Enterprise Performance Management - Data is First Priority

"We are investing so much in our Master Data Management efforts. Can you not use the data  that is clean and standardized during that process as a input to Spend Analysis portal - so we an achieve both simultaneously with low cost ?". You might have heard this question - if you are in a customer meeting with those techno savvy big companies just starting off on optimization drive. What would be your answer ? If you are a sales person - you will think of it as a another negotiating tactic by customer, if you are a IT guy - I can see that smile on your face, if you are a business person - you think its absolutely possible, and if you are a Spend Analyst consultant - your answer is Yes and No. I personally think - I don all these hats, but for this blog - I am a Spend Analyst. So let me explain why Yes and why No. Yes - If - when you started your MDM initiative you talked to "right" consultant and created a road-map as to how you can accommodate Spend Analysis as a...

I am sure most of you read a story of Elephant and Seven Blind Men. For starters - this is how the story goes - "A number of blind men came to an elephant. Somebody told them that it was an elephant. The blind men asked, ‘What is the elephant like?’ and they began to touch its body. One of them said: 'It is like a pillar.' This blind man had only touched its leg. Another man said, ‘The elephant is like a husking basket.’ This person had only touched its ears. Similarly, he who touched its trunk or its belly talked of it differently." As Wikipedia mentions - This story has been used to illustrate a range of truths and fallacies. At various times it has provided insight into the relativism, opaqueness or inexpressible nature of truth, the behavior of experts in fields where there is a deficit or inaccessibility of information, the need for communication, and respect for different perspectives. The moral of the story is - While one's subjective experience...

This is the series that I would like to publish over this week - the big strategic confusion. The confusion within the industry managers, sourcing and procurement professionals and IT managers who deal with these systems. The confusion on "yes we want to save, we want to start a strategic plan, an approach to save money in longer term - but what is that plan? what should I look into? How to start, what to start, whom to approach, who are the vendors - what do I need at the end of the day" I know this is inherent confusion for customers as well as providers. As customers doesnt know what they need as there are too many service providers in different layers of the pyramid - including nische as well as end to end, service providers are also in a confusion as to what should they provide? to whom they should approach, should it be overall package on end to end solution or just one services on premium rates. This I call big Strategic confusion. So what is the industry space we are...

We discussed taxonomies last time. Depending on your goal - whether its sourcing optimization or master data management or just spend analysis you can decide on what taxonomy you want to use - either global one like UNSPSC or your own or something available through service provider. Based on that taxonomy your service provide can run the engine and give you data classified. The delivery mechanism comes next. You need a dashboard kind of solution to slice and dice your data so your analysis give you information. So you got it. You can identify negotiable vendor set and go for savings. Thats one way of looking at it. If your goal is sourcing optimization and master data management then you need something additional - data attribute enrichment. What does that mean? You have material master with you at different plans, site and systems. Do you know whether its in good shape? Does it contain only 1 record for each material or there are many? Your system might be capable of doing search of s...