Future of Sourcing - Education http://futureofsourcing.com/tags/education en Exploring the Capabilities of an Interconnected World with Kazu Gomi http://futureofsourcing.com/exploring-the-capabilities-of-an-interconnected-world-with-kazu-gomi <div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="http://futureofsourcing.com/sites/default/files/articles/Podcast_Sourcing_Industry%20Landscape_11.png"><a href="http://futureofsourcing.com/sites/default/files/articles/Podcast_Sourcing_Industry%20Landscape_11.png" title="Exploring the Capabilities of an Interconnected World with Kazu Gomi" class="colorbox" rel="gallery-node-1489-Pp3xpzbYOyw"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://futureofsourcing.com/sites/default/files/styles/juicebox_medium/public/articles/Podcast_Sourcing_Industry%20Landscape_11.png?itok=7hTR2b22" width="624" height="325" alt="" title="" /></a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-intro field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"> <p><strong>Are you ready for the next wave of disruption in procurement? Join Sourcing Industry Group CEO and President, Dawn Tiura, for conversations on The Sourcing Industry Landscape with innovators who embrace technology to improve, influence and inspire procurement professionals.&nbsp;</strong></p> <p><strong>Check out&nbsp;<a href="https://sig.org/sourcing-industry-landscape?__hstc=215510152.344406f4865c40604cf6029be7e958e0.1543422516683.1560384261223.1560386358147.373&amp;__hssc=215510152.2.1560386358147&amp;__hsfp=726271731" target="_blank">all episodes of The Sourcing Industry Landscape</a>&nbsp;to date and subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. You can listen to the podcast in iTunes, through your favorite podcast app or&nbsp;<a href="https://sig.org/sourcing-industry-landscape?__hstc=215510152.344406f4865c40604cf6029be7e958e0.1543422516683.1560384261223.1560386358147.373&amp;__hssc=215510152.2.1560386358147&amp;__hsfp=726271731" target="_blank">on our website</a>.</strong></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p><em><strong>In&nbsp;<a href="https://sig.org/exploring-capabilities-interconnected-world-w-kazu-gomi" target="_blank">this episode of the Sourcing Industry Landscape</a>, Dawn Tiura interviews Kazu Gomi. Kazu Gomi, CEO of NTT America, ranks as the 4th largest telecommunication company in the world.&nbsp;</strong></em><em style="font-size: 13.008px;"><strong>We learn the breadth and depth of NTT&rsquo;s capabilities, from system integration, (they acquired Dell Services a few years ago) and are also one of the largest security companies in North America.&nbsp;</strong></em></p> <div>Dawn Tiura:&nbsp;<span style="font-size: 13.008px;">My name is Dawn Tiura, and I&#39;m president and CEO of Sourcing Industry Group, also known as SIG. And I&#39;m excited today. I have a different kind of guest than I&#39;ve had on before. We have somebody who is an expert, and his name is Kazu Gomi. He is the Chief Executive Officer of NTT America. He&#39;s out of the greater New York City area. But first, I just want to welcome you, Kazu, to the show. So thank you for joining me.</span></div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Kazu Gomi: Thank you very much for having me. Good morning.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Dawn Tiura: Good morning. So just for the listeners, NTT, I was blown away personally when I learned what a large and vast organization it is. Can you give our listeners a little bit of background about who NTT is as a company, and then NTT Securities?</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Kazu Gomi: Okay, I&#39;d love to. NTT is a Japan-based company. It&#39;s roots is a telecommunication company. NTT stands for Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporations. Currently, as we stand, our annual revenue side is over $100 billion. If I understand, the most recent Global Fortune 500 ranking, amongst the &quot;telecommunications companies,&quot; we are ranked number four after AT&amp;T, Verizon, and China Mobile. And something our company, NTT, is a little bit different from all the other usual suspects, AT&amp;T and so and so forth, is that we have a pretty [large] breadth of service capabilities for enterprise market.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Kazu Gomi: We have a couple different operating companies including NTT Data and Dimension Data. Especially, this group called NTT Data, this company has a lot of capabilities in the systems integration areas. SAP and Oracle, all those enterprise applications that this company can take care of it. And for the U.S. audience, I think that this company&#39;s very well known for the company who acquired DELL Services about three years ago. So all, basically, the capabilities that DELL Services had, we have inherited.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Kazu Gomi: So as the NTT Group, we have a capability of a traditional telecommunications company. So all the global network we have, global footprints, and the data centers, voice solutions, and so on and so forth, those are infrastructure side. And Dimension Data provides the systems integrations. And as I&#39;ve just mentioned, NTT Data, which has the capabilities</div> <div>of enterprise applications. And on top of that, of course, the security is a big topic for everyone, so we have experts of this area. We have a group called NTT Security. But basically, altogether, NTT Group, we call ourselves. And we try to become the group who can do full stack, full life cycle for the enterprise IT solutions. So that&#39;s where we are in a nutshell.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Dawn Tiura: Good. And so my understanding is you also carry more internet traffic than most of the well-known names here out of North America. Is that true?</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Kazu Gomi: Yes. It is true. So, one of the infrastructure capabilities that I can touch upon is this global internet backbone NTT Group runs. And I personally have been involved in this project longer than any other project in my career, to be quite honest. But yeah, we carry more traffic than anybody you may think of, like AT&amp;T and Verizon and so on and so forth. We are one of the top three providers in the world in terms of that volume of traffic&mdash;volume of internet traffic, I should say&mdash;that we carry amongst all the providers in the world.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Dawn Tiura: Yeah. That&#39;s amazing. So when I first got introduced to NTT, I thought of you as telephone and telecom. And I had no idea at the breadth and depth of your company. But let&#39;s go back to the beginning. So, my understanding is you have a undergrad degree in mechanical engineering; a master&#39;s degree in engineering; an industrial engineering degree. So, you knew from early on that this was an area you wanted go into. Because your very first job after school, if I recall correctly, was going in to be a director at NTT. So what got your interest? Why NTT? And why are you so overly educated?</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Kazu Gomi: Well, I&#39;m not sure if I&#39;m overly educated or not, but I was always interested in technology. And that was the early stage of personal computers, well, if you remember those term[s]. And then I thought that that will change the world. And NTT has, back then, a lot of bells and whistles around ISDN, if you remember those terms-</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Dawn Tiura: Mm-hmm, Mm-hmm.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Kazu Gomi: -to basically start, not just voice communications, we start talking about the data communications. So I thought that was very interesting and I thought that&#39;s the future that we&#39;re going to head out. So, I really wanted to devote myself into, mostly, when I started a career in NTT in the R&amp;D project that I wanted to get involved in. So basically, that&#39;s how I ended up in NTT and started my career.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Dawn Tiura: That&#39;s awesome. So you started off in Cyber Space Laboratories in Yokosuka, Japan. Is that correct?</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Kazu Gomi: Yes. That was in Japan, yes. And back then, well, I was involved in several projects. But one of them was early &#39;90s, that I was involved in, a project called the video on demand project. And well, it&#39;s kind of funny to say that right now, I think, that video on demand is basically everybody see it on the internet today and nothing new; everybody knows what it is. But back then, that was a big thing. You can see that videos of&mdash;over the network. So I thought it had a lot of potential and capabilities and can change the world. So that&#39;s one of the projects that I was involved in, mostly, to develop different applications around this core technology of storing video and then distributing the video over the network.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Dawn Tiura: Now, that was a long time ago before we had all this Netflix on-demand and everything on-demand. So you were definitely a visionary starting out back then. So that was back in 1998, if I recall. So from there, you went on to become the VP of global business development. Was that still in Japan?</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Kazu Gomi: Just for a brief two years, three years, I worked out of Japan. Back then, early 2000, NTT decided to go to the global market, and I was involved in this project from Tokyo for the first couple of years. And then 2004, I was assigned to work in New York City. And I&#39;ve been here since then. So yeah. I&#39;ve seen a bit of history of NTT&#39;s global expansion. And I&#39;m really proud of and I&#39;m also happy to see how much we have accomplished. But certainly, Dawn, you mentioned, you didn&#39;t know too much about NTT until this interview was scheduled. So that means that we have a lot to go so that NTT becomes a little more household name, I guess. So that&#39;s-</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Dawn Tiura: Well, yeah. And actually, ever since you got involved in SIG, your team has been doing a great job getting your message out there. And that&#39;s when I went, &quot;NTT?&quot; You&#39;re so much more complex and so much more vital an enterprise today that they need to know about these capabilities. And that&#39;s why I wanted you to help describe them because everybody knows their own little story about NTT, that you bought Dell. Okay, so you have services. Or that you have a securities arm. Okay, that&#39;s interesting. Or you&#39;ve got data. But nobody understands&mdash;not nobody&mdash;but it took me a while, to be honest with you, to understand how critical you can be, and instrumental, especially today, when everything is about risk and security, that you&#39;ve got such a broad array of things that you can offer to our members. So I&#39;m just really impressed.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Dawn Tiura: And I&#39;d like to talk a little bit about risk and security of the internet. We hear about that all the time. Is it something that&mdash;are we always just trying to stay one step ahead, or do you think we can ever get two, three, four steps ahead of the hackers and trolls and everything else that happens to be out there these days? Are you optimistic?</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Kazu Gomi: Yes. We should be able to say that we are a few steps ahead. But certainly, [the] world is changing so fast. And I think network is so pervasive and everybody can access to everything, so it is not an easy job to do. But I think we can do that. And from NTT&#39;s perspective, we have couple of interesting propositions that we can create around based upon our capabilities. Like I said, that we carry vast amount of internet traffic on the backbone network, which is actually one of the assets when it comes to the security arenas. We have more visibilities on what&#39;s going on in the network. So along with other technologies of [inaudible] engines, big data analytics and all sorts of technologies that we have also, the combination of that and the internet traffic analysis, we can do a lot of really interesting thing. And then we are trying to be ahead of the game in this arena. And then once again, it is moving very fast. So, it is not an easy job to do, but we are trying the best.