Earlier this year the IACCM published ‘The Future of Contracting’ which was the culmination of inputs from 2,000+ practitioners as to what contract management would look like in 2020. There were many themes that came out, however, two of them were: the role of automation and tools; and the area of skills, organisation, and proceses.…
I recently read a great article titled “Why good design is finally a bottom line investment” on the FastCompany website. The article focused mainly on the tech world and a product-centric view of design which is what most people think of when you mention the word ‘design’. To most people design makes them think…
It’s hard to envisage a world without mobile phones, but they have only been around for some 20 years. I remember back in the 90’s, with the proliferation of providers and competition there was a bit of an arms race between the networks to create the most attractive packages. For the consumer this often meant confusion and…
We are all used to, and comfortable with, being contactable virtually anywhere in the world on our mobile phones. How many of us give a thought to the fact that they can also be a tracking device? I was at a conference on privacy and location services a while back, I can hear you yawning…
As anyone who has worked in a consultancy, law firm, accountancy practice, or the like will know only too well, to keep your position you have to bill as many hours as possible. Managing a firm that runs a consultancy or partnership model relies on balancing order intake, sales, utilisation, and margin. Order intake and its…
With all of the publicity around insurance or legal referral fees earlier in the year it won’t surprise many people that the insurance industry is one of the largest spenders on legal services in the UK, about £5Bn pa, 20% of the market. Unless you’re in the legal services industry though it’s likely that the…
I listened to an interesting interview recently about a new service which brings airline style ticket pricing to restaurant booking. We are all used to seeing the cost of an airline ticket fluctuating with demand. What is going on in the background in simple terms is that the airline, with a fixed supply (i.e. number of seats), …
There have been many column inches spent over the last week discussing General Motor’s decision to move from an outsourced model to an insourced model in relation to its IT. What drives much of the debate is the skills agenda and can GM manage the transition. If you look at the reasons that GM gave…
As reported by 9to5Mac the Apple ads for their Genius Bar experience signifies a new tack for Apple where by they’re advertising a non-product area of innovation. Apple is one of the leaders in the area of blending together commercial innovation and product innovation to create leverage from multiple types of innovation. Their retail experience is world-class…
The UK has some great institutions which are often the envy of the rest of the world, the BBC, the Royal Mail, and the National Health Service. Sometimes as a nation we are too busy competing them to within an inch of their existence to see what we have in them. Taking the Royal Mail,…