Back in the day I did some work for a wealth management firm in New York. At that time, I was introduced to the area of Behavioral Finance, and more broadly, behavioral economics. While not new concepts, they gained new relevance – and urgency – during the financial meltdown 10 years ago. As my client used to say, investors are often their own worst enemies. In times of stress, even the most solidly constructed investment portfolio can be undermined through panic, overreaction and poor decision making. Part of the advisor’s role was, and is, saving people from themselves. There are parallels in technology decision making.

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During my family summer holiday trip to San Diego I was confronted with the notion of budget management front and center. To get around during our trip, I rented a mid-sized sedan, but upon arriving at the rental car center I soon realized we had an extra piece of luggage that would not fit in the car. The rental car agent gave me the option of either upgrading to a luxury SUV, which would double the cost of the rental, or wait for a less costly SUV rental that would not be available until later in the day.

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It seems like we’ve been talking for years about the impact that Millennial employees “are going to have” in the workplace. While we were discussing and theorizing, they have been learning, building, growing and working their way up the org chart. According to Wikipedia, the Millennial generation includes people born from the early 1980s through the mid 1990s and early 2000s. If we assume a birth year window of 1982-2002, the oldest millennials are turning 35 this year.

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A number of years ago when my niece first got her driver’s license, my brother-in-law got a panicked called from her in tears. In a shaky voice she said, “I pulled into a gas station next to the pump to fill up…now what do I do?”

I remembered this story recently when I spent some time in rural France. Having rented a car, I knew eventually I was going to need gas. Not speaking much French, it was something I avoided as long as possible. But eventually, even the fumes were running on empty.

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As summer races by it’s easy to lose track of what’s happening in source to pay industry news (plus, it’s hard to compete with beach-reading lists). But a lot has happened since Services Procurement Month ended, and you can catch up on what you missed here. So far, it’s been the Summer of Transformation. From the CPO Summit in London to P2P digitalization, continuous improvement, implementation strategies and technology shopping lists, our focus has been on helping organizations reach the next level – wherever they’re starting from.

It culminates with our SolutionWise Demo Webinars, Transformation 101: CLM+SIM on 8/1 and 8/3. Seats are limited, so register soon!

As always, please feel free to contact me with any comments and suggestions of content you’d like to see at team.success@determine.com.
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