My favorite SolutionMap persona borrows from the best so businesses can adapt better than the rest

Spend Matters’ analysts have been writing personal essays on their favorite SolutionMap personas: Nimble, Deep, Turn-Key, Configurator and CIO Friendly, as well as Optimizer for sourcing providers and Global for CWS vendors. The personas help companies select which solution provider is right for them. This week’s essay is by Xavier Olivera, our lead analyst for P2P, e-procurement and e-invoicing and who runs Spend Matters Mexico/Latin America.

Regarding solutions for any company, I like the pragmatic, the simple and the beautiful, I think there is no place for the “nice to have,” the unnecessary or the ugly. On the other hand, in a changing, multipolar and competitive world such as business, being resilient and possessing the ability to change course when circumstances require it is undoubtedly a necessity, not nice to have.

With today’s complex IT landscapes  and business use cases (and industry-specific needs), being a chameleon or like Mystique of the X-Men, who can transform depending on the circumstance, is a unique ability to solve situations, without needing to be one of the more powerful X-Men.

The world has changed in the way we solve problems and reach goals. And for me being an athlete who swims, runs and does triathlons, I will explain it this way: In the 1980s and ’90s it was very common to see a whole team training with the same regimen and under the motto of “No Pain, No Gain.” Back then, we did not consider personal strengths or weaknesses. This has changed, and now the training is much more scientific and personalized (supported by technology), achieving better results for athletes. Effort and discipline remain great factors for success, but now the ways we train and the workloads are personalized and come with analytics. Personalization is a great success factor in sports — and business.

Having said all of that, every SolutionMap persona has its advantages and disadvantages, and as is well known, there is NO one-size-fits all. But if I had to choose, my favorite persona — with 80% of Deep, 60% of Turn-Key, with the ability to create packaged Nimble implementation and grow as required, with the capability to change directions in an agile and efficient way (configuration), and/or becoming an industry specific solution — is CONFIGURATOR.

[persona persona=”configurator” organization=”Moderately to highly sophisticated; Unique process requirements from unique, often complex supply/value chains” need=”Emphasis on flexibility, modularity, configurability and internal/external integration to ultimately support my organization’s diverse and evolving needs” ]