The Human Capitalist

Moving Your Supply Chain Team to Manage Human Capital

I recently heard a story where a large manufacturing company migrated a large portion of its supply chain team to manage human capital.  As someone with a background in supply chain, both at a large Fortune 300 company as well as a technology vendor, I thought it was brilliant.  Here is why...

• The supply chain organization understands the financial impact of their decisions.  Buying direct material for a company is like buying a car for an individual...the product loses value once it leaves the door.  Electronic components, in particular, lose 1-3% of their value on a monthly basis.  Decisions have an immediate impact on the financial health of the company.  I have personally delivered an invoice for over $1M in material liability resulting from overspend (and poor planning).  That liability ultimately impacted that companies quarterly performance and immediate stock value.

• Supply chain folks depend on technology do to their job.  The supply chain must leverage data integration among disparate systems and partners.  Forecasting and planning tools are essential.  The more accurate the forecast, the better the plan, and impact on revenue and profitability.

• The supply chain never stops.  If a part is missing, the product cannot get built, shipped or invoiced.  If a customer doesn't receive his/her product on time, he/she will no longer be a customer.  Supply chain organizations have an intrinsic sense of urgency.  I have yet to see an HR person, or even a recruiter, that has the same discipline regarding an open requisition.
  

Does HR need more "non-HR" people....absolutely!

Looking for a Job at Google?

The Wall Street Journal recently interviewed Laszlo Bock, newly appointed Vice President of People Operations at Google, in this podcast.  Laslo offers some great insight into Google's hiring process including the fact that every job offer to a prospective candidate is reviewed by the founders and executive management group.  I think Google is doing some very interesting things around the "candidate experience" to improve the interview process and, more importantly, to take advantage the intrinsic value of "tasting" the Google experience in person.

The last segment of the interview is definitely the most fascinating regarding the recent efforts at Google to define the key traits, values, and ideology that determine successful employee performance. Google recently completed an internal study of existing employees in an attempt to identify the key predictors of individual performance at Google.  They essentially took the list of 300 questions (including "when did you start computer programming", "how many foreign languages do you know", "what magazines do you subscribe to", and "at what age did you first use a computer") and rolled up the outcomes into 5-10 key questions within the interview process that can predict future performance.

What are you doing in the recruitment process to identify and predict future employee performance?

"Easy, Intuitive, Immediate"

That is how a fellow Irregular, Dennis Howlett, recently described this new breed of "user-designed [enterprise] software". 

"...Technology has advanced beyond the IT desk.  Open APIs are becoming widgets.  Solutions have become IT-less.  Line-of-business is now making purchasing decisions exclusive of IT. Consumer technology vendors have take on the mantra, design first...function second".

I couldn't have said it better myself.  SaaS is an enabler and in fact many SaaS vendors have taken on the approach of many consumer-focused technology vendors.  SaaS bypasses the CIO queue and puts more power in the line-of-business.  Users, more than ever, are demanding simplified, streamlined usability and immediate gratification of results (you can thank Google for that)!

Showcasing My Talent Management Skills

For those interested in understanding my talent management skills, here is my American fantasy football roster this year...

QB - Carson Palmer
WR - Anquan Boldin
WR - Darrell Jackson
RB - Larry Johnson
RB - Joseph Addai
TE - Antonio Gates
D - Carolina
K - Shayne Graham

After a tough loss last week, my team is now 3-3.  I think my team is starting to gel though...

Room with a View...

Trying out the new camera feature on the Blackberry Pearl (yes that is the Washington Monument in the background)...

Interesting Facts from the Stock Option Scandal

On my flight from Boston to Washington DC this evening (JetBlue of course) I caught a program on CNN discussing the widening stock option scandal.  Pretty interesting stats... 

• 55 companies are currently under FBI probe for criminal fraud
• More than 30 executives are under investigation including 4 CEO resignations over the past week.
  
• Over 125 companies are linked to to the options scandal
  
• 25% of the companies are based in the Bay Area
• The CEO from UnitedHealth relinquished $1.1 billion in options with his resignation

The demand for compliance, standardization and audit-ability of all forms of compensation is more important than ever.

Who Are The Irregulars?

