How will you use your Leap Day

It's great to have an extra day every 1461 days, but business moves fast now, how could you get more additional days?

Today's date, February 29th always makes me smile. Imagine being the guy who has to write the "This Day in History" column, which today is four time harder than usual. The "Famous Birthdays" section has surprisingly good pickings: step forward Rossini, composer of The Barber of Seville and Hollerith, inventor of the Punched Card. We could all head down to Anthony, Texas which is the self-styled Leap Day Capital.

In The Pirates of Penzance, the plot turns on the fact that the hero, Frederic is born on the 29th February, and is therefore not able to be released from his apprenticeship at the usual age of 21 since "You are the victim of this clumsy arrangement, if we go by birthdays you're only five and a little bit over". The "clumsy arrangement" is of course due to the fact that the ratio of two particular astronomical values, does not yield a whole number. Emperors, Popes and The Astronomer Royal have all tried to come up with an arrangement, and today is the result.

Do you see yourself as the victim on benefactor of "this clumsy arrangement"? This reflects somewhat on whether you see yourself as a proletariat or a bourgeoisie. Workers have realised that every leap year, they have to work one extra day for no extra pay. But hard-pressed quota-carrying sales folks get an extra additional 24 hours to achieve their monthly or quarterly goals. So lets be positive, it's not month end yet, what should you do with your extra day? I'd suggest some blue-sky thinking about the speed of change.

It's all about Time

So, we can't wait for four years to get a day for free. What can we do to get more time? Individuals, businesses, and societies are interconnecting in real time. This is creating a new digital economy that is more collaborative, intelligent, responsive, and efficient – with the potential for dramatic increases in productivity and economic value.

Reducing Supply Chain Cycles

Today's business runs faster than ever, and engaging efficiently with your supply chain is critical. Poor information leads to slower product life cycles, unhappy customers and increased inventory, but a Business Network that connect employees, customers, partners, and suppliers are creating unprecedented opportunities for performance improvements

Cutting back-office wasted time

All employees can be more productive by taking back-office tasks away and automating them. Whether in Procurement, Finance or Human Resources efficiency is critical in keeping staff focused on value-added activities, not dealing with inefficient processes or poor data.

Improving Time To Value

No-one has time for big, slow IT implementations any more. Get up and running quickly and cost-effectively with subscription-based cloud solutions. Cloud Solutions from SAP Ariba and SAP Fieldglass offer a full range of cloud computing solutions along with services to help you get up and running quickly.

So on this free day what could be a better use of your time than joining us at the UK Spend Connect Innovation Day, for a full day of exploring the latest advancements used by spend management professionals who are turning the challenges of today into opportunities, so that every day feels like a day with extra possibilities.