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Dawn Tiura: Yeah. And we&#39;re just rolling out our third-party risk management certification. And it comes up throughout the certification about the need to understand your third parties and the risk that they bring. And that&#39;s an area that I think you can add so much benefit to our members by being able to talk about third-party risk management. So we really appreciated all your contributions in that front.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Kazu Gomi: Well, thank you.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Dawn Tiura: And then, so let&rsquo;s talk about&mdash;then you moved into being the chief technology officer, then the COO, and now the CEO. So congratulations on this climb through NTT.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Kazu Gomi: Oh, thank you.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Dawn Tiura: But from a chief technology officer perspective to the CEO perspective&mdash;tell me how does that change your perspective? Are you suddenly more concerned with analysts and quarterly earnings than as chief technology officer, you don&#39;t have to worry as much about that? How does that role change? Because that&#39;s a dramatic shift as you went up to become the leader.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Kazu Gomi: Yeah. Certainly, there&#39;s good and bad. Well, as we touched upon during this conversation, I like technology. And I still believe that I have engineering blood in my body. And so, I love talking to the CTO-ish discussions and not too much worrying about earnings and stuff like that. But now, certainly, I have to change my focus and diversify my focuses for the company&#39;s performance and then all the other broader aspects of it, which is interesting, but at the same time, I have less time to spend on the technology side, which is a bit of a&mdash;well, I should not call it negative side, but that is the fact.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Kazu Gomi: Yeah. But I believe that nowadays, especially in these industries, that a lot of things are going on in technology space. And I believe that my understanding on that base technology and the network hostings, cloud, and all that is really helping me navigate the companies and help find a way for the customers to tighten up their securities or bring more efficiencies in their IT systems and in their entire processes, and so on and so forth. So I believe that there&#39;s certainly a difference that I can make because of the various career movement that I have gone through.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Dawn Tiura: Yeah. So if you don&#39;t mind, can I talk about your big announcement that came out on August 7th, where you&#39;re restructuring the global business that&#39;s outside Japan? And you had three different operating companies and you&#39;re gonna be integrating that into one over time. Can you tell me what was the driver for this? And what do you think will be the success story out of doing this integration and merger of these three operating entities?</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Kazu Gomi: Yes. So like, once again, that you touched upon a little bit earlier on this conversation&mdash;that NTT has different names: NTT Data; Dimension Data; NTT Communication, so on and so forth. And people get easily confused. And then I hear such feedbacks from the customers, from analysts, and so on and so forth. So we decided we have to change our operation model a little bit. And then basically go to market side much easier for the customer to understand who NTT is.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Kazu Gomi: So in a nutshell, that&#39;s where we&#39;re coming from. What we are trying to do, based upon the announcement that we made early August, was from NTT Corporation perspective, is that we&#39;re going to restructure the global business or more of an actual entire enterprise business from NTT Corporation&#39;s perspective by basically put[ting] all those companies under the single umbrella. And eventually, we will integrate them together so that we have an easier story to understand from the customers, analysts&mdash;their point of view. And then, like I mentioned, we have a full life cycle, full stack capabilities. And by putting all those operations&#39; arms together, we can really be able to&hellip;we can really provide those full stack capabilities to the customers with a similar fashion. That&#39;s what we want to achieve, and I think we should be measured against how well we do from that perspective.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Dawn Tiura: Well, that&#39;s awesome. Well, anything we can do at SIG to help you get the message out there, let us know. And obviously, through this podcast, we&#39;ll let all the Art of Procurement listeners know about it, as well.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Dawn Tiura: So now you&#39;ve been 30 short years, your entire career. You&#39;re now CEO of a huge company. If you were to look back at your younger self, is there anything you would have done differently? Is there any advice you&#39;d give yourself?</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Kazu Gomi: Well, let&#39;s see. That&#39;s an interesting question. I think that something I can tell myself that what we should have done is that I think from the technology perspective: we should have paid a lot closer attention to virtualization and cloud technology. I guess that, well, now everybody knows how important it is in the market. But I have to admit that I didn&#39;t understand when it comes to the market in early or mid-2000s how important this is going to be. So that&#39;s something I thought of when it comes to the technology side.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Kazu Gomi: And another thing is more of a Chief Executive Officer&#39;s point of view. I think importance of how to send a message to the customers and analysts that &lsquo;who we are&rsquo;, just easy for those critical parties to understand what our capabilities are, and then what we are strong at and what we are good at. I think that sending an easier message, simpler message, that&#39;s something we could have done better job than what we have done so far. So those are what I can think of quickly.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Dawn Tiura: Yeah. No, I think that&#39;s great. But I think when you&#39;re so involved, it seems so intuitively obvious. Of course, you should know what we do because we tell you. But when you&#39;re sitting back now in a leadership perspective, you understand that not everyone&#39;s listening. You&#39;re telling them. You&#39;re explaining it. But the message is not always resonating. And I think that&#39;s very common with a lot of companies, is that you get so caught up in what you&#39;re doing that you assume, or you presume, that it&#39;s obvious to the outside world all the different things that you do and the services and that it&#39;s explained well. So that&#39;s great insight to go back and think of, &quot;Wow. Maybe our messaging could&#39;ve been better way back when.&quot; But I love the fact that you&#39;re still in love with technology 30 years later. And are you gonna be able to keep up that energy level with the rate of change? Do you think you still have a passion that will carry you into the next decade?</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Kazu Gomi: I certainly have the passion, I believe. But yeah, nowadays, it&#39;s a little bit sad to say that I realize, talking to the engineering folks in my team, and I realize that, &quot;Oops, I don&#39;t understand what they&#39;re talking about.&quot; So it&#39;s definitely a sad moment here and there. I try to, you know, cover myself and looking at internet and then see, &quot;Oh, what was he talking about?&quot; And then try to catch up that way. But yeah, so if you call that as a passion, passion and energy level, I still have that. So that&#39;s good. I can still, I guess, catch up on what&#39;s going on in the market. But yeah, definitely, more and more often, I realize that, &quot;Oops, I don&#39;t understand what they&#39;re talking about.&quot; That moment, I have more often these days.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Dawn Tiura: Oh, that&#39;s amazing. With this great a change, I&#39;m not surprised. And with your focus being so big. So if you were to have a new person starting out and you could give them a piece of advice&mdash;and they&#39;re coming out of engineering and they&#39;re in love with technology, what would be your advice to them today?</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Kazu Gomi: I think nowadays, everybody, especially in the U.S. market, when I look&hellip;well, I certainly have a challenge to talk with folks who works in start-ups and doing interesting things. I really admire many of them who really have a pretty good balance between the technology understanding and then their new future capabilities through their development. And they have a very good sense of linking that into how to apply that to the business or how to apply to, really, this market. I have to admit that I didn&#39;t have that type of skills when I was younger. 30 years ago, I certainly didn&#39;t have. So, I really think that nowadays, especially in the U.S. market, many people have that good sense of balance, and then linkage between technology and how to apply that to market.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Kazu Gomi: But I think it is certainly very important to be cognizant about this linkage. Yeah, I think there is an old saying that any technology, it doesn&#39;t make any difference, or it doesn&#39;t mean anything until you really apply it to the business or the life. Well, certainly academic people may have a different approach to their research and technology development areas. But as long as you are in business, certainly, that&rsquo;s the key stuff. So just pursue whatever you&#39;re interested in in terms of technology. But it is really important to understand how this is going to be changing the world of enterprise or changing the world of everybody&rsquo;s life. Well, it was a long answer, but that&#39;s my-</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Dawn Tiura: No, it&#39;s very true, because sometimes, you get lost in the technology and don&#39;t make the practical application. And if you don&#39;t understand the application, you might go down the wrong path. So I think that&#39;s fantastic advice for somebody starting out, is &lsquo;pause, see how it fits in&rsquo;.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Kazu Gomi: Well, thank you.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Dawn Tiura: Yeah. I think that&#39;s fantastic. So I just want to thank you for being a CEO of such a magnificent company. And you have just been so approachable. And you&#39;re so down to earth. And you&#39;re so humble. So I just really wanna wish you the best of luck. And I would love to be able to check back with you on the podcast and see what&#39;s going on after you do the integration and hear the next chapter of your story. Can I invite you back one day?</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Kazu Gomi: Of course. Yeah, I&#39;d love to do that. And thank you very much for this opportunity.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Dawn Tiura: Well, thank you so much. So folks, I&#39;m talking to Kazu Gomi. He&#39;s the chief executive officer, NTT America. Thank you, Kazu. Have a wonderful day.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div><span style="font-size: 13.008px;">Kazu Gomi: Thank you very much, Dawn.