When it comes to contracting and negotiation, the software industry has proven one of the most frustrating for its customers. Now, it seems things might be changing.
There are good reasons for some of the complexity in software contracts. The need for developers to protect their asset and establish reasonable returns is well understood. But this has led to [...]
Those who make it to become CEO of major companies - and the duration of their tenure - have changed in recent years, according to several research studies. A report in The Economist highlights that former CFOs are now the most likely to rise to corporate leadership, replacing the traditional Marketing route.
Today, more than 20% [...]
Last week I posed the question “Is globalilization the next mismanaged risk?” This challenged the wisdom of the 89% of CEOs who, in a recent survey, declared that globalization is ‘inevitable’.
While I am broadly a fan of globalization, I think it is rash of anyone to assume inevitability and therefore fail to consider alternatives [...]
This week I presented at the Association of Proposal Management Professionals (APMP) conference in Palm Springs, California.
Following my presentation, I participated in a discussion about the challenges of “collaboration and competencies in business development”. This was undertaken in partnership with Howard Nutt, Executive Director of the Business Development Institute, and Stacy Goff, Vice-President of [...]
Quality of risk management is currently one of the most highly rated attributes of the business world - at least, that is what many management gurus tell us. And certainly, the recent financial services debacle would suggest that improving the management of risk should be high on any corporate agenda.
So where was executive management [...]
Over on Supply Excellence, Jason Fogarty wrote a short report from the Ariba LIVE event, highlighting a presentation by Reema Alzoubi from Pfizer.
Reema spoke about the cultural challenges in driving application adoption across a global enterprise, both internally and - in this case - with external suppliers.
This reminded me of a similar situation we encountered at [...]
My son called this week, pleading for help with one of his university assignments. He had to write about the challenges faced by Western companies in entering the Indian market, with particular reference to financial services.
He had been a member of a team that had undertaken a PESTLE analysis and now had to critique their [...]
As I prepare my presentation for the Ariba LIVE conference today, it strikes me just how far the topic of contracting has come in the last few years.
The number of speaking invitations we receive at IACCM today is overwhelming. There is hardly a day when one of the IACCM staff or a member of our Board [...]
The UK’s Sunday Telegraph has done the world a great service by revealing the hidden tactics of retail negotiation. In a hard-hitting article, it exposes the techniques of retail buyers in their efforts to drive down prices.
As a lesson in negotiation principles and practices, this article has great value. The behavior it outlines is self-evidently destructive of [...]
At the ISM conference in St Louis this week, Daniel Pink (author of “A Whole New Mind” 
gave his take on the challenges and opportunities for talent in the 21st century business.
Pink’s suggestion is that changes in the economy are putting a premium on specific types of capability - and that this is challenging the [...]
