Connected spend management & technology serendipity...
Leigh-jay Lawrence
Award-winning SAP Concur Expense, Invoice and Travel Implementation & Consulting partner (CIP & CCP)
It's a near-impossible task to keep up with the changes in today's society. Change is no longer incremental; it's radically disruptive by nature.
Horace Walpole coined the term Serendipity, on January 28, 1754, in a letter, where Horace recalled the fairy-tale of "The Three Princes of Serendip". The heroes of the fairy-tale sailed off to make their fortunes in the "land of silk", an island called Serendip (Sri Lanka).
Along the way, they made all types of wondrous and delightful discoveries about the island and learned things they never expected, making discoveries, by accident. In modern Science, Serendipity accurately reflects the way many discoveries are made, Penicillin, X-ray, Viagra, Teflon are common examples known as accidental discoveries in science. The term is also used to mean "the randomness of fate," as in "whatever happens to cross my desk today."
If we rewind the clock, in 2008 everyone had a Blackberry, the catchphrase: iPhone for show and Blackberry for a pro, was a common rebuttal (I remember it well). As a company, Blackberry had the mindset of incremental improvements; RIM products were ground-breaking, enabling genuine mobilisation. Fast forward two years, to the summer of 2010, and everything radically changed, the iPhone 4 was released, it became the hottest "must-have" product, and, in an instant, everything changed. Steve Jobs understood and embraced Serendipity as a pathway to creativity and innovation.
Some say that this was the start of the "replace and displace" technology approach, maybe, but let's go back even further. The rise in technology primarily drove the Industrial Revolution; the telegraph led to the telephone to finally the internet and mobile technology.
Technology Serendipity is what happens when we make unusual connections through innovation and create possibilities that never existed before.
History teaches us that Serendipity is a critical component in both the creative process and in business.
March 2020, everything radically changes again, facing a global pandemic, and a universal lockdown, the world was forced to take a breath and look at the bigger picture. International travel stopped, traffic fell by 75% and carbon emissions by 40%, working from home became the new normal, businesses adapted or failed, families spent quality time together – flipping the work-life balance on its head, these scenarios happened by chance. With connected spend management, obtaining accurate and regular data enables us to track and identify trends in data to forecast spend scenarios and plan for the randomness of chance/fate.
How do you turn insights into action?
You can turn insights into action in an interconnected, end-to-end process, by taking a big-picture view and driving more organisational value by Automating manual, human error-prone processes, inherently driving greater efficiencies, along with enabling more effective collaboration. Collaboration is critical; Steve Jobs never divided Apple into functional divisions for a reason (to promote Serendipity), Mr Jobs wanted his business analysts, engineers and designers to be in constant contact to enable the serendipitous cross-pollination of ideas.
Looking forward to 2021, end to end spend management solutions (AI - Automation, corporate sustainability programs) will improve overall productivity, by freeing up time and resources to focus on innovation, creating a breeding ground for Serendipity and the next wave of disruptive technology.
To learn more about connected spend management solutions, contact Consilio.io on [email protected]
If you are interested in learning more about Serendipity in technology companies, refer to "The moment of serendipity in technology companies: Study by participant observation":
The above study gives a practical point of view of repeatable and more predictable ways of thinking for preparation of innovation. Firstly, they analysed six cases of 'the moment' of Serendipity that had been collected over two years of participatory observation in a Japanese technology company, providing a fascinating insight.