Your supply base functions as an integral segment of your business. Without the raw tools you need to provide your service or product, the conversation with customers or clients goes nowhere.

The supply base, then, is a key pillar of your offering, but it is also frequently one of a business’s biggest overheads. Gilbert Mackay, Sunfish co-founder and Procurement Practice Lead, shares some thoughts on how to optimise these costs and relationships.

So, it’s worth asking yourself how to get the best value from your supply base. This doesn’t necessarily mean cutting down on the overheads: a good supplier is usually worth the price. But rather it’s a question of finding where that value is and making the most of it, whilst identifying the elements in your supply base that could be improved or even jettisoned altogether. If you can achieve the same business results on a smaller spend, it’s as good as growing turnover and net profit margin – particularly useful as we find ourselves in the midst of a period of economic uncertainty.

There are a few simple techniques for identifying the best sources of value in your supply base. Let’s take a look below.

Renewals, end-dates, small print … Keep an eye on the terms of the contracts you have with your suppliers. Some will auto-renew, some will have end dates and some will have specific stipulations around the termination process. The old adage about reading the small print comes into play here as well.

Contract management software has emerged as a fast-growing market that promises effective supply chain management. A beneficial strategy for companies looking to digitalise, it is also worth asking if purchasing contract management software will save you the time and money elsewhere to make it worth the investment.

Has another supplier entered the market since you last checked?

Is there a newer, cheaper, faster, or more efficient way of doing things now? It’s the nature of the digital era that disruptors and innovators are emerging every day.

Utilities and telecoms are one example – a combination of deregulation and market forces has meant a host of new entrants, ranging from automation and AI to 5G, many with highly competitive offers. Think about what other suppliers can give you that others can’t – and what your current supplier gives you that no one else can (remember – the grass isn’t always greener on the other side and don’t forget to factor in any cost & risk in changing suppliers). What is essential to your business and what is simply a ‘nice-to-have’?

Many suppliers will give you significant discounts for long-term contracts. But the flip side, of course is the lack of flexibility those contracts might offer.

Your business might move in a different direction, subsequently rendering the supplier less valuable to your core offering. You might find that the supplier’s product or service isn’t up to scratch, but the T&C’s of the contract make an exit point a lot harder to find. Consider negotiating exit clauses in any long-term contracts you draw up; otherwise, you could find yourself stuck with a supplier you don’t need or having to pay large sums to exit.

For small-to-medium-sized businesses, particularly those that haven’t been in their specific business field very long and where a forensic review of costs may have yet to happen, analysing your fixed and variable costs and associated supply base can make a huge difference. If growth has stagnated, even a small shift in cost reduction will make a big difference to cash flow and business operations.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning are slowly taking over the world.

Becoming an indelible part of our daily lives, whether in business or in leisure. The capacity for automation to increase efficiency and make our daily working lives easier is nearly limitless, and in recent years, AI technology has found a foothold within HR departments.

AI’s presence in HR departments can provide a huge boost to a team’s productivity, for example, by making the hiring process smoother and easier. Automated CV reviewing has been one of the most commonly utilised forms of AI in HR. This allows a business to automatically screen candidates to ascertain whether they’re suitable for a position. Particularly for roles where you might expect hundreds of candidates, the time-saving benefits of automated tracking are incredible, as is the capacity for consistency in candidate selection.

But of course, there are drawbacks. For roles that require a specialised, hands-on touch from the candidate, automated CV screening will likely be unhelpful — machines can’t detect such intangibles as ‘soft’ skills, cultural fit, creativity and adaptability. CVs can be optimised to surpass automated systems — and what if there’s a candidate who has one year and eleven months of experience in a role where they’ve surpassed expectations, but it’s the middling candidate who stuck to a safe role for five years that gets to the interview stage?

Many HR leaders have concerns about automated CV screening and understandably so. Empathy and the ‘human touch’ remain essential to the vision of leaders. It is called human resources for a reason!

Another area of HR where automation has found popular usage is in the use of Right to Work checks to determine whether a candidate has the legal right to work in a given workplace. A thriving industry of apps and software now exists, making what was once a mundane administrative task swift and simple, giving you the added benefit of avoiding the hassle of paper copies and potential GDPR issues.

Of course, there are downsides here again — these apps can theoretically fall foul of GDPR or data protection legislation themselves, if their protection policies are not up to scratch.

And yet the fact remains that AI, machine learning and the wider scope of digital transformation are irrevocably changing how we interact with, hire and manage workforces. Those who benefit the most from the usage of AI in the workplace won’t be those who adopt it wholesale, but those who find a way to combine machines with the human touch, bringing the best of both worlds together. Automation is unavoidable. The question is how and where you approach this wide-ranging shift.

Every business has its own unique needs and challenges. Considering which automation, AI and machine learning tools are worth investing in is a question of which tools are best for the job — don’t simply allow yourself to be wooed by every amazing pitch!

Your objectives and aims as a business are central to the effective use of artificial intelligence — it is, after all, your human intelligence that got you here in the first place!

Contract management software has emerged as a fast-growing market that promises effective supply chain management. A beneficial strategy for companies looking to digitalise, it is also worth asking if purchasing contract management software will save you the time and money elsewhere to make it worth the investment.

Here, Sunfish Online’s co-founder and Technology practice lead Satinder Sangha shares some key insights into how organisations can successfully navigate change, resulting in stronger, more agile and often more profitable organisations.

Transformational or change projects can be some of the most nerve-wracking and stressful times for any business. Whether it’s an expansion, a change of direction, or the introduction of a new product or service, these are make-or-break moments for a company’s fate.

