Articles & field notes
What we learn rebuilding management systems: scope, data migration, adoption and project governance.
What rebuilding a buying group's system really costs
Nobody publishes figures for this kind of project, which leaves general managers walking into board meetings empty-handed. Here are defensible ranges, batch by batch, and the three cost items no quote ever contains.
Rebates and year-end bonuses: what software must compute
The accounting difference between a rebate and a year-end bonus takes two paragraphs. The mechanics your software has to model — tiers, bases, pro-rata, versioned scales — take a project.
Member portal: the specification outline to reuse
A specification is not a design document, it is a decision document: it exists so two quotes can be compared. Here is the outline that works, section by section, and what to keep out of it.
"Our vendor has gone quiet": the four ways out
Vendor liquidated, acquired or simply silent: panic makes people commit to a rewrite far too early. The four ways out carry very different costs and risks — and one of them involves rewriting nothing.
Rebuilding your buying group's system without a big bang
Replacing the tool that runs supplier approvals, revenue declarations and rebates is not a weekend cutover. Here is the sequencing that actually works.
Fixed price or time and materials: who carries the risk
A billing model is not an administrative detail — it decides who loses money when the project slips. Read a proposal for where the overrun lands, not for the headline price.
Rebates: why your spreadsheets have hit their limit
The rebate spreadsheet works until the day two people are the only ones who understand it. Here are the failure modes we see, and what replaces them.
What a buying group must demand in its contract
Every clause below is negotiated once, at the moment both sides most want to sign. Three years later your room for manoeuvre is exactly the room the contract left you — no more.
Migrating fifteen years of data without losing history
Carrying over a buying group's history is not a technical job: it is a run of judgement calls only the group can make. Started too late, it becomes the project's critical path.
Revenue declarations: collection and arbitration
Automating data entry saves a few hours. What actually costs you is chasing late members and investigating the gaps between declared revenue and supplier-reported invoicing.
5 Signs Your Team Is Ready for AI Integration
Not every team is at the same stage. Here's how to know if your IT team is ready to adopt AI in their daily workflow.
The Myth of AI Replacing Developers
AI won't take your job — but developers who use AI will outperform those who don't. Here's why augmentation beats replacement.
Inside a 3× Velocity Turnaround
A deep dive into our methodology with one of our clients (under NDA): from audit to deployment, and the real productivity numbers.