</span></div> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/risk" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Risk</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/cybersecurity" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Cybersecurity</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/information-technology-it" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Information Technology (IT)</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/leadership" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Leadership</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/education" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Education</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-addthis field-type-addthis field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style " addthis:title="Exploring the Capabilities of an Interconnected World with Kazu Gomi - Future of Sourcing" addthis:url="http://futureofsourcing.com/exploring-the-capabilities-of-an-interconnected-world-with-kazu-gomi"><a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_facebook"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_twitter"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_googleplus"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_pinterest_share"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_reddit"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_email"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_print"></a> </div> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-region field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Region:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/regions/global" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Global</a></div></div></div> Wed, 12 Dec 2018 03:18:23 +0000 Kazuhiro Gomi 1489 at http://futureofsourcing.com http://futureofsourcing.com/exploring-the-capabilities-of-an-interconnected-world-with-kazu-gomi#comments How is automation impacting the job market? http://futureofsourcing.com/how-is-automation-impacting-the-job-market <div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="http://futureofsourcing.com/sites/default/files/articles/automation_impact624x325.jpg"><a href="http://futureofsourcing.com/sites/default/files/articles/automation_impact624x325.jpg" title="How is automation impacting the job market?" class="colorbox" rel="gallery-node-1257-Pp3xpzbYOyw"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://futureofsourcing.com/sites/default/files/styles/juicebox_medium/public/articles/automation_impact624x325.jpg?itok=sCtU6Jqh" width="624" height="325" alt="" title="" /></a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Automation within the job market is one of the key issues of our time. It often provokes speculation of a future resembling science fiction narratives that have been around for decades.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>On the extreme end, there&rsquo;s SkyNet becoming self-aware and a team of terminators hunting humans down. On the softer end there&rsquo;s WALL-E, where humans don&rsquo;t have to lift a finger and grow lazy as robots cater to all their needs. Either way, humans aren&rsquo;t needed for work.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Somewhere in between is what many fear &ndash; that humans simply won&rsquo;t be needed when machines can do things better than us.&nbsp;</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>But is that a fair reflection of the truth?</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>According to a recent report by <a href="https://www.pwc.co.uk/press-room/press-releases/AI-will-create-as-many-jobs-as-it-displaces-by-boosting-economic-growth.html" target="_blank">PwC</a>, as <a href="http://www.futureofsourcing.com/will-machine-learning-save-procurement-millions-a-year" target="_blank">Artificial Intelligence (AI)</a> boosts economic growth, it could create as many jobs as it displaces.&nbsp;</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>There&rsquo;s no denying that automation will disrupt the job market. But it&rsquo;s worth acknowledging that that other technologies have done the same in the past, and society and business have moved on to create new jobs and industries.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Before we look at how, let&rsquo;s see where jobs will be lost to automation.&nbsp;</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div><strong>What will automation change?</strong></div> <div>Automation will essentially impact highly repetitive task and jobs. It works because AI can learn from doing the same thing over and over again to refine its process, driving greater accuracy and efficiency.&nbsp;</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>This could impact any number of industries and jobs. Customer service is a good example of an area where chatbots &ndash; driven by AI and automation &ndash; are already becoming the norm. But there are others too.&nbsp;</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>A junior lawyer may spend a lot of time proofreading documents, when a machine could do this instead. In fact, it could proofread the document far more quickly and more accurately, not dealing with the tiredness of multiple late nights in the office.&nbsp;</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>In healthcare, AI is already improving the diagnosis of cancer. What might take doctors hours can take AI minutes, having a considerable impact on how doctors spend their time &ndash; something we&rsquo;ll come back to.&nbsp;</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>The benefits to organisations are unquestionable. Greater speed. Greater accuracy. Greater productivity.&nbsp;</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div><strong>So where will jobs be created?</strong></div> <div>In this automated world, it&rsquo;s important that we consider the value that people can provide and the opportunities we have to flourish. Essentially, what can we do that the machines can&rsquo;t?</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Numerous sources, including the <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/09/skills-children-need-work-future-play-lego/" target="_blank">World Economic Forum</a>, hone in on three key areas: creativity, problem-solving and emotional intelligence.&nbsp;</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>On a day-to-day level, as automation starts to complete more repetitive tasks, businesses will be in a position to reallocate their resources to more value-generating activity. They could, for example, focus on building closer and more personal relationships with key customers. Alternatively, they could spend more time and resources on refining products.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Of course, each industry will be impacted in different ways. Healthcare is an interesting example. With an aging U.K. population, there will be an increased demand for healthcare professionals to provide good-quality patient care and solve problems creatively with a high degree of emotional intelligence.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>The tech industry will continue to thrive. As technology and automation increasingly become the fabric that society and business are built upon, the demand for skills in this area will be enormous. In fact, they already are.&nbsp;</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>The issue isn&rsquo;t the demand; it&rsquo;s the supply. The skills shortage around science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects is well-documented. An incredible 89 percent of STEM businesses have found it difficult to hire staff with the right skills in the last 12 months, while the shortage is costing U.K. businesses &pound;1.5 billion a year, according to STEM Learning.&nbsp;</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div><strong>Invest in your workforce</strong></div> <div>One of the most important things for businesses is to take responsibility for helping their workers thrive in an automated future. This means helping them develop the skills they need.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Investing in structured learning programmes ensures they have the right skills, which might well be in short supply. <a href="http://www.futureofsourcing.com/gearing-up-for-the-fifth-industrial-revolution-a-glass-half-full" target="_blank">Developing STEM skills</a> is of course vital from a young age, but there&rsquo;s no reason that existing workers can&rsquo;t adapt and learn new skills.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Such programmes will not only help workers thrive and businesses grow, but it will foster greater loyalty and employee engagement too.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div><strong>Rise of the humans</strong></div> <div>Yes, the world is changing and so too will the jobs of the future. But jobs have always changed and people have always adapted.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Automation offers a platform for an exciting future in which new opportunities and jobs will emerge. With creativity, problem solving and emotional intelligence, alongside STEM, it isn&rsquo;t the rise of the robots we should be worried about, but the rise of the humans we should be excited about.</div> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/automation" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Automation</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/artificial-intelligence-ai" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Artificial Intelligence (AI)</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/machine-learning" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Machine Learning</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/education" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Education</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/technology" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Technology</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-addthis field-type-addthis field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style " addthis:title="How is automation impacting the job market? - Future of Sourcing" addthis:url="http://futureofsourcing.com/how-is-automation-impacting-the-job-market"><a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_facebook"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_twitter"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_googleplus"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_pinterest_share"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_reddit"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_email"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_print"></a> </div> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-region field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Region:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/regions/global" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Global</a></div></div></div> Tue, 21 Aug 2018 14:23:19 +0000 Mayur Pitamber 1257 at http://futureofsourcing.com http://futureofsourcing.com/how-is-automation-impacting-the-job-market#comments Gearing Up for the Fifth Industrial Revolution – a Glass Half Full http://futureofsourcing.com/gearing-up-for-the-fifth-industrial-revolution-a-glass-half-full <div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="http://futureofsourcing.com/sites/default/files/articles/Robot%20Education.jpg"><a href="http://futureofsourcing.com/sites/default/files/articles/Robot%20Education.jpg" title="Gearing Up for the Fifth Industrial Revolution – a Glass Half Full" class="colorbox" rel="gallery-node-1077-Pp3xpzbYOyw"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://futureofsourcing.com/sites/default/files/styles/juicebox_medium/public/articles/Robot%20Education.jpg?itok=nYD60jV2" width="624" height="325" alt="" title="" /></a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p>Two years ago, the World Economic Forum (WEF) published its Future of Jobs report &ndash; exploring employment, skills and workforces in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. This sparked debate &ndash; and growing concern &ndash; around a changing global employment landscape as the result of disruptive technologies, studded with widening skill gaps, new jobs and job displacement.