Thanks to Bhaskar Mahendrakar, a full time MBA Student at Manchester Business School (MBS), I learned today that the School has finally started a blog in Oct 06. The idea is to capture the thoughts of MBA students during their stay at the School.

In addition, MBS finally saw the arrival of their new Director, Professor Michael Luger. I am happy to announce that he also plans to blog. What a refreshing change. It would even be better if the school starts to treat their students as clients (a question for which I never got an answer from Prof John Arnold, the departing Director). I also heard from another source that the School may replace the Executive MBA programme with an on-line version. This would certainly be a shame, as I for one would have never undertaken the full time course. I completed my Exec MBA at MBS in Sept 04 and graduated in July 05.

Michael joined from Kenan-Flagler Business School, part of the University of North Carolina. Here is part of the official announcement:

Professor Luger said: “This is a unique and exciting opportunity to help Manchester Business School achieve its ambition of becoming the best Business School in the UK, and among the top 10 in the world.  I was attracted to the position by the size and scope of the School, and by the vision and energy of the University’s leadership.  I look forward to working with administrators, staff, alumni, students and friends of Manchester Business School in this next stage of development.”

Professor Luger’s research interests cover economic development issues including infrastructure, research and technology parks, university impact, clusters, tax incentives, workforce dynamics and competitiveness in the new economy.

Before joining the Kenan-Flagler Business School, Professor Luger spent 12 years as chairman of the Department of Public Policy and was the Carl H. Pegg Professor of City and Regional Planning at the University of North Carolina.  He has taught at Duke University and the University of Maryland.  He has also worked at the Greater London Council and is a former Director of Planning for the Model Cities Bureau in Scranton, Philadelphia.  He has an AB (architecture and planning) and MPA (public affairs) from Princeton University, and an MRP (planning) and PhD (economics) from the University of California at Berkeley.

Professor Luger is keen to promote Manchester Business School as a world-class School on the international stage. His first trip as an ambassador for MBS will be to Japan and Korea in early February, where he will speak to School alumni and corporate partners about the role of business schools in the modern economy, as well as giving a public lecture in Seoul on Korean housing policy, an area closely related to his research activities.

Tags: Manchester Business School, MBS, blogging, Michael Luger

According to an article published by DDC HRO, Philippines boasts the following facts about its Cyber Services Corridor:

• 600 miles from Baguio in Northern Luzon to Zamboanga in Mindanao.
• Served by $10 billion high bond
• Served by Profiber backbone and digital network
• Home to 75,000 call centres and BPO agents
• Speaks English, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese and Arabic
• Cultural disposition for service provision and customer care

Wow, I never thought Philippines as a BPO hub!

Tags: Phillippines, DDC HRO,  BPO

Everyday, I am amazed to find another company I have not heard of operating in the same competitive environment as ebdex. This time, a company called DDC HRO, with over 3500 staff.

Introduction

DDC HRO introduces itself as a "global human capital BPO solutions" provider.  It’s strap line gives out a simple yet effective message, "right people, right locations, right results". Part of the DDC Group, the DCC HRO’s core competencies are in the areas of

• Data Administration
• Human Resource Administration
• Accounts and Financial Processing
• Marketing & Sales
• Document Processing
• Research & Development
• Information Technology

Founded by Jan Trevalyan and David Kinnear in 1989, their resource pool in Philippines has grown over 3,500. US head quartered, it has offices in UK and Netherlands in addition to 10 operations centres in Philippines. It also has operations in China and elsewhere through partners.

UK Operation

Incorporated in 1989, the company (Direct Data Capture Ltd) reported revenues of £4.65 million in 2005, with a healthy net profit margin of 4.61%. Except for a small dip in 2003, revenues have grown steadily since 2001 with net profits reported every year. With current assets of £2.98 million (39% in bank and deposits) and positive net current assets, and increasing shareholders’ funds, the only culprit I could find on the company’s finances in 5 minutes is the growing debtor book, debtor collection days increasing from 106.74 days to 133.04 days. At the same time, the creditor payment days have increased to offset this. Conclusion: Financially well run company. The UK operation is run by Brett Trevalyan (also Finance Director of the Group) and consists of a scanning operation, and sales and project management expertise.

