How many suppliers would give you their vote?

It’s May 3 – election day for 131 English local authorities, all 32 in Scotland and 21 in Wales, plus the London mayoral contest and two others in Liverpool and Salford.

Over the next few days, political pundits will pour over the results. What if it was actually the general election – who would win? How much were local issues at play? And what do the results mean for the future career of leader X?

Of course, it’s impossible to predict at this stage. But one thing’s for certain: The turnout among voters will be massively short of 100%. In fact, for local council elections it usually hovers around a paltry 30%. This is blamed on voter apathy and a stack of other reasons.

There are options for change. Firstly, the tyrannical one of forcing people to vote (usually for one candidate). Let’s forget that. But, in recent years, governments have used more subtle approaches such as introducing postal voting and pilot schemes for Internet voting. No big upturn in numbers just yet.

Of course, the politician that gets elected with just 30% turnout doesn’t complain.

But in areas of business, getting everyone’s buy-in is essential. Take the introduction of a purchase-to-pay (P2P) system for instance. If a buying organisation has 500 important suppliers, then ideally 100% of them should be on board with P2P.

The success of getting their ‘vote’ can make or break a P2P system – and will help decide whether buying organisations will achieve their hoped-for savings and return on investment. What good is flashy procurement interface and a slick invoice processing system if suppliers simply ignore them?

What’s vital is proper engagement with suppliers. Good communications, explaining how they gain too. And a range of easy-to-use, flexible ways for them to sell their items and submit invoices easily – regardless of their company’s size and IT know-how.

If you get that right, then your P2P system will be voted in - by a landslide.

Paying the price of expensive keyboard errors

We all make mistakes. We’re human. It happens. And that’s often how we learn.

Blunders occur when we’re behind a PC too. How many of us have sent an email to the wrong person – or failed to double-check something before we hit ‘Send’ … and then groaned afterwards. Hopefully any damage done is minimal.

But that wasn’t the case for major fashion retailer Supergroup (the company behind Superdry), according to reports in the past week. A ‘plus’ was entered in the accounts instead of ‘minus’.

The "arithmetic error" was worth £2.5m, noted the BBC. More bad news followed. Stocks plummeted by nearly 40% as shocked investors reacted to the news, say media reports.

Of course, until the robots take over, human error will always be part of everyday life and business. But it’s good to keep errors to a minimum where it’s do-able.

Electronic invoicing (e-invoicing) is a great example. Manual re-keying of paper invoices into the system (where errors naturally occur sometimes) can be replaced by a hands-free, highly-automated process that maximises accuracy. It’s faster, costs less and staff can be redeployed to tasks that add more value to the business.

And there’s a raft of follow-on benefits too …

• Decision-makers get a clearer picture of spending in near to real time – because financial data enters the system faster and with greater accuracy.
• Admin time resolving errors can be minimised, so there’s another saving.
• And suppliers get paid on time, rather than experiencing delays because of any re-keying mistakes.

Put simply, e-invoicing represents a big plus without a minus. 

Pushing all the right buttons

If there’s one thing certain to create a storm online among techies – it’s the launch of a new version of Windows. Version 8 is no different.

Rumoured for full release in October, Windows 8 is available already in a ‘consumer preview’ flavour that’s been sampled over the past six weeks. You can try it yourself by downloading it here.

One big difference is the introduction of a Metro-style interface designed for touchscreens, like you’d see on a phone or the Xbox 360 games console. But will it be intuitive?

Perhaps, ultimately, it will loved by millions. But problems may exist in the short term.

“The next Windows version looks to be a steep learning curve for most users,” warns The Inquirer, which added that "the change is likely to be a jarring experience."

And, underlining the point, The Guardian ran a feature where one tech journalist unleashed his father on the operating system – with a reaction of bafflement. You can see the video here, though it’s excruciating to watch.

But are enterprise applications any easier – or everyday business users somehow far quicker to grasp the plot?

Not so, according to research. Some months back, IDC published a white paper called Intuitive Enterprise Applications Improve Business Performance.