&nbsp;</p> <p><em>&ldquo;The Fourth Industrial Revolution, combined with other socio-economic and demographic changes, will transform labour markets in the next five years, leading to a net loss of over 5 million jobs in 15 major developed and emerging economies.&rdquo;&nbsp;</em></p> <p style="text-align: right;"><span style="text-align: right;">-WEF Future of Jobs report, Jan 2016</span><span style="text-align: right;">&nbsp;</span></p> <p>Recently, at a London-based robotics event, attendees were asked the same question that the WEF did: did your job exist when you were in primary school? The 67% &lsquo;no&rsquo; response was hardly a surprise &ndash; the job landscape is evolving constantly, so it&rsquo;s naïve to expect to be on a career path set during our early school years.&nbsp;</p> <p>Headlines of this type are often strongly associated with ideas of robots replacing humans in every profession &ndash; although clearly there are always roles more suited to humans and their capacity for empathy. But rather than accepting this pessimism as truth, let&rsquo;s embrace the new generation of jobs that automation will offer us.&nbsp;</p> <p>We grumble at the fact that our current careers may not have been mapped out for us at infant school, instead of celebrating the fact that we somehow emerged prepared for the jobs we have today. To ease our fear, it might help to recognise that tomorrow&rsquo;s workforce is more than capable of taking the same path if we guide them wisely: the fact that government is now backing education initiatives that will support children in their future professional lives is a leap in the right direction.&nbsp;</p> <p>Last year, a group of liberated educators took steps to evolve the curriculum so that children are prepared for a future with automation - the creation of new qualifications and courses dedicated to human centric skills such as leadership and collaboration was evidence of this.&nbsp;</p> <p>It&rsquo;s refreshing to hear that 2018 is set to see government beginning to back educational initiatives with cyber skills training; hopefully the next step is more government funding surrounding training for the jobs students will need in the age of increasing automation.&nbsp;</p> <p>In addition, we&rsquo;ll need to address the current gap of skills needed for robotics and Artifical Intelligence (AI) by investing in software development, systems design, engineering, programming and data science amongst other areas, to ensure workforces of today &ndash; and tomorrow &ndash; are skilled to take charge in the robotics world. Taking into consideration the hole in numbers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects currently in university, we have a five-year lag in students moving into this area.&nbsp;</p> <p>It&rsquo;s time for government to get smarter when it comes to incentivising students in this direction &ndash; this doesn&rsquo;t necessarily require radical thinking. How about reducing tuition fees for STEM subjects as a start, and creating conversion routes from other subjects?&nbsp;</p> <p>Until then, we must focus on educating students in a way that will help them collaborate with AI in the years to come. The essence of roles that will be filled by children currently in primary school will be their humanity. Curriculum must continue evolving so that the members of the future&rsquo;s workforce leave school with skills that focus on adaptability, collaboration and resilience. Instead of focusing only on the retention of facts, it&rsquo;s time to teach how to question these facts.&nbsp;</p> <p>If we can build on current momentum and continue to bridge the gaps to encourage new &lsquo;age of automation&rsquo; careers, headlines in 2018 and beyond might look more optimistic, pointing towards a future where robots and humans work collaboratively to deliver improved services and bright new opportunities. It&rsquo;s up to us to decide how full &ndash; or empty &ndash; the glass looks when it comes to the future of jobs.</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/science" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Science</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/technology" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Technology</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/engineering-and-mathematics-stem" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/artificial-intelligence-ai" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Artificial Intelligence (AI)</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/workforce-management" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Workforce Management</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/education" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Education</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/innovation-technology-it" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Innovation Technology (IT)</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-addthis field-type-addthis field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style " addthis:title="Gearing Up for the Fifth Industrial Revolution &amp;ndash; a Glass Half Full - Future of Sourcing" addthis:url="http://futureofsourcing.com/gearing-up-for-the-fifth-industrial-revolution-a-glass-half-full"><a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_facebook"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_twitter"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_googleplus"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_pinterest_share"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_reddit"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_email"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_print"></a> </div> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-region field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Region:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/regions/global" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Global</a></div></div></div> Fri, 26 Jan 2018 20:16:18 +0000 Kit Cox 1077 at http://futureofsourcing.com http://futureofsourcing.com/gearing-up-for-the-fifth-industrial-revolution-a-glass-half-full#comments Procurement with Purpose http://futureofsourcing.com/procurement-with-purpose <div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="http://futureofsourcing.com/sites/default/files/articles/624x325%20digital%20market%20place.jpg"><a href="http://futureofsourcing.com/sites/default/files/articles/624x325%20digital%20market%20place.jpg" title="Procurement with Purpose" class="colorbox" rel="gallery-node-1032-Pp3xpzbYOyw"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://futureofsourcing.com/sites/default/files/styles/juicebox_medium/public/articles/624x325%20digital%20market%20place.jpg?itok=WgOuAnkY" width="624" height="325" alt="" title="" /></a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-intro field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"> <p><strong>Step up for Students creates a digital marketplace for education and associated services, fueling innovation and choice among low-income and special needs students.</strong></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p>Education is the great equalizer. Yet when it comes to capturing opportunities to learn, there is a significant divide between the &ldquo;haves&rdquo; and &ldquo;have nots.&rdquo; &nbsp;Technology is a powerful tool that can change this, and non-profit organizations across the country are beginning to leverage it to bridge the gap.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Fueling Innovation and Choice</strong></p> <p>Take Step Up for Students. The Florida nonprofit helps to manage the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program, which provides students who are homeless or in foster or out-of-home care with tuition assistance to the private school of their parents&rsquo; choice or financial assistance to offset the transportation cost to an out-of-district public school. The group also helps administer a program that provides funds to Florida students with certain special needs to cover the costs of private school tuition and fees, private tutoring, occupational therapy and instructional materials and other services.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&ldquo;At Step Up for Students, we don&rsquo;t believe that quality education should be determined by financial means or disability, and we have made it our mission to give children from lower income families and those with special needs a chance at a brighter future through the scholarship programs we help to manage,&rdquo; said Doug Tuthill, President, Step Up for Students.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Consumerizing Education</strong></p> <p>For years, these programs were manually administered through paper forms and phone calls. It was a tedious process, and one that Step Up for Students felt could be improved. When it comes to education, most people don&rsquo;t think about shopping for it. But Step Up for Students thinks differently. As consumers, we can quickly and easily shop for the things we want and need online. And with a few clicks on our laptops and mobile devices, we can compare prices and purchase them. Why couldn&rsquo;t parents and caregivers be empowered to do the same when it comes to education? The technology was there to make to happen.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Step Up for Students decided to tap into that technology to create a digital marketplace through which education along with associated services and supplies can be purchased in a simple, consumer-like way. Using the cloud-based procurement applications and business network of <a href="http://www.ariba.com" target="_blank"><span style="color:#ff0000;">SAP Ariba</span></a>, the organization is building a one-stop shop where parents and caregivers of scholarship recipients can find, buy and pay for tuition at schools of their choice along with educational services and school supplies as easily as they might shop for clothes, books or music.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Bridging the Digital Divide</strong></p> <p>&ldquo;Many of those we serve lack access to technology in their homes and it was critical that we remove this as a barrier,&rdquo; said Scott Massey, Chief Information Officer, Step Up for Students. With SAP Ariba and its partner <a href="http://www.premikati.com" target="_blank">Premikati</a>, Step Up for Students has designed a solution that can be accessed anywhere, anytime via any device, including mobile phones.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Procurement With Purpose</strong></p> <p>Technology is a powerful tool. Just like a hammer, it can be used to construct entirely new worlds. And if swung in the right direction with a purpose, it can build bridges that close the digital divide and lead the way to promising new realities. In consumerizing the process of procuring education and administering financial aid, Step Up for Students can empower parents to pursue and engage in the most appropriate learning options for their children, regardless of their financial situation and help educational institutions fulfill the promise of equal opportunity. And that&rsquo;s where the real power of technology lies.