The Margin Q3 2015

There's a saying "a fool and his money are easily parted". The job of the procurement function in any organisation is to provide some rigorous process and critical analysis to ensure organisations receive maximum value and don't waste expenditure, buying the wrong-sized trains for example.

Typically procurement departments tend to exist in larger organisations, and the administrative hurdles that go with meeting the requirements of competitive bidding processes can be complex and labour intensive. The larger systems integrators have entire departments focused on trying to win these larger opportunities.

Every business is different and procurement processes and requirements also exist when you're looking to engage with smaller organisations too. The SME business owner is probably one of the hardest people to convince to part with their hard-fought-for money for a flashy new CRM system, when excel does the job "just as well".

Of course one of the challenges faced with procuring, or bidding to provide, a complex technology solution is the time taken to go through these rigorous processes. Neither technological evolution nor market dynamics stand still for long, and I'm sure there are a few RFP submission authors who have sobbed into their whiskey after spending weeks honing a submission to meet the exact outlined requirements only to find out a tender process has been cancelled because the technology has been superseded or business requirements drastically changed.

Long, drawn-out, ultimately unsuccessful processes are ripe for digital disruption. Gartner estimates major corporations will spend around 25 percent of their "enterprise costs" on digital transformation, and of that 20 percent on transforming supply chains. For these reasons, this issue of The Margin focuses on the formal activity of procurement. What are the processes and issues when it comes to procurement? How is it changing? What does the channel need to know about these changes? What do those in procurement want from an ICT supplier?

In this issue, we also look at the opportunities that arise from e-waste, the ways that you can leverage gamification and what you need to know about deal registration. Our roundtable discussion focused on selling business continuity and disaster recovery, and we've also looked at the opportunities presented by selling tech targeted to the pre-teen market.

I hope you find the issue useful.

Happy reading

Adrian Hinchcliffe
editor

adrian@itweb.co.za