To draft service levels and manage relationships well, you merely have to remember that they need to be SMART (as made popular by Peter Drucker): Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-Bound, blending the rationality and romanticism as we go. Recall from the first three parts of this series that we were discussing Strategic Supplier Management. In this fourth of five-part series, we’re going to discuss the “R” and “T” – Relevant and Time-Bound. Relevant – Tied to Measurable and Specific is that each of your service level metrics be relevant to whatever service you’re receiving/providing. So if you’ve chosen to measure successful ...
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To draft service levels and manage relationships well, you merely have to remember that they need to be SMART (as made popular by Peter Drucker): Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-Bound, blending the rationality and romanticism as we go. Recall from the first four parts of this series that we were discussing Strategic Supplier Management. In this fifth of five-part series, we’re going to put it all together. Now that you’ve considered all five requirements, you should have one or more appropriate service levels in mind. But if you’ve never drafted a service level before or don’t have a lot of experience in writing them, you ...
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“The aim of Zen practice is to discover [this] Buddha-nature within each person, through meditation and mindfulness of daily experiences. Zen practitioners believe that this provides new perspectives and insights on existence, which ultimately lead to enlightenment.” –Wikipedia Supplier Performance Management starts with understanding your supplier’s responsibilities in the relationship. The key to understanding those responsibilities is to draft and manage a solid contractual agreement. But if it was that simple and easy to do, NET(net) wouldn’t see so many of our clients disappointed in the service they’re receiving from their IT ...
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To draft service levels and manage relationships well, you merely have to remember that they need to be SMART (as made popular by Peter Drucker): Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-Bound, blending the rationality and romanticism as we go. Recall from the first part of this series that we were discussing the “S” – Specific of Strategic Supplier Management (SSM). In this second of five-part series, we’re going to discuss the “M” – Measurable. Measurable – While it might seem obvious, you must be able to measure your chosen metric. Counting alone isn’t necessarily enough. Rather, you might need to be able to track start/stop ...
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It's that time of year when Microsoft convenes their annual partner and sales conferences, and announces their marketing themes for their new fiscal year. We can expect a blizzard of press releases and articles about innovations from Microsoft. And that's good for our enterprise clients who are evaluating their Microsoft investments and innovation is a topic that resonates with them. More often than not, our Clients are looking for the value from their Microsoft investments. Our advice to Microsoft: you're not in the features and functions business, you're in the ROI business. Regardless of how many cool new features Microsoft creates, ...
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Strategy 4: Defend yourself against Influence Optimize persuasiveness Preparation. Analyze your BATNA – knowing your Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement, enables you to understand your walk away options. Evaluate the ZOPA – knowing the Zone Of Possible Agreement will help you avoid wasting time evaluating offers that are outside of your consideration. Investigate all issues at stake and know how to position them above the line or below the line. Know when to pull in above the line items on a quid pro quo basis to use as sticks to claim value and/or control the bargaining table. Know when to pull in below the line items on a quid pro ...
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In their quaterly financials (Balance Sheet), Microsoft reports an item called "unearned revenue" and defines it like this: (This from the MSFT 10-K filed Jul 30, 2009.) Unearned Revenue Unearned revenue is comprised of the following items: Volume Licensing Programs Represents customer billings for multi-year licensing arrangements, paid either upfront or annually at the beginning of each billing coverage period, which are accounted for as subscriptions with revenue recognized ratably over the billing coverage period. Undelivered Elements Represents the right to receive unspecified upgrades/enhancements of Microsoft Internet Explorer on a ...
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Microsoft has quietly launched "Office Online" this week. Should you care? www.businessinsider.com is one of my favorite Microsoft-watching websites. Their quick and pithy slideshow handles the basics around Office Online nicely: http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft--office-online-2010-6 My take on this for our enterprise clients: Microsoft has been pitching an interesting future roadmap for "Office Online" but so far they are still tying real-world business functionality to requiring continued Software Assurance for Office. For some clients in some limited end-user requirements, it's worth evaluating. But for most "knowledge workers" ...
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Is this the beginning of the end of the phone call? Is voice communications a dying breed? Perhaps not on its last breath, but certainly less relevant than it once was. Case in point: My phone hardly ever rings. OK, so maybe no one wants to talk to me, which is entirely possible, and I certainly attend plenty of conference calls, but seriously, most of my communication is via email and texting. I admit to preferring to communicate with my colleagues and clients and suppliers via email because it is self documenting and asynchronous. I would even argue that voice mail is becoming increasing obsolete. And, frankly, I don’t really want to talk ...
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A few weeks ago, Sony announced that it was ending production of the 3.5” floppy disk. I have boxes upon boxes of these little plastic memory devices, some with labels barely hanging on by a glue remnant. Sure, I haven’t had a computer with a floppy drive in almost a decade, but if the disks are being shelved, disk drives are soon to follow. What happens to my data? This isn’t the first time that technical obsolescence has affected my life. I’ve already repurchased my original PacMan Fever album three times as technology leapt from vinyl to cassette to compact disc. In its fourth iteration, I was able to convert from CD to MP3 on my own – ...
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