariba London Summit, customers debated the changes they are seeing in procurement and how to balance evolution with revolution. Blog from moderator James Marland summarises the key thoughts and quotes.

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Tags: Digital Transformation, Procurement, Sustainability

Debating the Purpose of Procurement
LinkedIn
July 05, 2018
A recent debate shows an even split between idealists and realists on how much influence procurement has on social, environmental and ethical issues.

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Tags: Procurement, Sustainability

Data-based decisions: for Physicians and Procurement
LinkedIn
November 13, 2017
James Marland was the host at SAPAriba's recent Future of Procurement conference at the Royal College of Physicians, where a panel of Procurement experts looked at how they too can introduce data-based decision making into their profession.

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Tags: Procurement, Supply Chain

3 Speaking Engagements
Why Spend Management is the Key to Experience Management
LinkedIn
October 01, 2019
At the recent Connect 2 Innovate James explains why “purchasing” is not some grubby back office function, it turns out that what you buy, who you buy it from and how you pay for it has a huge impact on the other end of that Value Chain: your Customers. So if you want your customers to have a better Experience, the answer might just lie in your procurement software.

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Tags: Procurement, Supply Chain, Sustainability

2018 United Nations Forum on Business and Human Rights
Medium
November 30, 2018
James Marland, VP Network Growth for SAP Ariba, presented at the United Nations Forum on Business and Human Rights in Geneva, hosted by Lise Kingo, CEO & Executive Director, United Nations Global Compact. The presentation was on advancing decent work in Global Supply Chains, and how software from SAP can help companies move from commitment to action.

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Tags: Procurement, Supply Chain, Sustainability

Building the Intelligent Value Chain
SAP South Africa
August 30, 2018
Presentation on extending the concept of the Intelligent Enterprise to the full Value Chain. Intelligence should stop at the four walls of your company.

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Tags: Supply Chain, Procurement, Predictive Analytics

7 Videos
Let's talk about the Future of Procurement
SAP Ariba
September 02, 2018
What is the Future for Procurement? James highlights how procurement needs to adapt to the new way of working, to be the department that stops saying "No", and starts to say "Sure, I can help you with that"

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Tags: Sustainability, Supply Chain, Procurement

Procurement with Purpose : Why are we here?
Edenhouse
July 03, 2018
Purpose should be a pivotal part of every organisation's business strategy. Why are we here and what is your business' purpose?

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Tags: Procurement, Supply Chain, Sustainability

Summary of the SAPAriba Live Amsterdam event
SAP Ariba
April 30, 2018
James takes on the role of TV anchor from SAP AribaLive in Amsterdam, this time with Gustavo Cyrillo Amorim as we wrapped the thing up.

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Tags: Procurement, Supply Chain

Recap of AribaLive Las Vegas
SAP Ariba
March 08, 2018
James and Marcel recap the SAP AribaLive event in Las Vegas.

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Tags: Procurement

Preview of procurement with purpose at SAP AribaLive
SAP Ariba
March 06, 2018
James discusses the upcoming SAP Ariba Live event in las Vegas, with Tifenn, the CMO of Ariba.

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Tags: Procurement, Sustainability

SAP Ariba Supply Chain Overview
SAP Ariba
August 10, 2017
In this extensive overview, James explains how IBP, Ariba and the Ariba network can combine to help digitise the Supply Chain.

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Tags: Supply Chain

Ariba Network - The Innovation Agenda
SAP Ariba
August 02, 2016
Join James has he uses one of his whiteboards to explain Ariba, its Value Proposition, and the recent innovations.

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Tags: ERP, Procurement, Supply Chain

Thinkers360 Credentials

6 Badges

Blog

4 Article/Blogs
Cassandra: Cursed with ability to predict but the inability to effect change
Thinkers360
November 10, 2018
I went to the Athens National Museum this week, where I saw the famous "Hoard of Troy" antiquities. One of the Princesses of Troy was Cassandra, who may have worn the very earrings I was looking at, in 1200 BC. She was famously cursed by Apollo to be able to see the future but not to be able to do anything about it. She even foresaw the destruction of Troy and warned the Trojans about the Greeks hiding inside the Trojan Horse, but could not affect the outcome. Implementing an Intelligent technology can be like this. You may have reams of data, great algorithms, and fantastic visualisations. But without the ability to actually effect the change in your business you will remain cursed like Cassandra. Seeing the future but not being able to do anything about it. Here are some examples where you need both the prediction, and the ability to actually take advantage of the insight. • You see from your Customer Experience (CX) analysis that a price segment has low elasticity and could take a price rise without diminishing volume, yielding a higher margin. But you cannot easily update the thousands of pricing records that store channel pricing without trawling through dozens of macro-ridden spreadsheets. • You get a signal from the market that there will be an uptick in demand for you product in the upcoming Chinese New year, but you cannot shift your production to take advantage. It takes too long to find additional capacity, order the components and rebalance your workforce. The opportunity is lost. • You are able to learn from sentiment analysis that a supplier should be black listed because it is close to bankruptcy due to a fraud scandal. But you cannot stop RFXs, order and payment going out to all their subsidiaries for several weeks. Not only leaking cash but also putting your own reputation at risk. At SAP we call this the Insight-to-Action lag. For an Intelligent Enterprise to be effective, you need a Digital Core as well as the Machine Learning, AI and predictive analytics. Don't be Cassandra: Cursed with ability to predict but the inability to effect change

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Tags: Big Data, Procurement, Predictive Analytics

