3Sixty Insights Anatomy of a Decision

Anatomy of a Decision: Orbus Software Decides to Curate Go1-Sourced Content as Part of a Modernized Approach to Learning

The caliber of an employer’s learning ecosystem can be the catalyst for breakthroughs in training, upskilling, reskilling and career pathing—or an impediment to it all. Absent the state of the art in thinking and software for learning on the job, organizations struggle to set goals for their people or have an effective impact on overall internal culture. So learning has always been incredibly important in the workplace, and the proliferation of work-from-home (WFH), work-from-anywhere (WFA), hybrid work, and more has only laid bare and underscored this importance. More than ever, organizations must lean heavily on their learning ecosystems—the learning management system (LMS), the content feeding it, and anything else involved. The all-important employee experience hangs in the balance. What You Need to Know About This […]

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When Is a Software Company Not a Software Company?

From the newswire: Atos shareholder calls for chairman to resign. On paper and from a certain perspective, Atos’ business focus sounds great—among many other things, they’re a Platinum SAP partner, with lots of products and services to sell, and a ton of big-name customers. But peel back a layer or two… Years ago, when DBS (Dun & Bradstreet Software, and, yes, I go back that far) started their own consulting arm, a very wise man observed to me that you can’t sell both software and services—your focus and your bottom line have to be one or the other. Sure, you can dabble across the fence for fun and profit in support of your primary business. However, get lost in what looks like all that green […]

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Retail-Epic-Fail

For Insight Into Why a Company Might Be Failing, Look Beyond the Numbers

It never ceases to amaze me that when a business begins to fail, its leaders inevitably turn to the numbers. Don’t get me wrong: Numbers are certainly important. But focus too much on them, and you’ll be doomed to follow in the footsteps of the likes of Sears and other giants of yesteryear. It’s no secret that the recent pandemic and its lingering economic impacts have left their collective imprints on people and businesses far and wide. Unfortunately, the repercussions for some businesses have been incredibly detrimental, and many are grappling with a suddenly uncertain future. Now that the pandemic’s upheaval has stabilized, one would think these businesses should see a financial turnaround, and yet they continue to struggle. If it’s not the global pandemic, then […]

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The Opaqueness of Corporate Culture

Hat tip to The Economist‘s Bartleby column (and its unnamed author, Philip Coggan) for continuing to shine the light on possibly the most powerful business force on the planet — “corporate culture.” In my earliest career, “corporate culture” both built, and then savagely destroyed, the two then-world-leading enterprise application software companies, McCormack & Dodge and MSA: In 1983, Dun & Bradstreet Corporation bought McCormack & Dodge for what The Wall Street Journal suggested was around $50 million bucks In 1990, the inelegantly renamed “Dun & Bradstreet Software” bought its biggest competitor, MSA, for around $330 million bucks In 1996, the whole sorry mess of incompatible corporate culture was cleaned up and taken off D&B’s red-ink-bleeding books by GEAC for a fire sale valuation of around […]

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Making the Most of Your Corporate Events in 2022

‘Tis the season for new year’s resolutions. We’re all thinking about how we can do better in 2022, and if you’re a vendor planning to host events in the coming year, 3Sixty Insights has some advice to share. We’ve seen many vendors going all-in on events in the COVID era. Some have been great; others, not so much. Below are our takeaways from the past few years. First, let’s agree that event hosts should always offer virtual options. Even as we prepare for more in-person events, we must continue to provide virtual accessibility. If COVID has proven one thing, it’s that we are all living with uncertainty: about the future, about the right decisions, and about our own and others’ comfort levels. At this point, […]

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Fintech, meet Foodtech

Markets are easily distracted by Fintech news. Just the other day, I found myself meandering around the internet researching a series of Fintech acquisitions that amounted to fewer than $8M in 2021 sales to a single-billion-dollar shrinking dinosaur. I woke up mid-webpage with a major déjà vu headache wondering how many times we were going to read that very same story before we learned to save ourselves the time and the trouble. (The Highlander already knows the way these things ultimately work). Okay, to be fair, and as Yum Brands knows, like their progenitor PepsiCo who spun them off, there’s usually at least two–right, Coca Cola? But there’s never 100, let alone 1000, let alone 10,000 in a market, like there are estimated Fintech startups […]

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Salesforce Further Infiltrates HCM with Acquisition of Slack

Enter a highly infectious virus. To slow its spread, institute widespread lock-down orders. In tandem, order office employees to work from home and staff usually in the field to embrace unfamiliar, hybrid onsite-offsite schedules. Mix in a healthy dose of confusion to accompany this massive disruption to the heretofore expected way of doing things. Before 2020, collaboration tech was already the functionality all the cool companies had. It has suddenly become the must-have for just about any company as we approach 2021. Most nooks and crannies of the business could use effective applications for collaboration right now. Employees, customers, partners, prospects and other stakeholders need efficient, effective means, stat, to communicate, cooperate and coordinate. But end-to-end systems for the entire enterprise or silos of it […]

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How to Develop an Account Planning Strategy – Infographic

It can be difficult to figure out a routine that helps to streamline account strategy. How do you manage contacts and leads and follow-ups and use your resources in the most efficient manner possible? It can be overwhelming and lead to a lot of inefficiencies. And there’s the notion of trying to figure out how to personalize that account strategy, too. Luckily there are ways that you can use accepted account planning strategies to do just that. Of course, you can start by figuring out what type of account you have – number of employees, industry, etc. But to really personalize things, you need to layer in the individual needs of the owners, employees, and customers in order to get a better understanding of how […]

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The Importance of Technology in Your Small Business

A common theme within the writings and consultation that 3Sixty Insights takes on, is the pure and simple fact that businesses that remain stagnant can and will eventually fail… To avoid becoming stagnant, it is important for a business to constantly look into the mirror of self-reflection in order to find ways to continuously improve their business. One enabler within small businesses that we find commonly overlooked, is the area of technology… Technology costs money, and in the eyes of most small businesses, anything that costs money and doesn’t have a direct financial ROI, is taking money directly out of profits. However, technology is the unsung enabler within a small business that directly impacts how people perceive a business and its ability to efficiently communicate […]

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11 Tips to Realign Your Small Business for Success Today

We are in some difficult times. With essentially the entire world on lockdown, business has been tough. We are seeing businesses freezing budget, pulling back on expenses and laying off employees in record numbers, just to keep their heads above water. All is not lost, business around the world is being conducted and people are winning new deals. It has just become more difficult. In times like these, we continuously need to remind our teams that the slowdown is not a result of their actions and that their hard work can and will eventually pay off. Our rule of thumb is you have to work two or three times as hard in order to close the same (if not less) business… No level of complaining […]

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