^The APQC Blog

The benefits to be gained by paying suppliers electronically have been detailed extensively by APQC’s research staff and other observers. But accounts payable (AP) managers, for a variety of reasons, have clung tightly to the practice of using paper checks for about 75 percent of their vendor payments. Until now, that is.

More and more companies are undergoing mergers and acquisitions to increase their market share and stay competitive. But M&As that look great in the boardroom can create serious challenges for line managers and rank-and-file employees. When two organizations unite, hierarchies and cultures must be combined, processes must be redefined, and a large number of employees must be re-onboarded and connected. And all this needs to get done quickly so that the integrated organization can start accruing the benefits that the merger or acquisition was designed to achieve.

Now is the time for organizations to focus on executive performance. A recent survey of 1,800 executives conducted by global management consulting firm Booz & Company found:

“The majority of executives in all industries indicate that their companies lack ‘coherence’: They struggle with setting a clear and differentiating strategy, ensuring day-to-day decisions are in line with their strategy and allocating resources in a way that supports the strategy.”

Supplier relationship management (SRM) has received attention for its potential to improve supply chain effectiveness and dependability through greater collaboration with suppliers. Perhaps you’ve wondered: How many organizations have implemented SRM programs? How dependable are the supply chains for these organizations?

Executive: We need to implement business process management. How do we go about doing it?

Colleague: Well, we don't have a center for process improvement, and the group that usually handles enterprise projects does not have expertise in process management specifically.

Executive: I hear that lots of folks are using the Normative Enterprise… Framework… um…

Colleague: The Normative Enterprise Workflow Framework and Associated Definitions?

Executive: Yes! The NEWFAD. Can we implement that? Should we implement it?

We still have three months left in 2011, but APQC is already hard at work planning our 2012 knowledge management conference, which will take place April 26 and 27 in Houston. To help us put together the best possible event, please consider submitting an abstract to be considered as a presenter!

For more than a decade, finance executives have been hearing about the difficulties that would land in their laps once the SEC set the date on which U.S. firms would have to stop using GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) and start using the “globally harmonized” accounting regime known as International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). Understandably, many tuned out the forecasts of woe, concluding that they’d deal with the challenge only when absolutely forced to do so.

With the impending retirement of the Baby Boomer generation, the need for transferring knowledge is a business imperative. A recent BusinessWeek article, Intelligence Lost: The Boomers Are Exiting, notes “The loss of business intelligence and corporate knowledge, especially in R&D-focused organizations, could amount to billions of dollars in lost intellectual capital. Leaders must act fast.” If you are an HR leader, where do you start?

In my last blog post I outlined the essential skills for supply chain managers, as indicated by readers of the Focus Research Web site. That post focused more on skills rather than how supply chain professionals gain those skills.

It's difficult to shake off old patterns, especially when those patterns are dysfunctional processes in an organization. Most organizations have processes that they know do not work, and yet they hold onto them—sometimes for years.