Lean Agile Procurement
, ,

Lean Agile Procurement

When starting as a freelancer, people warned me that I might get stuck. Some colleagues at the time were afraid that my development might come to a halt. Without the R&D back-up of a company or corporation, how would I come up with new ideas? It…
, ,

From cost to value

Outsourcing has been around for some time now. After the mega deals in the late nineties, the industry developed quite a bit. Deals became smaller, engagement are now mostly multi-vendor, in some cases with a prime vendor responsible for service…
, ,

Compliance and Integrity

The company I work for is making headlines in the national newspapers over the past couple of months and not all for the right reasons. A settlement to avoid legal procedures in a case about bribing Middle East government officials, signing…
, ,

Evaluating Price, Quality and other inequalities

In various languages there are different sayings for the attempt to compare incomparable items. English and French refer to the comparison of apples and oranges where Dutch and German refer to the more similar apples and pears. Spanish is still…
, ,

Business talk or pidgin English?

The Netherlands are an open economy in which trade is an important factor. This goes back for centuries. You could argue that back in the 17th century the Dutch East India Company was the first multinational corporation. And for a fact it was…
, , ,

Sole sourcing: a win-win-win?

Selecting and contracting an IT or BPO service provider is usually a complex process. It takes significant time and effort from all parties involved. Service providers put in a serious investment with only a limited chance to get a return. For…
, ,

Sourcing Strategy: a necessary prequel?

Recently I engaged in a number of Sourcing Strategy projects for clients in a broad range of industries. In these type of projects we (it's almost always a team effort) supported clients in being specific about their requirements, add relevant…
, , ,

The “Baby on board!” sign illustrates that not all information is useful…

In today's traffic you can regularly see cars with a sign stating "Baby on board!". It puzzles me greatly what moves parents to share this type of information with their fellow drivers. I do not intend to discuss whether this information is…
, ,

Are governments the driving force behind innovation?

A friend of mine from India recently forwarded me the story of the successful launching of Mangalyaan. This initiative is part of the Mars Orbiter Mission of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The ISRO is the Indian equivalent of…
, ,

It is all about incentives

Co-workers need to know and understand each other's drivers or motives. When they don't the likelihood of successful cooperation is average at best. Nevertheless this is the default cooperation model in many outsourcing engagements: mutual insight…
, ,

What can a paper towel dispenser teach us about testing?

Testing is an important activity in the area of IT. The number of available methodologies, frameworks and models underline the fact that testing makes an impact in today's IT world. That is, if done correctly. In some cases we don't meet the…