</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/education" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Education</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/digital-marketplace" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Digital Marketplace</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/technology" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Technology</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/procurement" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Procurement</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/consumerization" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Consumerization</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-addthis field-type-addthis field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style " addthis:title="Procurement with Purpose - Future of Sourcing" addthis:url="http://futureofsourcing.com/procurement-with-purpose"><a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_facebook"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_twitter"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_googleplus"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_pinterest_share"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_reddit"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_email"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_print"></a> </div> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-region field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Region:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/regions/north-america" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">North America</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/regions/global" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Global</a></div></div></div> Mon, 06 Nov 2017 20:15:05 +0000 Kirsten Allegri Willams 1032 at http://futureofsourcing.com http://futureofsourcing.com/procurement-with-purpose#comments Enter our writing competition to win a place at SIG University! http://futureofsourcing.com/node/952 <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p>Are you a budding thought leader? Do you hunger for fame and glory &ndash; in the form of exposure on the world&rsquo;s leading outsourcing publication? And do you want a FREE chance to enroll in&nbsp;<a href="http://siguniversity.org/" target="_blank">SIG University</a>&rsquo;s Certified Sourcing Professional (CSP) course (for yourself or a colleague)?</p> <p>That&rsquo;s right: a SIG U certification AND coverage in Outsource could be yours, thanks to our new writing competition in collaboration with SIG University&hellip;</p> <p>Here at Outsource we&rsquo;re always on the lookout for great content, from any and every corner of the sourcing, outsourcing and business transformation community &ndash; and we know there are countless great potential thought leaders out there who&rsquo;ve yet to grace our hallowed pages. So, we thought we should take steps to connect with as many of you as possible &ndash; and what better way than through the time-honoured medium of a writing competition, to sort the truly exceptional from the merely utterly wonderful?</p> <p>Moreover, if the chance of making it into Outsource wasn&rsquo;t incentive enough, we&rsquo;ve partnered with SIG University to offer our winner a place in the next semester of the Certified Sourcing Professional course. If the winner doesn&rsquo;t satisfy SIG U&rsquo;s entrance criteria, he or she can transfer the prize to someone within his or her organisation who does, thus earning priceless kudos internally (which never hurts&hellip;).</p> <p>In launching this unique competition with Outsource, SIG U&rsquo;s Vice President Mark Pollack says: &ldquo;This is an exciting competition where we hope to find Sourcing&rsquo;s Next Top Talent and follow their journey into SIG University and beyond. We are confident that this global competition will bring forward a host of creative writers and innovative industry experts, and give them the very best global platform from which to showcase their cutting-edge thinking. We are proud to be co-sponsors of this event with Outsource, and look forward to hearing from and getting to know the budding thought leaders who will help redefine sourcing and governance.&rdquo;</p> <p>So, what do you have to do? It&rsquo;s simple&hellip;we&rsquo;re looking for an article of 1,000 &ndash; 2,000 words that answers the following question:</p> <p><strong>&ldquo;What will be the most important drivers of change in the global sourcing arena over the next decade, and why?&rdquo;</strong></p> <p>Entries must be in English, supplied (in Microsoft Word format) to me at <a href="mailto:jliddell@sig.org">jliddell@sig.org</a>, with the subject line &ldquo;WRITING COMPETITION ENTRY&rdquo; by no later than midnight UK time on July 31st. Entries must include a photo and 100-word (exclusive of the total word count for the article) bio of the author. Crucially, nobody who&rsquo;s already been published on <a href="http://www.outsourcemag.com">www.outsourcemag.com</a> before can apply: this competition seeks to find and spotlight new talent, not those who&rsquo;ve already made a name for themselves. Articles must be vendor-neutral, non-promotional and absolutely original: no article that&rsquo;s already been published anywhere else online or in any other format will be accepted.</p> <p>All valid entries will be judged by our panel and a selection of the best will be published on the Outsource site prior to the announcement of the winning entry towards the end of August. (For full terms and conditions, see below.)</p> <p>We&rsquo;ll be promoting all published articles heavily on this site and throughout our social media channels &ndash; and there&rsquo;s even the chance of the winner appearing on an Outsource Talks webinar later in the year. What greater exposure could there be for any aspiring sourcing thought leader?</p> <p>So, what are you waiting for? Editorial immortality awaits! Get your thinking caps on and, when you&rsquo;re ready to tackle that deliciously appetising question, start writing: a headline spot in Outsource and a place in SIG U&rsquo;s CSP course could be only a couple of thousand words away&hellip;</p> <p><strong>About SIG University</strong></p> <p>SIG University was developed by and for sourcing and outsourcing professionals and academics to supplement real-world experience with the knowledge seen as lacking in the industry today. Based on the theory of Vested relationships, SIG University is designed to give you the soft and hard skills necessary for today&rsquo;s sourcing professional.</p> <p>SIG U is transforming business one student at a time. Recognising that companies are desperate for innovative, analytical, transparent and customer-centric sourcing professionals, SIG U has taken guidance from the preeminent leaders in sourcing and created a curriculum that meets the needs of today&rsquo;s workforce for tomorrow&rsquo;s expectations.</p> <p><em>For more information please see <a href="http://www.siguniversity.org">www.siguniversity.org</a> or contact Mark Pollack at <a href="mailto:mpollack@sig.org">mpollack@sig.org</a> or on +1 904 304 6154.</em></p> <hr style="clear:both;" /> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><em><strong>Terms &amp; Conditions</strong></em></p> <p><em>1. This competition is not open to employees of Sourcing Industry Group, Sourcing International Group, SIG University or their relatives; nor to anybody who has previously been published by Outsource in any format and/or medium whatsoever.</em><br /><em>2. The decision of the judges is final and no correspondence shall be entered into.&nbsp;</em><br /><em>3. To qualify for the competition, all entries must be received no later than midnight UK time on July 31st 2016.&nbsp;</em><br /><em>4. Submissions must be supplied in Microsoft Word format, in English, by email to <a href="mailto:jliddell@sig.org">jliddell@sig.org</a> with the subject line &ldquo;WRITING COMPETITION ENTRY&rdquo;; each entry must be accompanied by a photo of the author in .jpeg format. Proof of sending is not proof of receipt.&nbsp;</em><br /><em>5. Submissions must be between 1,000 and 2,000 words in length including all annotations but excluding the author&rsquo;s biography of no more than 100 words which must accompany, in the same document, the article being submitted.</em><br /><em>6. All submissions must be completely original; no entry shall be deemed valid if it has previously been published in whole or in part anywhere in the world, in any medium whatsoever.</em><br /><em>7. Articles must not contain graphs, diagrams or any other type of illustration; no images other than the photo of the author will be published.</em><br /><em>8. All submitting authors will identify themselves and assert in the act of their submission that they are the sole authors of the article being submitted and that no other authors&rsquo; rights are being infringed in any way. Sourcing Industry Group/Sourcing International Group will not be held liable in any way for any copyright infringement resulting from the publication of any article submitted to this competition.</em><br /><em>9. All submitting authors will in the act of their submission transfer in perpetuity to Outsource and Sourcing Industry Group/Sourcing International Group the full ownership of the article being submitted and all rights to publish the article, along with or without the image of the author supplied as part of the submission, anywhere in the world, in any medium. Outsource and Sourcing Industry Group/Sourcing International Group will acknowledge the authorship of the article as and when it is published on every occasion. The Outsource editor reserves the right to edit any submission in any way he sees fit.</em><br /><em>10. The prize of one enrollment in SIG University&rsquo;s Certified Sourcing Professional (CSP) course will be awarded to the author of the winning entry, who may take the course him/herself or, if s/he does not meet the criteria for eligibility, may transfer the prize to a colleague meeting those criteria. Eligibility shall be decided solely by Mark Pollack, Vice President of SIG University, and no substitute prize shall be given in its stead should the winner and/or any other proposed recipient of the award be deemed ineligible. Any winner deemed eligible and subsequently taking the CSP course shall be subject to the usual SIG University Terms &amp; Conditions.</em><br /><em>11. This prize has no cash value.&nbsp;</em><br /><em>12. This competition shall be held according to the laws of England and Wales.<br />13. All entrants will automatically be subscribed to the Outsource mailing list and their information may be shared with Sourcing Industry Group, SIG University and associated organisations.&nbsp;</em></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/certified-sourcing-professional-csp" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Certified Sourcing Professional (CSP)</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/education" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Education</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/competition" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Competition</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/training" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Training</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/sourcing" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Sourcing</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-addthis field-type-addthis field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style " addthis:title="Enter our writing competition to win a place at SIG University! - Future of Sourcing" addthis:url="http://futureofsourcing.com/node/952"><a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_facebook"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_twitter"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_googleplus"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_pinterest_share"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_reddit"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_email"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_print"></a> </div> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-region field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Region:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/regions/global" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Global</a></div></div></div> Fri, 03 Jun 2016 12:51:57 +0000 Jamie Liddell 952 at http://futureofsourcing.com #LifeAfterCollege: why social and digital media are essential to graduate recruitment success http://futureofsourcing.com/node/887 <div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="http://futureofsourcing.com/sites/default/files/articles/xHoward-Bird-Nov-2014-2-420x215.jpg.pagespeed.ic_.LH8yt3B8Wc.jpg"><a href="http://futureofsourcing.com/sites/default/files/articles/xHoward-Bird-Nov-2014-2-420x215.jpg.pagespeed.ic_.LH8yt3B8Wc.jpg" title="#LifeAfterCollege: why social and digital media are essential to graduate recruitment success" class="colorbox" rel="gallery-node-887-Pp3xpzbYOyw"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://futureofsourcing.com/sites/default/files/styles/juicebox_medium/public/articles/xHoward-Bird-Nov-2014-2-420x215.jpg.pagespeed.ic_.LH8yt3B8Wc.jpg?itok=pad6dBVh" width="420" height="215" alt="" title="" /></a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p>It&rsquo;s the first thing millennials see in the morning, the last thing they look at before going to bed, and their constant companion throughout the day. It&rsquo;s their phone. The younger generation&rsquo;s dependency on mobile is driven by the considerable role technology plays in our everyday lives. With the touch of a button, these young men and women can do anything from ordering a car or depositing a check to sharing photos, videos and stories with friends and the public at large.