Enterprise Performance Management - Data is First Priority

Yesterday we all read about a news that Brightpoint sued Emptoris - a leading Spend Analysis Service provider based at MA over failed to deliver the service as expected - Brightpoint suing software vendor for negligence There are multiple posts and opinions started pouring the web about why this would happen and what Emptoris should do to respond. Competitors may start using this as a point to win some of the deal and so on. But I think there is a larger message in all this - and that’s about how you sell your product / service, how you setup customer expectation and how your delivery mechanism has been setup - business sensitized or mere a product delivery and lastly whether you stress on value or volume. In today's Spend world, what are the components that one needs to ideally talk about while engaging with customer for Spend Analytics requirements? 1. A strong analytical BI tool - which allows you to maximum slice dice capabilities 2. A strong backbone data service - whi...

Now I know thats a stupid question for any project manager. As you have a activity list, tasks, milestones, resources in your Microsoft Project, and once that complets in time, with all required resources, in budget - thats a successful project and there is a last step in your plan - GO LIVE. As a PMI certified Project Management Professional myself I agree with you all. Thats what happened in one of my recent engagement when team reached to that GO LIVE step. Everybody from bottom to top said - Yes we went live - Bravo - congratulations to the team and kudos and lots of good emails. You certainly love when it happens - but should you when its a Spend Analysis project? a BIG NO NO in my opinion. Why ? Because Spend analysis engagement is  not a conventional project. A part of it when you successfully implement and analytical - business intelligence product - is a milestone. Is that a go live point? again answer is NO. If we  really look at the objective if i...

Hello - Feeling good to restart my blogging, as I missed lot many discussion topics that happened in last 6 months. I took a break. One strong reason was - I was working on my Harvard Manage Mentor course. Yes - and I did that successfully. These were 21 extensive management courses that one needs to complete before you earn that. And despite having all hectic activities, my customer visit travels - I did that. This gives me immense strength now in terms of my professional attitude, working behavior, how I look at peers, How I look at stress and everything around. Earlier I used to take all the work on my head without even thinking whether I am supposed to do it, or I am getting recognized for it - now I am more cautious. So change is there. Thanks to Harvard and Mahindra Group for providing me this opportunity to look inside. Now about analysis - Yes there are lot of happenings in the Enterprise Perfromance Management world - and I have lot to write on...

"This is too much, I have to cut down my expenses on Clothes, Shoes, and Watches" - shouted my colleague suddenly in office, looking at his laptop screen. What happened? Everybody started staring at him - as he is known for flamboyance, in which apparels surely plays a part. The screen he was looking at was his bank website displaying his credit card "spend analyzer" tab. The graph showed that the total amount he spend in last one year on his credit card - 50% of it went to apparel and that's the reason of all this noise. So "Spend Analysis" reached home finally and its hitting everybody's eyes (or wallets). Till recently only billion - million dollars companies are privy of using buzzwords like spend analysis, identify potential savings and catch low hanging fruits etc. As world is through deep down recession, the world sees need to save those pennies for another dooms day. But where do you find all that money? So the spend analysis of your expe...

Horses for Sources - a IT industry analyst focussed on oursourcing published a very good article today after Mahindra Satyam's analyst call. Good assessment on how the things are after the Satyam takeover of Mahindras and what needs to be done - the main point being Mahindra Saryam needs to be distinctive. http://www.horsesforsources.com/event-alert-mahindra-satyam-130610 Thanks Prashant Mendki pmendki(at)gmail(dot)com

For last two months I was talking to some customers and prospective customers to study on "how" part of Spend Analytics system. This How is mainly about - How do you use spend analytics system - simple. My impression untill recently that everybody must be looking at reports like - Vendor wise spend, Commodity wise spend, Category wide spend etc etc, then identify what are important objects in terms of money - get the strategy defined to do negotiations and then actually saving money in longer term using negotiated pricing. Now after my brief 2 months study - this looks to be a small part of the world to me. Sometimes this is "Not" the part of results through spend analytics system. Then what do industry do with it? Interestingly sometime people just needs a consolidated analytical system. Means, they have desperate systems all over the world, and data in those is not in good shape. So what they want is some system to consolidate, standardize the data, cleanse it a...

A good read in recent issue of Risk Management Magazine - an Article on Spend Analysis and Supplier Risk titled "Domino Effect". http://www.rmmagazine.com/MGTemplate.cfm?Section=RMMagazine&NavMenuID=128&template=/Magazine/DisplayMagazines.cfm&IssueID=344&AID=4072&Volume=57&ShowArticle=1 Thanks prashant Mendki (pmendki at gmail dot com)