IDC surveyed 300 enterprise application buyers in Scandinavia and put some of the key findings in the public domain. The findings were revealing:

• Almost 40% of those asked found that enterprise applications were hard to use
  
  
• Respondents were looking for web-like usability and strong search capabilities
  
  
• They also said that time was primarily wasted transferring data between applications and looking for information.
  

These findings could prompt useful questions for anyone to ask when choosing a purchase-to-pay (P2P) solution. For example:

• Is the new system as easy to use as Tesco.com or Amazon? If it is, less time will be needed training users. And if users embrace the system quickly, then the business benefits will come through faster.
  
  
• How does it handle data? Can you find what you need quickly? Is it a total solution? And if there are necessary interfaces with other systems, are they seamless?
  

The best way to find reliable answers is to ask for reference sites and check with existing users what they think …

Good news makes a change for small companies

Britain’s latest stamp price hikes spell more doom for hard-pressed small businesses.

After weeks of rumours, the price increases were announced by the Royal Mail. A first-class stamp will rise in price from 46p to 60p from April 30, while a second-class stamp will go up from 36p to 50p, according to the BBC.

Many small firms continue to send their invoices by post. And even if they use the second-class service, the costs can be significant. For example, a small company sending 40 invoices a month, will now pay £240 in a year in stamps.

This isn’t a huge figure. But it’s significant when money is tight. And it comes at a time when small businesses are struggling to get bank funding despite government’s efforts and there are predictions that a quarter of small businesses will fold by 2014.

But buying organisations with best-in-class, purchase-to-pay (P2P) systems are able to share some good news with their smaller suppliers – if they offer them the chance to submit their invoices electronically.

The benefits can help ease some of the pain points experienced by small firms in these ways:

Saving them money: A good e-invoicing solution will be free, so there’s an immediate cost saving on those pricey stamps, plus paper and envelopes.

Saving them time: E-invoicing should be easy and intuitive for any small supplier, whether they submit invoices in a few clicks from their PC, or simply flip a purchase order into an invoice on a Blackberry. There’s no time wasted walking to the post box either.

Saving them stress: When cash is tight, anxiety mounts. But a good e-invoicing system can give suppliers a portal where they can make sure the invoice didn’t get lost – and track the progress of their payment.

Improving their cashflow: With e-invoicing, there’s no delay at the start. Suppliers’ bills are received instantly and entered into a highly-automated approval and payment process. The bottom line is that it’s easier to for buying organisations to pay their suppliers on time.

In the current economic climate, it’s understandable if small businesses dread change – because the news always seems to be bad. But e-invoicing is a genuinely good-news story.

Where do your best ideas come from?

How do you encourage and harness good ideas within your organisation?

Some businesses don’t see the point of involving all their employees. After all, don’t the best ideas come from the boardroom? And aren’t there consultants for that kind of thing anyway?

Sometimes. But mostly not.

Asking all employees to step outside their day-to-day roles – for a few hours a week at least – can reap major business benefits. And surprises.

That’s what EGS discovered with EGS Labs, a unique opportunity for teams from across our company to create and showcase their own innovative ideas for new products.

Although we’re a software solutions company, each four-person team had sprinkling of talent from across the business. So that’s everyone reception to accounts, operations to sales, development to support. Senior managers provided mentoring.

The big challenge was to find a new or complementary product that EGS could launch within the purchase-to-pay (P2P) marketplace. But the scope was wide open. And Friday afternoons were set aside for two months before the final, which we called Big Thursday.

“At first, people felt quite daunted. But then the challenge become enormously enjoyable and the room was buzzing,” says Paul Massey, our Director of Engineering.

“The difficulty wasn’t trying to find a product, but choosing which of the brilliant ideas to pursue. However, each team settled on a single innovation after applying tough criteria for development time and cost, weighted against benefits and commercial returns.”

Interestingly, each team recognised that more exciting possibilities existed for the vast quantities of data that swims around within P2P systems. Some even created software prototypes at our Big Thursday competition final.