</p> <p>Combine this with research, like that from marketing firm Crowdtap which found millennials average 5.4 hours a day on social media, and it becomes obvious that to engage early-career professionals, organisations need a social presence and digital media capabilities.</p> <p>It&rsquo;s not enough to just have a presence on social media though. Remember, as these are networking sites, college kids are primarily focused on content published by their friends and it&rsquo;s unlikely they will apply for a job after seeing a single tweet or reading one lone post. Employers don&rsquo;t have much time to capture their attention so the objective shouldn&rsquo;t be to encourage their candidacy in a particular role, but to raise their awareness and interest in the business with consistent content that&rsquo;s speaks to their interests. Taking a long-term approach to social media ensures that the organisation is top of mind when the student does decide what he or she wants to pursue after graduation.</p> <p>Think about those aspects of a business that would appeal to millennials. Does your organisation offer development or rotational programs? The younger generation is looking for a fast track to promotion so initiatives that offer extra training and exposure to different facets of the business &ndash; and to top-level leaders &ndash; are an attractive selling point. Does your company award additional time off to early-career professionals who don&rsquo;t yet have the tenure or negotiating power to ask for it themselves? Are flexible schedules an option? Can employees work virtually? Does your organisation offer paid hours and resources to technical employees so they may pursue their own ideas and projects? Finding ways to encourage the entrepreneurial streak in many of today&rsquo;s young professionals is a competitive advantage, and one that could even drive greater innovation within the business. Assuming the picture you&rsquo;ve painted fairly represents your organisation, using social media to showcase Employer Value Proposition is an effective way to attract recent and soon-to-be graduates.</p> <p>Once you&rsquo;ve piqued their interest or provided them with incentives to further consider employment within your organisation, facilitate them on their continued path of discovery. Make film and web-hosted presentations available. Share videos of employee testimonials. Meet them where they are &ndash; online &ndash; at virtual events. Some companies have even gone so far as to launch virtual recruitment centers. If a student decides to apply for a job, make sure they can do it from any device and consider how an app-based Applicant Tracking System would facilitate the recruitment process. Candidates need only to submit their information once and each point of contact within the organisation, from recruiter to Hiring Manager, would have easy access to their file and updates on their progress. Other companies are investing further in engagement tools that are personalised and intended to drive a positive candidate experience. Consider the impression an app that offers GPS guidance to the exact location of an interview and provides information on the interviewer would make on a candidate.</p> <p>With so many employers clamouring for the attention of early-career professionals, effectively leveraging social and digital media can be a real competitive advantage. Social media can support employer branding efforts, attracting graduates to an organisation, while digital media can make candidates feel at home as they learn more about the company and, should they decide to, apply for a position. Together, they are the underpinning of any successful graduate recruitment program.</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/talent-acquisition" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Talent Acquisition</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/education" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Education</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/social-media" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Social Media</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/millennials" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Millennials</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/technology" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Technology</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-addthis field-type-addthis field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style " addthis:title="#LifeAfterCollege: why social and digital media are essential to graduate recruitment success - Future of Sourcing" addthis:url="http://futureofsourcing.com/node/887"><a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_facebook"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_twitter"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_googleplus"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_pinterest_share"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_reddit"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_email"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_print"></a> </div> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-region field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Region:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/regions/global" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Global</a></div></div></div> Thu, 10 Mar 2016 21:38:17 +0000 Vivienne Dykstra 887 at http://futureofsourcing.com http://futureofsourcing.com/node/887#comments Q&A: Caroline Allen, ACTE http://futureofsourcing.com/node/879 <div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="http://futureofsourcing.com/sites/default/files/articles/Caroline-Allen-slider-1-420x215.jpg"><a href="http://futureofsourcing.com/sites/default/files/articles/Caroline-Allen-slider-1-420x215.jpg" title="Q&amp;A: Caroline Allen, ACTE" class="colorbox" rel="gallery-node-879-Pp3xpzbYOyw"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://futureofsourcing.com/sites/default/files/styles/juicebox_medium/public/articles/Caroline-Allen-slider-1-420x215.jpg?itok=epQ-Mi-c" width="420" height="215" alt="" title="" /></a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p><em>Caroline Allen is the European Regional Director for the Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE), which has partnered with the Sourcing Industry Group (SIG) on&nbsp;<a href="https://www.eiseverywhere.com/ehome/151488" target="_blank">SIG&rsquo;s next London Regional Roundtable</a>&nbsp;(taking place March 15). We got together with Caroline to find out more about her association, and why the partnership makes sense for travel professionals and procurement specialists alike.</em></p> <p><strong>Outsource: Caroline, you&rsquo;re the Regional Director (Europe) for ACTE: can you tell our readers a bit about ACTE itself?</strong></p> <p>Caroline Allen: ACTE is the Association of Corporate Travel Executives. The organisation was set up as a non-profit trade association for the corporate travel sector in 1988 by people from the industry &ndash; both from the buy and the supply side &ndash; that were looking for an opportunity to be able to exchange ideas, discuss industry challenges, innovations, trends, and be able to find a neutral platform to debate those issues &ndash; and help find solutions, so that people weren&rsquo;t having one-sided conversations, and weren&rsquo;t just having sales conversations.</p> <p>So we provide a platform through face-to-face education, (and now through a series of webinars as well) and also supplemented with online conferences &ndash; so we provide about 75+ events a year, including five global conferences, and we engage around about 10,000 senior execs from the corporate travel sectors from around the world &ndash; from over 100 countries on five continents. Our HQ is in Washington, but over 50% of what we do, for many years, has come outside of the US. We do have small offices but we&rsquo;re a very lean organisation, relying heavily on volunteers that are full-time employees of the industry.</p> <p><strong>O: ACTE has partnered with SIG on their next London Roundtable: what prompted that partnership?</strong></p> <p>CA: When we connected with SIG we discovered that we share a lot of similar value sets and approaches to, for example, education and information sharing. I was invited to attend a SIG event in London last September, and I brought a procurement specialist who contributed well to the forum; I just felt there was a real synergy, and an opportunity to help leverage the networks we both have. Many of the procurement professionals working for SIG&rsquo;s members had indicated that they wanted to have better visibility and understanding of the corporate travel sector. It was a natural fit for both of us.</p> <p><strong>O: What do you see as being some of the main challenges that some of your members are facing now, which you think are going to be front and foremost in mind and which working with SIG might help them address, both at the London event and going forward?</strong></p> <p>CA: Well, from listening to some of the challenges that were shared at the SIG event that I attended, the language is very similar (although some of the acronyms are a bit different!), and some of those challenges remain the same, from a procurement-specific function and a travel-specific category: virtual teams; national communications; social demographics; the supply chain risk, and people and data and asset risk. So some of these subjects are very similar, and a lot of our travel specialists and travel professionals do report in in some way to a procurement function or work alongside that function, so I think there&rsquo;s a great opportunity for better understanding between those two areas, and to really hone the communications between the functions and improve the strategic directions that the travel category can take within the procurement environment. Ultimately, cost control, technology, communication, increasing value are some of the things that we see as potential gains.</p> <p>A lot of the travel function over the last decade or two has increasingly been connected to procurement, and the travel function on its own has grown from historically a business travel unit, that managed a national program and then globalised, so the industry has grown organically over the last 25 years: it didn&rsquo;t set out to be a profession. A lot of the people running travel programs have come from within the industry and they&rsquo;ve grown as the sector has professionalised; but we then started to see the procurement function take ownership of travel as cost control started to become a major focus in many different areas of business.</p> <p>A lot of travel professionals have learnt a lot of the procurement tools and techniques and apply them very rigidly to procurement and the sourcing process in the travel category. It&rsquo;s still an evolving process, and a lot of companies are still learning some of those tools and tricks, and we are seeing a greater professionalisation of the sector as a result of that.</p> <p><strong>O: Do you feel that there&rsquo;s enough formal training and ongoing professional development in place to help your members develop in that area?