Progress & Plans: January Roundup

Welcome everyone to the first newsletter of the year! It's been off to a busy start, I've been writing the 2nd edition of Between the Spreadsheets for Facet Publishing, and honestly, I constantly surprise myself with the quality of work I come up with, because I am really not a fan of writing ??

I do have some exciting things that will be going on this year that I can't quite share with you yet, I know, I'm a tease but you KNOW that when I share it, it'll be great!

In other news the COAT methodology is proving popular, I can't say who, but a very well-respected medical institution will be using the COAT methodology in their data training documents, which is hugely exciting and something I'm extremely proud of.

A lot of organisations have recently made budget and headcount cuts, and everyone is expected to do more with less. Throw in some year end into the mix and you have a mountain of work to deal with.

But what if if it could be just a little bit easier to report on supplier information with clean, normalised suppliers?

We're extending our launch offer of 30% off Samification until 31st March 2025 using code LAUNCH30, to help you manage your workload more effectively and benefit from some super clean suppliers.

Using Samification will:

?? increase in your team's productivity

? lead to a faster time to analytics and reporting

?? improve the consistency and accuracy in your supplier normalisation

?? decrease in the chances of making decisions based on bad information

?? give you better profit margins and bottom line

If you want faster results when it comes to supplier normalisation and analytics while saving time and money, then get signed up today at samification.com.

WHAT'S COMING UP?

ISM ROCHESTER WEBINAR

On Tuesday 12th Feb, I'm very excited to be talking to the ISM-Rochester group about The Dangers of Dirty Spend Data. It's something that all organisations struggle with, but no one wants to deal with.

What will the group be learning? Well I'll be sharing real-life examples of dirty spend data, its consequences on things such as decision-making, reporting, analytics, AI and machine learning. ??

Takeaways:

? The importance of data accuracy

? The consequences of dirty data

? How to ensure data accuracy

? Make sure your data has its COAT on

? How to spot-check your data

Why not join us? Register right here. Hope to see you there!

LEARN TO LOVE YOUR DATA WEBINAR

On valentines day I finally have a date!! I'm looking forward to chatting to Sean Brennan from Acuity about learning to love your data. What's the webinar about? Well, having clean and accurate data is just like a relationship, you have to give it attention, look after it and treat it well.? And just like love, it's not just something you can do one day a year, you need to do this every day of the year.

I'll share real-life examples of dirty data and its consequences, such as the impact on decision-making, reporting, analytics, AI and machine learning.? You’ll also learn how to make quick, accurate checks and changes to your own data in excel, regardless of your level of experience, and understand why data accuracy and maintenance is so important, and implement best practices for this.

I'll share the link to register with you very soon!

IRM CONFERENCE

Then in March I'm looking forward to spending a couple of days at IRM UK 's event and moderating a panel at the Data Governance, AI Governance & Master Data Management Conference Europe 2025. Watch this space to hear will be alongside me on the panel!

Want to join us? You can get a 10% discount using code SPKR10 at checkout, register right here.

WHAT'S BEEN GOING ON?

I had a fantastic discussion with Jacob Sanders at NinjaCat about normalising and organising your marketing data so you can straighten up your spreadsheets and boost ROI.

I also touched on the hidden costs and subjectivity of dirty data, the CRAZY things I've seen in the spreadsheets which you wont want to miss, and I provided an EASY data cleaning exercise you can start using today!

Sound good? Get listening today! https://www.ninjacat.io/blog/wgm-podcast-data-cleaning-fix-dirty-data-and-boost-roi?utm_campaign=POD-What-Gets-Measured&utm_content=321886209&utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin&hss_channel=lcp-4973948

There was also a great event that happened just yesterday, and that was the Procuary meet up, organised by Dave Jones MCIPS and ?? Richard Struthers MCIPS Chartered , raising money for Samaritans and Cancer Research UK (CRUK) and supported by Channing Brazier and Laura Sellers MCIPS

Procurement professionals from all over came together to connect, drink and support a great cause.