Accounts Payable Solutions:

I will leave you to digest above

Overall conclusion

Printing of documents will still be around for years to come. Whilst we do not need to store printed documents (nor print the documents in the first place) for many types of business transactions, changing habits and organisational cultures continue to cause a significant barrier to adapting innovative document exchange solutions such as those offered by ebdex and others. This is clearly demonstrated by the recent growth in scanning solutions offered by companies such as Version One in the UK market. In the medium term, hybrid solutions incorporating document exchange and scanning solutions offered by Bottomline Technologies and others will continue to capture market share.

Tags: DDC HRO, DDC Group, Bottomline Technologies, Version One, Philippines, ebdex, accounts payable, business tranformation, BPO

WirelessMatch facilitates private equity investment in early stage companies operating in the wireless and mobile telecoms markets. Here is a list of current investment opportunities:

• Matching of car parking spaces: £370,000
• Intelligent multimedia polling solution: £450,000
• WiMax network: £3.0m
• Photographic evidence via mobile phone: £390,000
• Wireless Network Infrastructure: £1.0m
• Mobile dating: £300,000
• Antenna technology: £250,000

Tags: Funding, Start Ups, WirelessMatch, wireless & telecoms market

I learned on 12th that Gerry Lemberg, 68 passed away on the 6th of January 2007. According to his colleague, Avi Ram, it was quick and painless end without any suffering. I came to know Gerry through ecadamey in Feb 06. At Gerry’s request, ebdex presented its business plan to London Business School in March 06 as part of the VCIC competition. I am glad to report that as a result, Manchester Business School will be sending a team to 2007 VCIC competition. Avi has asked me to inform anyone who has known Gerry. A simple funeral service will take place at Guildford Crematorium on Thursday the 18th January at 13:00 hrs.

Gerry and I did not see eye-to-eye on number of key issues, nevertheless his experience and guidance played a vital role in the development of ebdex. Bit about Gerry, from many stories he told:

Gerry and couple of colleagues were working for a semiconductor manufacturer when one of them decided to start a company. Gerry and others joined in and Fairchild Instruments were born. They required Venture Capital (VC) and Gerry was quite good at bridging the gap between VC community and the technically biased entrepreneurs (they were mostly scientists). Neither party fully understood each others’ business. This led to Gerry playing a pivotal role in the early stages of Intel, Apple, Oracle, Electronics Art, and number of other companies who are global players today. Gerry was known by Larry Ellison and Steve Balmer to name a few. And he is claimed to have flown Larry Ellison’s fighter jet. Gerry also flew fighter aircrafts for the US Navy. So Gerry has led a full life. As per his colleague, Marcus Cauchi, Gerry has earned and lost more money than most of us can dream of. 

Having lived the last 18 years in UK (was still an American citizen), most recently Gerry set-up Silver Fox Ventures to help start-up businesses such as ebdex. Gerry had a no nonsense approach to VC funding. He was also heavily linked with London Business School’s entrepreneurship activities. This relationship helped him find exceptional team members as well as start-ups with growth potential. He was interested in helping companies that could attract a value of over £100m in 5 to 7 years. And he was well respected in all circles he interacted in, especially the investment community.

In Gerry’s eyes, a startup company is ready for investment when following parameters are met:

- Their solution will relieve validated customer pain better than the competition and the company has attracted at least three significant customers and have their backing to develop the technology/product. Without such validation and backing, one should not enter into the development cycle.