</strong></p> <p>CA: Well I think this is an area that many organisations are looking to focus on, and as we&rsquo;re coming out of that glum period of the recession, we are seeing them investing in people &ndash; albeit there are fewer people to do the same number of jobs, and I don&rsquo;t see that changing too much, but I think there is a development. We are looking at providing some sort of training &ndash; we are introducing online training courses &ndash; but I think the procurement training that SIG offers could also be a useful tool for some of the travel category specialist.</p> <p><strong>O: Do you feel your members are sufficiently up to speed with the technological developments that will be affecting your sector in future? The Outsource editor will be speaking at the London event on &lsquo;Artificial Intelligence in the workplace of the future&rsquo;, for example: do developments like that occupy your members&rsquo; thoughts?</strong></p> <p>CA: One of the survey questions we put to buyers at our Australian conference in December was: &ldquo;Where do we think the biggest challenges are going to come from in the next 12-24 months?&rdquo; And technology and integrating industry outsiders are two challenges very high on the agenda. So integrating technology is a very major piece. We are seeing a lot of change in the way business intelligence (as opposed to data) is captured and how that can support other parts of the industry.</p> <p>But I think we&rsquo;re still at the moment very travel-centric in our understanding, and I think having a view about what&rsquo;s happening outside will help us see what&rsquo;s coming over the hill, and be able to see within the industry how we can harness some of those innovations &ndash; and indeed some of those industry outsiders might well come from left field: some of the new providers to the corporate travel sector may well come from an area that&rsquo;s not currently envisaged. That doesn&rsquo;t specifically refer to AI though: I&rsquo;m talking about technology development in general terms.</p> <p><strong>O: Taking a step back from technology (but perhaps encompassing it): how do you see your industry changing over the next few years and what are going to be the bigger drivers for that? And how can procurement play a role in solving some of the challenges coming over the hill?</strong></p> <p>CA: I want to share with you some of the predictions that were made at our buyer conference in Sydney in December, because that might answer the question. Firstly, 90% of delegates are meeting with and working with and considering different industry partners than they were considering three years ago.</p> <p>That could mean different things: it could mean that there&rsquo;s more tendering and more business changing, contracts moving, where they may not have moved that much over the last couple of years &ndash; so we could see that there is more movement in the market; or what it could indicate is that there are more players coming into the market, new industry players.</p> <p>That would probably be underpinned by the biggest industry challenges that people expect to be facing: 46% think that technology is going to be a big challenge, and that could be integrating different technology platforms, it could be seeing new technology development (we all know it&rsquo;s moving at the speed of light).</p> <p>Moreover, 31% also believe that industry outsiders are going to be a big change in the industry; and we also think of payment solutions as being a challenge and a big change &ndash; that landscape is changing with near-field communications, paying on mobile phones in different ways and with different virtual cards, and different types of solutions &ndash; and we do see a real connection there with procurement and finance because they will drive a lot of that decision-making.</p> <p>And 79% believe we will book and manage travel differently in the next 24 months than we have done in the past, and that&rsquo;s phenomenally high, in terms of speed of change; 81% believe we will use sharing economy providers in some way in the market (now we don&rsquo;t expect the baby to be thrown out with the bathwater: we don&rsquo;t expect all of a sudden that there will be no hotels being used and for it to be all Air BnB, that&rsquo;s not the case, but we are seeing Uber making traction, for example, and others similar to them in the market).</p> <p>What is interesting is that 80% believe the focus is moving back to service over savings &ndash; so it&rsquo;s not just about saving money, it&rsquo;s about making sure that the travelling community, the employees, the stakeholder are happy, they stay in their jobs. We&rsquo;re seeing an opportunity there for business intelligence to establish whether there&rsquo;s connections between staff turnover and the policies that have been put in place.</p> <p>The top three challenges, really, are always time, technology and compliance.</p> <p><strong>O: To what extent has the outsourcing model been adopted by the members of your industry, and do you feel that that&rsquo;s been a success &ndash; and if not, what could providers do to cater better to your members?</strong></p> <p>CA: Well it varies by market, and there are a number of different factors. We might find some business markets a little bit behind: Russia and the Middle East, and Asia are a little bit behind the more mature markets, such as the UK, the US, France, Germany.</p> <p>In some cases we&rsquo;ve seen outsourcing in a slightly different way than you would interpret it: some suppliers have had their key accounts staff outsourced to their customers; we&rsquo;ve seen some of that in the industry for several years. But we&rsquo;re also seeing some companies in-source certain functions, perhaps taking on some of what has historically been a supplier function.</p> <p><strong>O: Finally, if you could wave the proverbial magic wand over your industry, what changes would you make?</strong></p> <p>CA: We had a global planning call for our conference coming up in October, and we had a number of different buyers on there, and some interesting ideas came up. One word that really struck me was &ldquo;simplification&rdquo;. We are a very complex industry, we have so many different moving parts, and it&rsquo;s actually been in a supplier&rsquo;s best interest to create complexity because it creates differentiation, but I think we&rsquo;re often trying to do far too much. We would like to see some simplification in the process, and I think technology has the potential to do exactly that &ndash; or exactly the opposite, depending on what it is and how it&rsquo;s deployed! Simplifying the sector would be quite welcome.</p> <p>The process is complex from sourcing to expense management to paying the bills; there are so many lengthy steps and the actual sourcing process in the corporate travel sector can be anything from weeks to years, depending on the product and now nimble they are, and depending on the value of the contracts. But in a globalised corporate travel world, with many different geographies and cultures, it can be very difficult to achieve the desired standardisation and simplification. If there could be some tools, technology, apps that could go some way towards the standardisation of data, to be able to support business in a more effective manner, that would actually be quite a welcome development, I believe, throughout the industry.</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/education" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Education</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/thought-leadership" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Thought Leadership</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/cost-control" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Cost Control</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/event" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Event</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/virtual-teams" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Virtual Teams</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-addthis field-type-addthis field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style " addthis:title="Q&amp;amp;A: Caroline Allen, ACTE - Future of Sourcing" addthis:url="http://futureofsourcing.com/node/879"><a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_facebook"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_twitter"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_googleplus"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_pinterest_share"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_reddit"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_email"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_print"></a> </div> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-region field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Region:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/regions/global" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Global</a></div></div></div> Wed, 02 Mar 2016 19:47:26 +0000 Caroline Allen 879 at http://futureofsourcing.com http://futureofsourcing.com/node/879#comments Is external hosting of HR systems still unproven for UK higher education? http://futureofsourcing.com/node/851 <div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="http://futureofsourcing.com/sites/default/files/articles/Nick-Mellors-Jan-2016-1-624x325.jpg"><a href="http://futureofsourcing.com/sites/default/files/articles/Nick-Mellors-Jan-2016-1-624x325.jpg" title="Is external hosting of HR systems still unproven for UK higher education?" class="colorbox" rel="gallery-node-851-Pp3xpzbYOyw"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://futureofsourcing.com/sites/default/files/styles/juicebox_medium/public/articles/Nick-Mellors-Jan-2016-1-624x325.jpg?itok=nsspQ12o" width="624" height="325" alt="" title="" /></a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p>&ldquo;External hosting of HR systems is still unproven&rdquo; &ndash; that was the message I received from the IT manager of a well-respected UK university back in 2011.</p> <p>At the time&nbsp;<a href="http://www.outsourcemag.com/external-hosting-of-hr-systems-is-qstill-unprovenq/" target="_blank">our research</a>&nbsp;showed:</p> <ul style="list-style-type:square;"> <li>Less than 5% use an external hosting provider for their HR systems</li> <li>Less than 2% use an external hosting provider for their finance systems</li> <li>Around 15% use an external hosting partner or bureau for payroll</li> <li>There is almost no take up of hosting shared services</li> </ul> <p>As we enter 2016, I thought it would be interesting to see what, if any, changes had occurred in the higher education sector&rsquo;s view of hosted services.</p> <p>Whilst the basic HR and payroll functions remain the same, the increasing commercial pressures on the sector have increased the need for efficient systems and processes to manage issues such as the need to administer staff with multiple employment contracts, linking research and project based staff with commercial performance reporting and the statutory Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) staffing and performance data required every academic year.</p> <p>In recognition of this; in the past four years around one in ten UK universities have replaced their HR and payroll systems, with the sector typically consolidating around two or three main suppliers: Midland HR, NGA Human Resources and Core HR. I caught up with two of these HR industry leaders to get their view on how the UK higher education has developed in the last few years.</p> <p>*</p> <p><em>Nick Mellors: In recent new contracts in the university sector, what kind of split between external and in-house-based HR and Payroll systems have you seen?</em></p> <p>Iain Moffat &ndash; Enterprise Director, MidlandHR: Around 75% of our recent new accounts in the UK university sector have selected our hosted iTrent service.</p> <p>Ian Dowd &ndash; Marketing Director NGA Human Resources: For new Resourcelink customers in the sector around 50% have taken our hosted Software-as-a-Service option.</p> <p><em>NM: What factors do you think are influencing universities&rsquo; choices?