{"id":1143,"date":"2014-05-24T12:18:00","date_gmt":"2014-05-24T12:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/projects\/horsesforsources\/buzz-or-fuzz_052414\/"},"modified":"2014-05-24T12:18:00","modified_gmt":"2014-05-24T12:18:00","slug":"buzz-or-fuzz_052414","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/buzz-or-fuzz_052414\/","title":{"rendered":"Time to stop the buzzword balderdash and become meaningful again"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-15974\" title=\"hmmm...\" src=\"http:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/hmmm....jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"578\" height=\"398\" \/>Am I smoking something illegal, or has our industry really started to lose the plot with the amount of buzz terms that \u2013 quite frankly \u2013 only mean something to the sellers and advisors trying to make their wares sound that little bit savvier than their competitors. And even then, I am not too sure whether many of them even fully understand what they are buzzing about either, more simply regurgitating what their competitors are saying.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m not trying to be a fuddy-duddy here, and I do empathize with the exuberance of so many sell-side individuals who are simply starry-eyed at all the disruptive technology and evolving business models that are on the horizon, but c\u2019mon folks, can we find a sensible <em>balance<\/em> between vision and reality? \u00a0Why has it become so uncool to talk about where we <em>are<\/em>, as opposed to where we think things might evolve in 5 years&#8217; time?<\/p>\n<p>I mean, wasn\u2019t it barely six months ago when we were still having (relatively) meaningful debates about things such as:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cWhat is innovation, and how can I get some of that?\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cHow can I find a provider to do something <em>more<\/em> for me than provide cheap labor\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cI really would like some visibility over my order-to-cash process chain\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cOur provider still can\u2019t figure out how to automate our accounts payable processes\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cDo we really get value from outsourcing all this stuff \u2013 are there other options to consider?\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Instead, suddenly it\u2019s become terribly untrendy to have <em>meaningful<\/em> conversations about what we\u2019re actually trying to achieve\u2026 like improving processes, trying to do a better job than merely maintain status quo operational performance, and accessing meaningful data to help us get more value from our day to day operations.<\/p>\n<p>Yes, folks, if we aren\u2019t creating Digital Services on SMAC platforms, we\u2019re going to fail with Big Data and the Robots will come to replace us\u2026 so let\u2019s see what 312 major buyers &#8211; in the brand new State of Outsourcing Study we conducted with KPMG &#8211; really understand about today\u2019s latest slew of sexy savvy-sounding soliloquies:<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_15973\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Buzz-or-Fuzz.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-15973\" title=\"Buzz or Fuzz\" src=\"http:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Buzz-or-Fuzz-e1400944882521.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"578\" height=\"433\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Click to Enlarge<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>All joking aside, there is a serious message here: too many buyers are getting lost in the verbiage and the lack of relevance to their businesses and simply don&#8217;t understand exactly what is being sold to them. Let\u2019s be honest here, SMAC doesn\u2019t mean anything to 70% of buyers beyond being a concoction of new technologies lumped together\u2026 finance executives have been talking about \u201cBig Data\u201d for four decades and nothing is really new except the fact there is better technology to help them analyze it\u2026 I can go on.\u00a0 Oh \u2013 and nearly a third of buyers don\u2019t know what \u201ctransformation\u201d means to their business? Seriously?<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600; font-size: medium;\"><strong>The Bottom-line:\u00a0 Our industry is simply terrible at communicating to clients and needs a major reality check<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>There is an abject communication problem in our industry, when such vast numbers of operations executives are baffled by the BS their providers and advisors are lobbing at them via boring white papers, instantly-forgotten PPT decks and thousands of automated inane tweets.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s time for the industry side to start tying all this buzz to the reality of operations \u2013 where we can educate how enterprises can learn more about where the world is heading, how they can start to evaluate the pace of change that will impact them and develop change programs and new operations strategies that make sense to their businesses.<\/p>\n<p>We have got to stop jumping on the bandwagon of spewing poorly communicated rubbish that has little meaningful relevance to businesses today, and instead explain in <em>plain English<\/em> how processes and interactions can be digitized, how robotics could one day enable our business systems to become more cognitive and less reliant on manual steps, how new analytics tools and expertise can help our staff become more relevant and valuable, as opposed to turning widgets and updating spreadsheets. Most of the stuff I read today is focused 95% on flashy terminology and only 5% on the actual <em>substance<\/em> on what businesses can do with all this stuff.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s time to get meaningful people and stop this feeding frenzy of confusing jargon\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Am I smoking something illegal, or has our industry really started to lose the plot with the amount of buzz&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,53,74,78,81,838,90,831,832,837],"tags":[303],"ppma_author":[19],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Time to stop the buzzword balderdash and become meaningful again - Horses for Sources | No Boundaries<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/buzz-or-fuzz_052414\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Time to stop the buzzword balderdash and become meaningful again - 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