- The team must have all required skills and connectivity up and down the value chain, both in the industry in which they are competing and the markets that they will be serving

- The CEO must have knowledge and experience of running a business and willingness to learn from mistakes

Gerry also holds a PhD from MIT, a Masters degree from Brandeis University and a JD from the University of California. He is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts. Gerry’s life should be celebrated, as his contribution to establishment and growth of many companies has been immense. It is a shame that I could not find a single web site that captures his achievements fully. I did not know him personally other than through interactions due to ebdex. Perhaps somebody will fill the gaps in highlighting his other achievements.

We certainly lost a rare individual. Gerry you will surely be missed by all those who have come to know you over the years. May you rest in peace.

References:

• ecademy profile
• ecademy testimonials
• LinkedIn profile
• Silver Fox Ventures – Gerry’s company
• Planning, Funding, Executing and Exiting a New Venture – by Gerry

Tributes:

• ecademy

Tags: Gerry Lemberg, Silver Fox Ventures, ebdex, London Business School, VCIC, Apple, Intel, Oracle, Fairchild Instruments, Venture Capital, tribute, life

I assume that all readers of this blog are web savvy. In case you are looking for Venture Capital and have not interrogated the Google Directory, here is a link for you:  http://www.google.com/Top/Business/Financial_Services/Venture_Capital/. In addition, if you want to contact Google direct, try your luck with http://www.google.com/support/contact/bin/request.py?bdpg=1

Tags: Google, VC, Venture Capital

According to a report published by BLT’s Management Consultancy Recruitment Team, demand for consultants remains steady with little upward movement on salaries. The salary mid-points as per their report are as follows:

1. Analyst – £26k
2. Junior consultant – £41k
3. Consultant – £59k
4. Senior Consultant/Manager – £66k with top end extending up to £90k
5. Managing Consultant – £84k
6. Principal/Associate Director – £120k
7. Director/Salaried partner – £190k

Do you have any comparative data? If you do, how does that stack up with above?

Tags: Management Consultancy salaries

Here are the latest ranking details from Technorati. For the first time, this blog is in the top 100,000. I was monitoring the ranking regularly and whilst number of links and blogs have not really changed much, I believe the ranking improved due to increasing traffic. The only other explanation I can think of is that some of the blogs with higher rankings did badly and they were penalised by Technorati.  I started blogging in Apr 06, but moved to wordpress.com in July 06. At that point ranking zeroed. Not bad for six months work! It is time consuming, but very enjoyable.

• Rank: 96,155 (123 links from 33 blogs)
• URL: http://manojranaweera.wordpress.com
• Updated: 1 day ago
• Favorited by: 1 member

Thank you to my frequent and infrequent readers, and for those who have linked to this blog. In terms of future, the blog will concentrate more on the industry than ebdex. I will attempt to critique reports published by Aberdeen Group, Forrester, etc, provided I can get my hands on them. I will also question the value propositions of many vendors (it’s great to have so many entering this space) as the market continue to be fragmented with different propositions.

I also appreciate if industry experts such as Andrew Bartels from Forrester and others drop in from time to time. I believe Rhys Jones of Accountis is a regular reader, however he is bit shy of sharing his thoughts. You run a great company Rhys, why not start blogging (by joining Susan) or start sharing your thoughts on this blog? On the positive side, my congratulations goes out to Accountis for incorporating a blog on thier new website. Others have started doing webinars, webcasts and podcasts but yet no blogs.

Please let me know your thoughts and any specific areas you would like me to comment on. Ivan and Dennis, I still need to respond to your queries/requests. Will do this over the next week or so.

Best regards to all, Manoj

Tags: Technorati Rankings, EIPP, blogging,  Accountis, Rhys Jones, Andrew Bartels, Forrester, Aberdeen Group

I attended the webinar organised by 170 systems over webex yesterday. The speakers were Andrew Bartels, VP and Research Analyst from Forrester and Larry Concannon, Director of Product Marketing from 170 Systems. I was disappointed with the webinar as both speakers rushed to complete without interacting with the audience. However, webex allowed audience to send queries which 170 Systems promised to respond within days. The slide pack can be down loaded from 170 Systems website, which I recommend as it has some good information.