I have mentioned the Irregulars many times in the past.  The Irregulars is a blogger community of current and former industry analysts, CEOs, CTOs, consultants, strategists, venture capitalists, press and media, and even Harvard professors.  The group was evolved from a small blogger group convened by Jeff Nolan, formerly of SAP Ventures, at the SAP Sapphire Conference earlier this year.  Since then, the group has taken on a life of its own, including over 40 members now.  Many of us had a chance to meet earlier this week in San Francisco (that's me, second from the left, holding the picture).  Thanks to Atlassian and Stormhoek for sponsoring the dinner.

Thoughts on "Office 2.0"

Last week I attending the Office 2.0 Conference in San Francisco.  Fellow Irregular, Jeff Nolan, the newly appointed CEO of Teqlo, has a good write up on VentureWire.  Having been removed from Silicon Valley now for about 2 years, I have to say the frenetic pace of the Bay Area has returned to pre-2000 levels.  Lots of really interesting technologies looking for enterprise traction and a sustainable business model. 

The conference itself was showcasing two themes... 1) products around web-enabled office productivity applications and 2) products that enable individuals (not IT) to create new business applications.  The jury is still out on many of these products.  In fact, the reoccurring discussion at the conference was that a majority of the vendors on display, and vendors in the web 2.0 space, will disappear within the next 2 years.  Although much of the technology was quite progressive and very usable for enterprises, the challenge remains migrating from being "group-ware", or used by a few individuals and departments, to truly enterprise-class, whereas everyone within the enterprise is using the applications. 

Here en lies the intrinsic challenge with many new web 2.0 technologies --- getting enterprise traction.  Most web 2.0 vendors think getting traction with users and departments will ultimately generate critical mass for an enterprise.  Beyond a few users or departments, most enterprise users are what I consider "dumb users" -- non-technical, require significant training and unwilling to change existing behavior.   Additionally, most enterprises are currently support 3 distinct user populations, the Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, and Mulliennials, all demanding distinct usability requirements with a certain aptitude for change. 

Today, individuals are using web 2.0 technologies because they are cool tools, they actually improve productivity, and are simple to use and collaborate...and they are free.  As such, they have little vested interest.   With risk-averse CIOs and gratuitous users, widespread adoption is a critical challenge for these companies, ultimately affecting vendor survivability.

Will some of the vendors survive....of course.  Salesforce.com, in the enterprise applications market, has thrived with the average enterprise customer of 19 users.  Look for established vendors such as Yahoo and Google, though, to emerge in the enterprise 2.0 space as their existing resources, viability, and established position in the marketplace will continue to generate enterprise appeal.

HR Technology Conference Wrap-up

I thought I had posted this last week.  Nonetheless, thought it would still be worth posting...

All-in-all "HR Tech" was a great conference.  Had a chance to catch up with many HR leaders, clients, press, analysts, investment bankers, and vendor executives.  This year, I made a concerted effort to listen to what buyers are saying about their wants and needs for HR/HCM technology and, more importantly, where they will be spending their money in the next few years.  A couple of themes really stood out...

1. Interest in Talent Management. I think we are probably still over a year away from strong market demand for an integrated suite but buyers are starting to show up.  Seagate, Charles Schwab, Lowe's and many others have started the journey.


2. Determined Focus on Usability & Configurability.  HR executives are pointedly focused on improving the user experience, productivity, consistency, and increased use of employee-wide applications.  Many of these executives have realized the success or failure of many of their initiatives is dependent on HR technology and the adoption of such technology.


3. Analytics, Analytics, Analytics.  Lots of talk about analytics and new ways to measure HR's impact on the business.  Still a long way to go though.  I almost think most companies need to start from scratch and figure out the taxonomy of metrics that ultimately determines the business impact of talent.


4. Demand for More Out of Their ERP.  Enterprises are still very committed to their ERP of choice.  SAP and Oracle have a built-in "incumbent" advantage.  Buyers, though, are continuing to demand a better user experience, more configurability, seamless integration, and better service from their ERP.

For those in attendance...did I miss anything?

What Happened to Line56?

Can someone say over-cluttered?  Looks like these guys aren't taking any lessons from Google...