The winning team was EGstra, led by Richard Nduka, with Ping Lam, Elena Toma and Michael McLintock, who shared the £1,000 prize.

Their idea was an exciting, radical, dynamic dashboard that …. erm … well, forgive us if we don’t say any more just yet. Suffice to say that it exceeded our hopes for Big Thursday – and it’s now being nurtured very carefully in the EGS room marked ‘Top Secret’. Watch this space.

The evening ended with the whole company enjoying some well-deserved downtime at a local bar.

Pictured: The winning team (left to right) Elena, Michael, Ping and Richard

“The EGstra team did some amazing work. And their colleagues likewise devised some truly ingenious ideas. Our company would never have thought of these in the normal course of things – which shows the value of this approach,” says Peter Whent, EGS Chief Executive.

“Not only did this give us a wealth of R&D possibilities, but it revealed many hidden talents across the business – from project management to presentation skills. It also strengthened teamwork and enriched the culture of innovation that has made EGS so successful. It’s something we all have – and we must all use.”

Secret ingredient in Apple juice

What’s the secret behind Apple’s success? Super-cool design perhaps? How about amazing customer loyalty? Sealing the right partnership deals? Or perhaps it’s simply having oodles of cash to put behind its products?

The Internet has been awash with various theories since the company achieved two financial milestones this month. Its stock traded above $500 a share for the first time and the company's market cap exceeded $500 billion … putting it into an elite club of corporations.

If only someone could tap the source of this success – and bottle it. Perhaps they’d call it Apple juice? (Sorry about that.)

Seriously though, analysis of the company’s astounding success has made interesting reading.

One story caught our eye – featuring Apple designer Sir Jonathan Ive (dubbed the ‘iMan’). In an interview with the Evening Standard, he was asked “What makes design different at Apple?”

He pointed to a company culture of innovation and fanatical attention to detail. Sir Jonathan talked about the birth of a new idea being fragile … and then becoming a conversation among the design team … and then being turned into a 3D model when ‘everything changes’

“There’s a sense of being inquisitive and optimistic, and you don’t see those in combination very often,” he explained.

“Most of our competitors are interesting in doing something different, or want to appear new - I think those are completely the wrong goals. A product has to be genuinely better,” he told the newspaper.

And this is the crux of the matter. The best IT companies have a hunger to be better – and appreciate that the seed of an idea needs time and warmth to germinate. It’s something their employees understand too. And the company gives its people thinking space … real time … to see if a few flashes of inspiration can be turned into something truly market-leading.

It’s a question worth asking any IT partner: “When did you last provide serious amounts of time for your staff to see if they could come up with something good?”

If this is part of their company DNA, then you can expect good things from them down the line … whether you’re thinking about purchase-to-pay solutions or any other IT services.

Teamwork to overcome Olympic-sized procurement hurdles

With less than 150 days until the Olympic Games, some interesting procurement challenges have come to light.

We’re not talking about a shortage sand for the beach volleyball, chlorine for the swimming pools, chalk for the weightlifting or drug-testing kits.

It’s things like the number of security guards needed … by lots of organisations, all at once. Up to 20,000 more may be required when the Games start, according to reports. And this begs the question – will a sudden surge in demand of that magnitude have a knock-on affect on the market?

And (whisper it), elsewhere there’s also a rumour about a shortage of … portable toilets.

Only time will tell over whether there’s enough of everything to go round. But what’s really commendable is the approach being taken by key organisations affected by the games. As the Cross Programme Procurement Group (CPPG), they’ve teamed up to manage risk and get value for money.

Of course, the Olympic Games is a special case with unique pressures and immovable dates.

But in the wider economy, day-to-day collaboration among regional public bodies, special interest groups and business units can reap major benefits too.

Through joint marketplaces with the same purchase-to-pay (P2P) system, they can share and access larger open contracts that benefit from high-volume pricing – and make effective strategic decisions together. It’s happening across the UK already with great success.