TIMES THEY ARE A CHANGIN'

Come gather 'round people

Wherever you roam

And admit that the waters

Around you have grown

And accept it that soon

You'll be drenched to the bone.

If your time to you

Is worth savin'

Then you better start swimmin'

Or you'll sink like a stone

Sound familiar? Well, you may be saying, yes, I remember Bob Dylan, or you may be reflecting that this is what has happened to company after company that has not recognized, or worse ignored, the changin' times.

I have written before about innovative arrogance which culminated of the demise of iconic brands like Kodak, Nortel and Blockbuster to name a few. Others are now teetering, Blackberry for example. This blog however is not about rehashing these companies "sins". 

Let's talk about what's next.

There are many pundits out there who like to act as if they have a crystal ball and can intuit the next wave or "big thing." Yet, there will be things that will capture the world by surprise and change how we live life and communicate, like Twitter and Facebook. Personally I'm not a soothsayer, but I do see certain trends which make me wonder about the future of enterprise.

For me the key things are that we have become an instant gratification society, like the 3-year-old "I want it and I want it now"  and as well, we prefer self-serve -- investigating and buying things via internet sites. 

And what does that mean for ways that we buy things for corporations? 

I believe that Procurement organizations should spend some time thinking about that because although right now we still have reams of face-to-face dialogue and RFPs and so on, in the future it may be completely different. 

Years ago (late 90's)  I won a contest because I had the most visionary approach to what Procurement might look like in the future. My premise was that everyone who had the authority to buy a product or service could, with the click of a button on their computer, (which I guess now would be a portable device) a holographic buyer, which we could customize to our liking (mine would look like Hugh Jackman!). We would advise this holographic buyer what our desired product or service would be and the buyer would have enough artificial intelligence to be able to ask clarifying questions. Once all was known, the buyer would dive into the portals and come back within a few seconds or minutes, with the appropriate options and alternatives based on the requirements espoused.

If it is a product, it would be holographically shown to you in 3D. If a service (or contract labour) it would come in a different format.  When the decision is made, this buyer would dive back in, get the appropriate approvals and voila the buy would be completed. And of course, I had a fail-safe if too much buying was going on, and budgets had been restricted -- Barney the Dinosaur would show up in place of your holographic buyer touting the benefits of fiscal controls!

This was the late 90's. It was before eBay was part of our common lingo, and certainly prior to The Sims, as well as Avatars like on Second Life, although holographic images and scenarios had been visioned by Star Trek: The Next Generation.

It has only been about 15 years since I made what could have been deemed bold pronouncements. Today, they don't seem so outlandish anymore. They are within our reach and all it will take is someone with the computer know-how and procurement vision to make it happen. 

So I encourage Procurement organizations to start looking towards the future, because as Bob Dylan said in the second verse of his iconic song:

Come writers and critics 

Who prophesize with your pen 

And keep your eyes wide 

The chance won't come again 

And don't speak too soon 

For the wheel's still in spin 

And there's no tellin' who 

That it's namin' 

For the loser now 

Will be later to win 

For the times they are a-changin'

In my next blog entry, I'll tackle the future of contract labour in this type of scenario!