Make it, and long-term growth is on the table. Break it and…well, you can guess the rest. The stats on change projects are shocking – Forrester/Smartsheet found that a third of major enterprise projects failed, whilst Gartner predicted that up to 85% of AI transformation projects will also be unsuccessful.

Preparation is everything for successful change projects. The perfect trifecta of delivery – on time, on quality and on budget – is achievable, but it takes planning, focus and dedication.

Whether it’s the rapid pace of the digital revolution, the coronavirus pandemic, or any number of worldwide changes, the business world is in a constant state of flux. Keeping pace with change is part of leading an innovative business today. How do you make sure your change projects succeed?

‘By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.’

The reason why so many change projects fail is a lack of focused planning at the dawn of the project. The project needs to have clear goals and measurable outcomes. It needs fallback plans and contingencies in case things don’t go to plan (and let’s face it – something will go wrong!).

It needs leadership willing to make definitive decisions about the directions taken. There’s plenty of advice out there to help you with writing a change management plan, but collaborating with and understanding the needs of the teams around you is key to making the planning stage a success.

Ensuring the change takes place is perhaps the most painstaking part of the process, but also the most rewarding: you’re out of the blue-sky stage and into the nitty-gritty of the action. The three C’s are key here: communication, communication, communication.

If your plan is strong, then the structure for effective communication and feedback will be in place. KPIs should be part of the strategy here as well – effective tracking of key performance indicators will give you an idea of where your change project is succeeding (and where it might need tightening). These KPIs, of course, will remain important after the project’s implementation, which leads us nicely onto the last phase.

If you’ve opted to use a different team for the delivery of the project, before handing over to the ‘business as usual’ team, the processes developed during the planning and implementation phases will be vital, as these will provide the bridge between the two teams.

The KPIs will help you define your measures of success and will also provide the groundwork for the project’s continuing success in your business. The handover phase is also a time for reflection. In reviewing the project, ask yourself what was most successful and what could have been better. Think about actions you can implement for the next successive change project.

If you’re thinking about implementing a transformational project within your business, Sunfish Online can help. We specialise in implementing complex changes with expertise and bespoke solutions.

Building a compelling business case for change to be submitted to senior management is a major undertaking — and to succeed, you’ll need to cover the three Ps: preparation, preparation, preparation!

Below, we’ll outline a number of tips for building a great document that will help you build a smoother process and get things right the first-time.

Who are you targeting with the case for change, and what is your central argument? How does the current situation stand in your business? What are your immediate competitors up to — and what are they doing better, or worse? Conduct a full audit of the relevant areas to gather the correct data, whether that’s costs, processes or personnel and look at the impact on productivity, profitability and efficiency. Build a map of where your company stands today.

Next, think about the roadmap for your company tomorrow. By what processes will you actively implement change? Will your ideas need new workflow pipelines, software or suppliers? How much do you stand to gain in the marketplace by enacting change now rather than further down the line? How can you, as a leader, convince and influence those around you in your goals towards a positive and effective change?

The A-to-Zs of your change roadmap are essential to convincing others to join your vision. Grand declarations of a vision are one thing, but the nitty-gritty of how your plan will be carried out is where you will succeed or fail.

So, for example, carry out an audit of what you expect the costs of your business case for change to be. Capital expenditures (CAPEX) vs Operating expenses (OPEX) need to be scrutinised, particularly in a before-and-after simulation. Will the long-term savings on operating expenses be justified by the immediate capital expenditure required to move it into gear? Our old friend, Return on Investment, is a key player here. The greater the change you’re proposing, the more likely it is to incur stress and operational instability — will the long-term trend in ROI justify the work put in?

These key questions about finance and profitability are also vital to making sure that your proposal for change stands on solid ground — if you can’t back up your vision without facts and evidence, you will be unlikely to effect a widespread change.

and issues. All but the most meticulous plans survive unchanged into the real world, and although it is impossible to consider all the possible pitfalls a case for change may encounter in its journey from paper to reality, being prepared and aware of the pitfalls will make for an increased resilience should those fears come to fruition.

Building a coherent document, with all of these factors put together and laid out in a structured, ordered plan, is essential to presenting an effective case for change. After all, failing to plan is planning to fail!

Companies can greatly benefit from implementing or upgrading their core Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software. Once the new software has been implemented, a standard, integrated view of core financial, HR and supply chain data can be very powerful, allowing businesses to make strategic data-driven decisions, often leading to a step change in business productivity.

ERP implementation is generally a complex and time-consuming process, not to mention significant one-off implementation costs, and so would normally only be taken at key points in a company’s strategic lifecycle. Once a product is selected, it is not unusual for it to remain at the core of a company’s operations for at least 10 years.

In recent years, the general trend has been for businesses to move to ‘Cloud-based’ platforms in preference to traditional ‘on-premise’ hosted solutions due to benefits in overall cost and support/upgrade activities. There are various providers in the market, with products all varying in breadth of service offering, ease and cost of implementation and ongoing subscription licence commitment.

Vendors such as SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, Infor etc. can all provide the core service scope, however will differ in areas such as the user experience, reporting capability, ability to integrate with other software systems. Implementation time and cost, plus ongoing support and maintenance, vary greatly and so it is important that companies consider a Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) approach to avoid any subsequent budget issues.

For more general information, read Microsoft’s useful ERP guide here: https://dynamics.microsoft.com/en-gb/erp/what-is-erp/

Sunfish has significant experience in guiding companies through the ERP selection process, using our tried and trusted processes and templates. Contact us today to discuss further on how we support this key decision for your company.