Certainty in Uncertain Times (Part 4)

Lessons from War and Business

In part 1 of this series, we examined how the Ukrainian military has incorporated technologies from satellites to cellular usage data to gather intelligence. Furthermore, they have been using the available intelligence in ways that have kept them more agile and adaptive than their Russian counterparts.

From there, part 2 explored how the US F-86 Sabre fighter planes defeated the MiG-15s ten times out of eleven during the Korean War. The F-86 had two critical advantages in battle: superior situational awareness and controls that provided quicker response times between maneuvers.

Part 3 delved into several business examples.

• In 2022, Ford's mishap over a logo badge halted productivity and resulted in tremendous losses in revenue and productivity.
• Honda's quick decision cycle time allowed their response in 1981 to Yamaha's attempt to overtake them to become the world's largest motorcycle manufacturer. Honda produced 113 new models to Yamaha's 37, with Yamaha publicly admitting defeat and asking to end the war they started.
• And Toyota empowers every employee involved in manufacturing to intervene and stop the production line if they see a problem. While this might lead to unnecessary stoppages at times, the organization reacts to issues immediately instead of allowing problems to metastasize and wreak havoc on the business. Front-line awareness and reaction time are critical to their success.
  
  

Whether in war or business, awareness and responsiveness are vital contributors to success.

Decision Making – MATRIX

So, I will ask once again… Is your decision loop tighter than your competitors? Can you assimilate data quicker than your competitors? Can you make decisions based on the data quickly? What about execution? Do you do that well? How do you know?

Look closely at the matrix shown above. Think carefully about your organization's design and data capabilities. Where on the matrix would your business land at this moment?

While the shortcomings of the bottom left quadrant are apparent, let's explore the other quadrants a little more.

• Decentralized “Gut” Decision-Makers: While this group can make rapid decisions, they do so without the most up-to-date data. Additionally, the lack of easily accessible and accurate data prevents them from analyzing the impacts of these decisions promptly, resulting in a slower reaction time to poor decisions… hence, magnifying such adverse effects.
• Siloed Centers of Excellence (COEs): These COEs have readily accessible data relevant to their purview. However, isolation inherent in this organization type can significantly slow decision cycle times as each COE evaluates the impact of considered initiatives.
• Embedded Analytics: This is the philosophy that ProcureVue is built on. We have reduced the OODA loop [Observe, Orient, Decide, Act] to three simple tenets: VUE.
  
  

Let’s recap the main points:

1) The more information, data, and insights you have, the more likely you will make the "correct" decision.

2) Higher initiative leadership coupled with a greater ability to act results in more decision loops completed in a given period. Quick decision cycle times can mitigate risk by enabling you to quickly pivot away from less optimal decisions, thereby minimizing the negative impacts of such.

At ProcureVue™, we embed analytics into the fabric of our organizations. We create a culture of decisive decision-making predicated on a foundation of continuous intelligence gathering.

• As you traverse this analytics transformation, the benefits to your organization will compound. These are not limited to purely financial gains but also better utilization of people as they will spend less time trying to "paint" a picture on their own and instead can focus on what to do with the information at hand. MIT researchers, Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson, found that profitability and productivity rates are 5% to 6% higher for companies that incorporate big data and analytics into their operations than their competitors.¹

• To borrow a recent example from a client: They use our ProcureVue™ platform to empower their decentralized sourcing group. Arming their sourcing leaders with a holistic view of the business across all divisions and enriched with market data, they have been able to shield their company from the worst impacts of this chaotic, inflationary market and have been able to drive over $3MM in savings during this time. But this example is not about them. Instead, it's about one of their sales directors, who became aware of this platform during an ops review, and then requested access to it. Even though it's ostensibly not about sales, he has been able to leverage this same set of analyses and insights to move his bidding process from a several-month affair down to a handful of days. He can now service his customers' requests 30 times faster than before ProcureVue. In addition to the time gain, his bids are now underpinned by the best information that is available to his entire company, and he uses that to set prices that are not only competitive but also profitable.

At ProcureVue™, our goal is to enable our partners to accelerate not only the success of their business but also their personal success.

What will you do to GIVE your business the 10 to 1 ADVANTAGE?

Ignore the buzzwords. Ignore the hype. Analytics is just the new name for intelligence gathering, but the methods and tools used in this intelligence gathering are rapidly evolving. Companies that make this a core part of their decision-making will have an advantage in the marketplace.

How can ProcureVue™ help?

ProcureVue™ is a spend intelligence and data analytics platform that provides rapid, accurate, and detailed VUEs with total visibility into spend data and can provide clarity into quickly delivering meaningful and impactful outcomes. Our full-service SaaS spend VUE solution, combined with our data optimization services and direct consultative approach, gives clear insight into your spending so you can confidently deliver on identified opportunities in real time and on an ongoing basis. Our global team of sourcing professionals will perform data cleanup, spend categorization, spend analysis, and benefits identification using our artificial intelligence to provide unprecedented VUE and insights into your data through our cloud-based solution. ProcureVue™ was created by accomplished procurement leaders with diverse industry expertise focused exclusively on strategic sourcing, spend analytics, and procurement process transformation. We empower our clients to realize impactful outcomes utilizing innovative and dynamic software technology. We combine our best-in-class software with our industry expertise and consultative approach to provide a true VUE of enriched insights into your business that help you attain a competitive advantage.

• ProcureVue™ helps discover unimagined effects and challenges existing paradigms.
  
  
• ProcureVue™’s seasoned industry experts help strategize and utilize new information to realize untapped opportunities.
  
  
• ProcureVue™ ensures clear and tangible benefits are tracked to the bottom line. Active monitoring enables cross-functional alignment, from operations to finance, through our one source of truth.

1 https://hbr.org/2012/10/making-advanced-analytics-work-for-you