Yesterday’s “Far Side” post has resulted in many “reader comments” on LinkedIn

As I often do, I shared yesterday’s Far Side post on LinkedIn. What caught my attention was that for a lazy Sunday afternoon, many in my community were eager to share their perspective – which is great. As I always say, an engaged community is an informed and knowledgeable community that adds value to all involved.

The following is an example of one of the many exchanges on the post—you should join in on the discussion. I am sharing it on this blog because the reader suggested I do so.

Stuart Robinson – Retail Account Director

I think it’s important to understand what the operational and financial benefits are before making any strategic decisions, just because it’s the new big thing doesn’t mean it’s right for everyone – ask tough questions and don’t be afraid of not following the crowd.

Jon W. Hansen

Stuart Robinson, excellent point, e.g., operational and financial benefits.

However, practitioners and providers must stop leading with technology to recognize said benefits. I am talking about an agent-based versus equation-based model – https://procureinsights.com/2023/10/23/are-you-chasing-solutions-or-solving-problems-part-1-of-3/

Stuart Robinson – Retail Account Director

Now that the cloud market is maturing, some companies are questioning their cloud strategy from the operational challenges and the financial outlay when modernising their database environment, hybrid certainly seems the sensible approach. Cloud certainly has huge benefits BUT you need to investigate many factors, like your customers requirements, operational efficiencies across all LOB’s / the ease of moving legacy applications along with the return on investments. We are seeing some customers not seeing their expected rewards from their early cloud adoption, resulting in a stop on future migration projects. AI could go the same way without really challenging the benefits both operationally and financially! It’s a really good topic that certainly requires more in depth discussions and analysis.

Jon W. Hansen

Stuart Robinson, You reminded me of an article I wrote several years ago – before the pandemic, in which I cited a Gartner report that the many companies that jumped to the cloud for fear of being left behind were repatriating their platforms back to being a “physical, on-the-ground” environment.

Here is the link to a 2019 article by Pamela Pelletier, who is the Country Leader & Managing Director for Dell Technologies Canada, about not getting your head lost in “the cloud” – https://www.longviewsystems.com/blog/when-it-comes-to-digital-transformation-dont-get-lost-in-the-cloud/

Stuart Robinson – Retail Account Director

It seems you can possibly see into the future Jon, a good article, you might want to post again!

Today’s Post Takeaway

• Don’t let the fear of being “left behind” influence your decision to implement a new strategy regarding the digital transformation of your procurement organization, be it the cloud, GenAI, or any future latest and greatest technology.
• Don’t lead with technology, using an equation-based implementation model. Instead, use an agent-based model to break down the walls of stakeholder understanding both within and external to your organization.
• Don’t solely rely on any solution provider or vendor’s “expertise” for two reasons:
  • They may know their technology and profess to understand your industry’s needs, but they may not know your company’s unique attributes beyond generalizations.
  • Most solution providers will adopt a “win the business first, then worry about making it work later” mindset. Even if they know the likelihood of success is small.
• As a practitioner, take the lead and full ownership of your organization’s successful ProcureTech implementation. The days of “no one ever got fired for buying IBM” are long behind us.

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