</em></p> <p>IM: In line with other sectors we are seeing universities increasingly focus on delivering their core business, in this case academic and research excellence, and passing the support and delivery of non-core activities to external experts who can take care of user administration, system security, business continuity and regular system updates, allowing the university&rsquo;s ICT teams to focus on their core systems. The increasing streamlining of HR processes and the adoption of employee and manager self service functions available from both desktop and mobile devices are all enabling universities to choose externally hosted services</p> <p>ID: The system lifecycle in the higher education sector is typically longer than in the commercial sector; whilst a commercial organisation might refresh its back office systems every five to seven years&nbsp;years in HE it can be nearer 15 years. This has meant universities have tended to be slower to move away from traditional approaches to hosting HR systems. Now, with externally hosted HR systems commonplace, we are seeing increasing interest and take up of SaaS models for HR and payroll</p> <p><em>NM : Are you seeing any trends, one way or the other, on universities&rsquo; hosting decisions?</em></p> <p>IM: Around 35% of our legacy HE customers use our hosted service, however in the past couple of years we have seen a significant shift with around three quarters of new HE accounts taking up our externally hosted service.</p> <p>ID: At the moment the majority of our legacy customers in the higher education sector are locally hosted although we have several customers who are looking at moving to SaaS at some point in the future. For new customers it&rsquo;s a different picture, with around 50% of new customers in the sector taking the SaaS option.</p> <p>So, with increasing acceptance of cloud-based services and the successful take on by some of the sector&rsquo;s earlier adopters it would appear that externally hosting university HR systems is no longer an unproven concept. However there are still a large number of in-house legacy systems across the sector, time will tell whether we see a wholesale shift to externally provided services.</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/human-resources" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Human Resources</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/payroll" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Payroll</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/talent" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Talent</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/education" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Education</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/finance" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Finance</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-addthis field-type-addthis field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style " addthis:title="Is external hosting of HR systems still unproven for UK higher education? - Future of Sourcing" addthis:url="http://futureofsourcing.com/node/851"><a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_facebook"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_twitter"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_googleplus"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_pinterest_share"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_reddit"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_email"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_print"></a> </div> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-region field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Region:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/regions/global" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Global</a></div></div></div> Fri, 22 Jan 2016 15:12:31 +0000 Nick Mellors 851 at http://futureofsourcing.com http://futureofsourcing.com/node/851#comments Oliver Williamson: Not Examining All Costs Can Really Cost You http://futureofsourcing.com/oliver-williamson-not-examining-all-costs-can-really-cost-you <div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="http://futureofsourcing.com/sites/default/files/articles/FOS%20Digital_Kate%20Vitasek_Slider%20Graphic%20%281%29%20%281%29_115.png"><a href="http://futureofsourcing.com/sites/default/files/articles/FOS%20Digital_Kate%20Vitasek_Slider%20Graphic%20%281%29%20%281%29_115.png" title="Oliver Williamson: Not Examining All Costs Can Really Cost You" class="colorbox" rel="gallery-node-1033-Pp3xpzbYOyw"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://futureofsourcing.com/sites/default/files/styles/juicebox_medium/public/articles/FOS%20Digital_Kate%20Vitasek_Slider%20Graphic%20%281%29%20%281%29_115.png?itok=ip_UFRq_" width="624" height="325" alt="" title="" /></a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-intro field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"> <p>In anticipation of the return of Kate Vitasek&rsquo;s column &ldquo;The Academics of Sourcing,&rdquo; Outsource is pleased to showcase some of her best articles from the archives.</p> <p>&ldquo;The Academics of Sourcing&rdquo; is a series that regularly shares some of the best academic insights and translates the learnings from academia into sound advice for practitioners.</p> <p>Read on to get reacquainted with Kate Vitasek&rsquo;s insight and experience into the world of sourcing and the academics behind it.&nbsp;</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p>Many of the economists I&rsquo;ve highlighted in this space, from <a href="http://archive.outsourcemag.com/ronald-coase-business-is-a-math-problem/" target="_blank"><span style="color:#ff0000;">Coase</span></a> (do the math!) to <a href="http://archive.outsourcemag.com/john-nash-robert-axelrod-game-theory-and-the-art-of-playing-nice/" target="_blank"><span style="color:#ff0000;">Nash</span></a> (win-win behavioral economics) to <a href="http://archive.outsourcemag.com/robert-solow-innovation-technology-and-math-make-all-the-difference/" target="_blank"><span style="color:#ff0000;">Solow</span></a> (importance of innovation and technology) laid the economic foundation for outsourcing. Another Nobel laureate, Oliver Williamson, has taken those threads, added a few of his own and weaved them directly into modern outsourcing, which makes him, in my mind, the most influential.&nbsp;</p> <p>Williamson, professor emeritus of business, economics and law at the University of California at Berkeley, took transaction cost analysis to a new and seminal level with the concept of &lsquo;transaction cost economics&rsquo; (TCE). TCE looks at all the costs of doing business, including: the contracting process; how organizations behave with regard to the contract; and how people behave during contract negotiations.&nbsp;</p> <p>Over a long career Williamson applied TCE directly to the vagaries of outsourcing and to the cost of contracting. His article in the April 2008 Journal of Supply Chain Management (&ldquo;Outsourcing: Transaction Cost Economics and Supply Chain Management&rdquo;) examined outsourcing from the TCE perspective. Williamson states that &ldquo;all complex contracts will be incomplete &ndash; there will be gaps, errors, omissions and the like,&rdquo; and he advises that organizations shift to contracts with a more flexible framework. Williamson advises that having a contract that is too rigorous ultimately leads to higher transaction costs and that companies should create mechanisms that preserve continuity and that can cope with unanticipated disturbances as they arise.&nbsp;</p> <p>I like to think of it as &ldquo;business happens.&rdquo; In short, we need to create outsourcing deals that embrace change, rather than fight about it. One of my favorite lessons from Williamson is that your style of working with suppliers matters. Williamson states that &ldquo;muscular buyers not only use their suppliers, but they often &lsquo;use up&rsquo; their suppliers and discard them.&rdquo; Organizations that flex their &ldquo;muscle&rdquo; to gain an advantage over suppliers may have a short-term win, but they will lose over the long term. He stresses the need for companies to use a &ldquo;credible&rdquo; style of contracting that builds long-term trust.&nbsp;</p> <p>One tactic that Williamson says is effective for building trust is to leave money on the table when it comes to negotiating. It may sound counter-intuitive, but when striking a strong business relationship, leaving money on the table can signal a constructive intent to work cooperatively and helps build an environment that is credible from start to finish.&nbsp;</p> <p>Williamson also takes <a href="http://archive.outsourcemag.com/john-nash-robert-axelrod-game-theory-and-the-art-of-playing-nice/" target="_blank"><span style="color:#ff0000;">Nash&rsquo;s concept of win-win behavioral economics</span></a> out of the theoretical realm of strategy and into the reality of contracting by showing that the contract itself can have negative impacts on business if an organization does not think clearly about how to structure and negotiate the contract properly. It goes without saying that Williamson is an advocate of win-win thinking with his clear advocacy for creating contracts with &ldquo;mutual advantage.&rdquo;&nbsp;</p> <p>For those interested in learning more about Oliver Williamson&rsquo;s Nobel Prize winning work, the University of Tennessee teamed with Georgia Southern University, Cranfield School of Business, and the International Association for Contract and Commercial Management to produce a white paper titled <a href="http://www.vestedway.com/vested-library/" target="_blank"><span style="color:#ff0000;">&ldquo;Unpacking Oliver: 10 Lessons to Improve Collaborative Outsourcing&rdquo;</span></a>, which is available for a free download at the Vested Outsourcing site. I like Williamson&rsquo;s thoughts on outsourcing because he digs beyond the numbers to substantiate the value of a collaborative, win-win approach to outsourcing.&nbsp;</p> <p>It is the best academic work I&rsquo;ve seen that shows how to address contract and governance structures in developing advanced, collaborative outsourced relationships. The bottom line on Williamson&rsquo;s work is that the bottom line is not always apparent; the contracting process is full of the hidden costs of doing business.&nbsp;</p> <p>I think Williamson brilliantly captured mathematically what my mamma always told me: you get what you pay for.</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/supply-chain-management" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Supply Chain Management</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/economics" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Economics</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/education" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Education</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/negotiation" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Negotiation</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/governance" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Governance</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-addthis field-type-addthis field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style " addthis:title="Oliver Williamson: Not Examining All Costs Can Really Cost You - Future of Sourcing" addthis:url="http://futureofsourcing.com/oliver-williamson-not-examining-all-costs-can-really-cost-you"><a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_linkedin"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_facebook"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_twitter"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_googleplus"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_pinterest_share"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_reddit"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_email"></a> <a href="https://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=300" class="addthis_button_print"></a> </div> </div></div></div> Mon, 04 Jul 2011 16:45:31 +0000 Kate Vitasek 1033 at http://futureofsourcing.com http://futureofsourcing.com/oliver-williamson-not-examining-all-costs-can-really-cost-you#comments