Even the board game Monopoly is going digital! How about you?
Thinkers360
October 14, 2018
Hasbro has recently introduced a version of Monopoly that eliminates cash by using a little ATM, with a scanner and barcodes on the cards and board. If a player wants to buy a property they’ve landed on, they just need to scan their credit card, and then the Title Deed, and the price will be automatically deducted from their available funds. It works the same way if another player lands on a property with a house or hotel on it. By scanning both credit cards and the property card, funds can be quickly transferred between players to pay the rent. This new edition (ominously called Ultimate Banking Edition) reflects that for the target player (“ages 8 and up”, according to the box) handling cash is becoming increasingly rare. Touch-less payments are very common. When I hand my taxi guy a couple of rumpled twenties it already feels vaguely criminal. When I make trips to non Euro countries such as Sweden or Denmark I don’t even think about getting any cash, and only have a vague idea of the Exchange Rate. But, in the American Rental sector, things haven’t changed much since Monopoly was first introduced, in the 1930s. 70% of renters pay by cheque. It’s unlikely that rent at Boardwalk is still $400, but it is more than likely that the current residents are reaching for a chequebook once a month. In the game, the worst Chance card is the one that forces you to pay housing repairs. In the real world these are B2B invoices, and 77% of the worlds invoices are still on paper. This means that reconciling those invoices for repairs such as decorating and cleaning will be a cumbersome process. Get Out of Jail. The problem for Businesses today is that their IT systems are pretty much a jail: no communication with the outside world. Your suppliers, customers and other stakeholders can’t really communicate in the real-time, digital, Hi-Fidelity way that today’s economy requires. You don’t want to be languishing in the corner, hoping to roll a double, while your competitors cruise past on the “Just Visiting” lane, picking up all the best assets. If you are a Monopoly fan, then you can just buy this Banking Edition, and all of the renters will magically be ready to receive rent notices electronically and render payment digitally. In the real world of B2B, life is a bit more complex than that. Rather than the 6 players in the game, you will have 1000s of connections to make. To Advance to Go, you need to join a Business Network.

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Tags: Digital Disruption, Innovation, Procurement

Who is the Steward of the Intangibles in your Company?
Thinkers360
September 21, 2018
What’s your company worth? 50 years ago a Balance Sheet consisted of plant, machinery, raw materials, Finished Goods and land. These are the tangible assets of any company. However, there has been a big change. Within the last 25 years, intellectual capital has emerged as the leading asset class. Up from 17% in 1975 to 84% in 2015. The term “intellectual capital” refers generally to intangible assets?—?patents, trademarks and copyrights. Also, as more companies are outsourcing their manufacturing, those old smokestack assets are now also intangibles: such as supply chain, logistics acumen, designs, blueprints and licences. But there’s more, brand value is also an important component of Intangible Asset Market Value (IAMV). Comparing the 39 companies appearing on both the S&P 500 and the Interbrand list suggests brand value may represent as high as one quarter of the total market cap of a prominently branded company. So who is the Steward of the Brand? Everywhere you look, business is under scrutiny. Whether for environmental practices, labor conditions, tax, or paying suppliers on time, individual citizens increasingly are expecting companies to behave in a socially responsible manner. This is not a fad. A pivot. Something that will blow over. It’s a generational change. Increasingly leaders are look to protect their brand by looking at the external perception of the company by investors, partners, communities, and public entities. This is loosely called being purpose-focused and can cover social, environmental, and sustainability practices. 39% of consumers are likely not to buy a company’s products or services if they believe they are not “responsible”. 25% will actively advise friends and family to avoid the company. There’s a wide perception that these programs cost money and drive down margins. Wrong. Research suggests that companies that execute these types of programs can significantly outperform their rivals over a 10-year period. Modern-day procurement leaders are starting to use the phenomenal buying power of their organizations to address some of these big social challenges. At the upcoming Carlyle Global Partner Summit event in Monaco, Tifenn Dano Kwan, SAP Ariba CMO will share the worldwide movement building around social procurement. Can you, or your brand, afford to sit this one out?

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Tags: Sustainability, Supply Chain, Procurement

Becoming a Digital Leader
Thinkers360
August 27, 2018
In the era of Digital Transformation and Digital Disruption, is the very nature of leadership changing as well? Many of our models of leadership in corporations are derived from the military. The idea of a manager who has “subordinates” sounds very much like a brigadier who has captains and sergeants beneath him. In traditional armies this made sense, because in the confusion of the battlefield, infantrymen would take orders only from people they knew and trusted, and in the fog of war a strong chain of command was the only way an order could be reliably executed. Likewise in traditional corporations, such as the GM of the 1950s, with limited information and distributed personnel, a similar structure made sense. But it's 2018 now: we are no longer constrained by geography or information paucity, so is our model of leadership changing? What kind of leaders do we need to develop for a fast-moving modern, digital enterprise? Here are three ways the digital leader differs from their forbears, and three practical things you can do: 1 - Influence is Power In a large corporation the people who make things happen are people who have influence, not just the people at the top of the tree. Influence can be garnered in many ways, but developing a strong brand in a company is worth investing time in. 2 - Everyone is a knowledge worker No leader can afford to not be reading the latest blogs, the latest books, trying out new tech, meeting new people. Look at your calendar for the week, what conference call could you delete to get an hour back to actually learn something new? 3 - Fostering Leadership skills everywhere As a Digital Leader you need to acknowledge the leadership skills of people on your team who may not have formal management roles. Which of your team would make a good mentor, coach, role model or teacher? Encourage these skills and allow your team to develop them via digital tools such as social media either within or outside your company. Are you and your management team (above and below) really ready for Digital Transformation?

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Tags: Digital Transformation, Management, Leadership

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