Afternoon Coffee: LTG Breaks Down Future Direction of PeopleFluent Acquisition, TGI Friday’s Looks Local in Brexit Planning

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Learning Technologies Group announced Tuesday several organizational changes related to its April acquisition of PeopleFluent.

LTG has appointed Stephen Bruce as the new managing director of PeopleFluent. In addition, LTG will merge its NetDimensions solution into PeopleFluent, and PeopleFluent’s Workforce Compliance and Diversity division will be spun into a separate LTG business, called Affirmity.

Of PeopleFluent’s vendor management system (VMS), LTG announced “plans to extract PeopleFluent’s successful vendor management solution to form its own standalone business.”

The VMS solution market has changed considerably in recent months, most noticeably with Coupa’s acquisition of DCR Workforce. LTG provided no further details in the announcement, but we expect — given LTGs no-nonsense, growth-oriented management — further updates are pending.

TGI Friday's Brexit Planning

Brexit negotiations may have stalled, but companies are still preparing their supply chains for a range of possible outcomes. The food industry in particular has begun shifting its supply base to favor more local sources, Supply Chain Dive reports. As one example, TGI Friday's has begun adjusting menus and selecting more British suppliers to save on currency fluctuations, according to the report. 

GEP Customer Win

Royal London, a life insurance and pensions provider, announced Wednesday it had selected GEP as to digitize its source-to-contract (S2C) operations, according to a press release.

"This partnership will enable us to deliver efficiencies throughout the sourcing life cycle through better opportunity and spend analysis, improved market insight, a more streamlined tender process, improved contractual oversight, enhanced risk management, and ultimately, a better experience for suppliers and other third parties," said Ben Jeffery, head of sourcing operations at Royal London, in the press release.

Consumer Confidence 

And finally, an economic update: U.S. consumer confidence rose this month to 138.4 from 134.7 in August, hitting a 18-year high, The Wall Street Journal reports. The index, published by the Conference Board, indicated strong job growth and increased economic output were likely going into the holiday shopping season.