170 Systems provide EIPP solutions (invoice only) through OB10 network. As expected, their expertise lies in integrating with SAP, Oracle and PeopleSoft enterprise solutions only. For example, I know from been at BT, that Xansa runs the A/P Department of BT using 170 Systems and OB10.

I hope I did not misunderstand (at the time I was also chatting to CEO of another company through Skype), but Andrew was saying that it is better to have specific solutions such as e-invoicing for one of the eight parts of e-purchasing process his slide showed. The 8 parts being:

1. Spend analysis
2. Supplier assessment
3. Supplier identification
4. Sourcing
5. Contract management
6. Procurement
7. Order fulfillment
8. e-Invoicing (invoicing reconcilliation and payment)

I disagree. If you can have a solution that provides all of the above cost effectively, surely it would be better than dealing with number of different systems and providers. So, what you in fact need is a spend management solution, perhaps similar to those offered by Ariba and Procuri, and not OB10. Now I am going to contradict my own argument by saying, it is better to have a solution that deals with e-Invoicing than not having one at all. But what you need is solutions that could grow as the requirements as well as the client company grows. Therefore I question OB10′s strategy of simply handling invoices and not any other documents. Niche is fine, but what happens when you deliver the ROI promised and your client is now asking you to extend the benefits to exchange of other document. Surely, your answer is not.."Sorry Sir, but we have no capability, would you like contact details of our competitor?"

I like Andrew’s slide on timing and sponsorship. Few points:

1. Implement first e-invoices and then automate invoice validation
2. Implement EIPP after eProcurement maximises gains
3. Then go for creative funding and payment options

The validation has two meaning to me:

1. Validation of incoming messages against business rules. This has to be done within the exchange/network – part of value addition. A business rule could well be checking against legislation or simply verifying that there is a purchase order number.
2. Validation against purchase order and/or delivery note (2 or 3 way matching) – this could be done either within the exchange/network or within the enterprise solution.

The key themes:

1. Market penetration is still low. Reference was 2001, which is a shame.
2. Hybrid solutions are still needed, i.e. electronic plus scanning. I question this?

The problem is 170 systems and OB10 are purchaser-centric solutions and not true end-to-end solutions. I am not trying to mislead you here. They do connect both ends, but it is too costly to provide the same level of service to suppliers, unless they happen to be a large supplier. Their cost model does not allow this. So you need a player who can challenge this with the better revenue and cost structure.

I also like Andrew’s recommendations:

1. Focus first on process efficiencies and then on cash flow and financing opportunities
2. Find the sponsor for each stage – difficult one!!

Overall, it was a good presentation and if allowed, I would be happy to attend the next webinar.

Tags: 170 Systems, Forrester, Andrew Bertels, EIPP, e-invoicing, OB10, e-Procurement, process improvement, Procuri, Ariba, Xansa, BT, A/P

Having commented on the ideal number of partners to start a business, taking one of my previous ideas further, ebdex Consulting would need three to four people to start with. Today, I believe I found the second partner (of course, the first partner being me!). I also found another Associate, who could easily be the third partner. Need to chat with him to ascertain this. But how do they measure against the skill sets I mentioned? And what skills am I bringing and what would be my role? All this needs further discussion and elaboration.

If we go ahead with ebdex Consulting as a separate entity, its structure might look like:

1. Between 3 to 4 partners/directors – limited company would be the best form (need further advice)
2. Significant number of Associates, not just from the UK.

Nothing is firmed up (just ideas at present), but if you are interested in the idea, and has the necessary skills, why not get in touch for a chat! I believe I have not said anything about what services we might offer. For the time being, let’s say its around document exchange transformation, financial transformation and business process optimisation.

Tags: ebdex Consulting, document exchange, financial transformation, business process optimisation