There was a charity auction, and Little Susan and Samification were in the mix, along with donations from Total Spend Solutions, Laura Sellers MCIPS, Dave Jones MCIPS and Channing Brazier.

Five Little Susan 's went to new homes, the highest bid closing at ￡50 and going to Iain Campbell McKenna - what a gent! Huge thanks to Kavita Cooper BSc FCIPS Chartered who won the bid for Samification at ￡250.

And then there were the awards, the shortlisted nominees were:

LinkedIner of the Year kindly sponsored by Suppeco: Tanya Wade, MBA, Simon Frost, Andrew de Whalley, Tom Mills Susan Walsh

Rising Star kindly kindly sponsored by Efficio: Luke Tomlinson, Luke Poundall, Daniel O’Neill, Courtney Rowlands, CIPS

Impact in Procurement kindly sponsored by Parasol: Adwoa Owusu-BanaheneMCIPS MEng PRINCE2, Ben Farrell MBE, Katie Jarvis-Grove FCIPS (Chartered), Kavita Cooper BSc FCIPS Chartered

Sustainability Champion kindly sponsored by Procurement Heads: Oliver Hurrey, Jamie Ganderton, Benn Godfrey, Gary Salterpicco FCIPS(CS) CMgr FCMI

Huge congrats to Tanya Wade, MBA, Oliver Hurrey, Adwoa Owusu-BanaheneMCIPS MEng PRINCE2 and Luke Tomlinson for winning.

Congratulations to all the winners, bidders, attendees and most of all Dave Jones MCIPS and ?? Richard Struthers MCIPS Chartered Sadly, Tanya W. couldn't make it, but that didn't mean she couldn't be with us, just check the pictures...

If you would like to donate, you can do so right here https://www.givewheel.com/fundraising/5006/procmas-2024/?successid=cs_live_a1TQawIjyWF2UJK3yyummPEAD6UmRkcZfdnL6l2pBlk2OgmJn42m19lpY3

I shared some great insights from the the ProcureCon US Insights CPO report, sponsored by ProcureAbility.

One standout takeaway for me is that many of the challenges highlighted could be resolved—or at least improved—by addressing one key factor: clean data.

Unfortunately, organisations often hesitate to invest in data cleaning until a crisis arises (?? hits the fan) and they're forced to act, adding even more unnecessary cost to the problem.

By proactively cleaning, normalising, and classifying your procurement and vendor data—and maintaining it regularly—you can unlock significant savings??through improved operations, increased profitability, and a healthier bottom line.

This could help with many of the challenges mentioned in the report such as: implementing costly and complex digital transformation projects, identifying and reducing risk, integration issues, data quality issues, implementing AI

If you're looking to stay ahead of these challenges and gain a competitive edge, clean data is the way forward. And if you need guidance, I know just the person who can help...??

You can download the report here.

TOP TIPS

"I know what you do, but I don't really know what you do."

I hear this all the time! So, let me break it down for you in this video:

Want to know more? Contact me - [email protected].

There were also some great discussion on one my posts about how to get management buy-in to invest in data cleaning.

It's a question I get asked all the time, and if I had the answer, I'd be rich by now, but sadly I don't think there's one right answer. It will depend on the goals of the organisation, the motivation of the leadership and the engagement of the team. Or if the ??hits the fan, somehow the budget magically appears...

But there are a few things you can try to help drive this movement forward:

??show an example of your unclean data and then what it should look like, this will highlight where the wrong information is being used to make critical business decisions

??track your time, how long is it taking each week to clean up data before you can use it? Share with the business what is the value in time is lost

??highlight to leadership the tasks that are being neglected because you're having to clean data to deliver reports/analytics/insights or make decisions

??highlight any areas that might be open to fraud because of unclean data

??share how clean data can help achieve company KPI's faster or even smash them

Prevention is always better than cure, I'd love to know any other tips you might have to help get leadership buy-in

There was some fantastic advice in the comments, I'd recommend you go and check it out.

That's it for another month, have a good one!