David Blake
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Articles by David Blake
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Updated 17 minutes ago on 06/08/2026. Most recent reply from Sheridan, WY Member since May 1, 2026 Posts 12 Votes 4 12 Posts 4 Votes from Sheridan, WY Member since May 1, 2026 Posts 12 Votes 4 David BlakePoster Sheridan, WY 4 Votes | 12 Posts Most STR investors focus on occupancy, ADR, and annual revenue when evaluating a market. But I've started paying increasing attention to something else: Future scarcity.
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Updated 4 minutes ago on 06/03/2026. Most recent reply from Sheridan, WY Member since May 1, 2026 Posts 9 Votes 1 9 Posts 1 Votes from Sheridan, WY Member since May 1, 2026 Posts 9 Votes 1 David BlakePoster Sheridan, WY 1 Votes | 9 Posts Most STR investors spend a huge amount of time evaluating properties and surprisingly little time evaluating markets.
Successful Launch of 'Traumatixxx: (Sono Kakusei)' by Jonathan Luis Garcia on Amazon and Barnes & Noble
Author Jonathan Luis Garcia Traumatixxx: Sono Kakusei Book Writing Venture, a top Orlando-based publisher with 10+ years’ experience, announces the release of “Traumatixxx: (Sono Kakusei)” by Jonathan Luis Garcia.
Baird upbeat on Amazon stock following CEO shareholder letter
On Monday, Baird reaffirmed its confidence in Amazon.com (NASDAQ:) stock, maintaining an Outperform rating and a $205.00 price target for the e-commerce giant. The endorsement follows a thorough analysis of CEO Andy Jassy’s annual shareholder letter, which Baird believes paints a promising picture for Amazon’s prospects in the coming year.
Target2: The Silent Bailout System That Keeps the Euro Afloat
15. Conclusions The evidence is overwhelming that the Eurozone is not an Optimal Currency Area. The first two decades of its existence have shown that a common monetary policy has not stabilised its disparate economies. Further, there is insufficient wage flexibility and labour mobility to eliminate unemployment quickly, and insufficient price flexibility and capital mobility to remove intra-EZ trade imbalances quickly.
Have a Plan to Fire Your SI
Transformation program leaders often hesitate to let go of their Systems Integrator (SI) leaders or key SI resources. For clients hoping for a change, that hesitancy often leads to regret for not letting go of their SI sooner. This regret usually settles in around the time the client is authorizing the SIs Change Request.
Building the Workforce of the Future: From the Great Resignation to the Great Reorientation - Forbes Connect
Michael Moe Founder & CEO GSV Holdings Michael Moe is the founder and CEO of GSV Holdings, a growth focused investment platform based in Silicon Valley. GSV has invested in game changing businesses such as Facebook, Twitter, LYFT, Palantir, Snap, Coursera and Spotify. Inspired by the entrepreneurial mindset of Silicon Valley spreading throughout the World, GSV stands for “Global Silicon Valley” and seeks to identify, invest and accelerate the transformative companies emerging as innovators.
4 Reasons Why It is Important to Ask Your SI for Updated Staffing Models
February 22, 2022Christine CostaNo CommentsReading Time: 4 minutes Congratulations! You have chosen a system integrator (SI) for your transformation project and completed the arduous task of negotiating a Statement of Work (SOW), including a detailed staffing plan. This is a big accomplishment – developing the scope and estimate for an enterprise-level transformation is not a simple matter.
Workday Training Options and What to Negotiate
Knowledge Center RSS Feed October 27, 2021Erwann CouesbotNo CommentsReading Time: 4 minutes Workday offers several training options to help customers maximize their return on investment and successfully deploy and utilize their Workday solutions. However, in our experience, many organizations fail to request and negotiate those training solutions at the time of their Workday software purchase and therefore, miss out on savings opportunities.
Court Allows Another Lawsuit Seeking Business Interruption Insurance Coverage For COVID-19 To Proceed
United States: Court Allows Another Lawsuit Seeking Business Interruption Insurance Coverage For COVID-19 To Proceed 31 August 2021 Seyfarth Shaw LLP Your LinkedIn Connections with the authors To print this article, all you need is to be registered or login on Mondaq.com. Mounting Evidence of a Sea Change?
How to Navigate Hyperscalers in the Rise of SAP RISE
July 14, 2021Justin ParkerNo Comments In the advent of RISE with SAP, organizations may be tempted to pit a hyperscaler’s offerings against RISE to determine the best fit for their digital transformation. But don’t be fooled – there are many dimensions and complexities that must be thought through beyond a simple comparison, and the hyperscalers may prove to hold their own against RISE.
What Can You Learn from $20B in IT Projects?
Knowledge Center RSS Feed June 16, 2021John BeldenNo Comments This month, UpperEdge’s project staffing database will bring the total value of all projects completed over the last 5 years to just over $20B in value. To commemorate this milestone, we will share some insights to support your projects which may be counterintuitive to your thinking. These valuable and provocative learnings will be shared in a webinar.
RISING with SAP - 4 Key Considerations Before Transitioning to RISE
June 15, 2021Chip HannaNo Comments After SAP announced RISE with SAP earlier this year, many organizations were left confused by what constitutes the best use case for implementing RISE, what the “one handshake” contract model actually looks like, and how the transition to RISE affects each company and their overarching journey from ECC to S/4HANA.
Java Management Service (JMS) - Beware of Oracle’s Trojan Horse
June 14, 2021Jeff LazartoNo Comments Without much fanfare, Oracle released a new offering called Java Management Service (JMS) on June 9, 2021. Since Oracle is offering this service at no charge, this naturally raised some red flags. Let’s first take a look at the facts about JMS and then discuss potential implications for customers. What is Java Management Service?
How Does Your IT Project Compare? Benchmarking to Mitigate Biases and Blind Spots
Knowledge Center Jun 29, 2021 In our first ever benchmarking webinar, UpperEdge will be sharing insights gleaned from our database of system implementation projects totaling $20B in project cost and 172M hours of effort. These projects span hundreds of clients, dozens of industries, multiple vendors, and staffing models ranging from $100K-$500M in external spend.
3 Ways to Minimize Risk Associated with Data Transformations
May 12, 2021Christine CostaNo Comments Is your System Integrator (SI) getting it right on data? The data says…maybe not. Business transformation efforts are inherently risky – and your data is not immune. Underestimating the amount of work that needs to be done on your data for a large transformation project can potentially result in costly delays and dreaded change orders. In fact, data is often a source of pain in transformation programs.
Workday Implementing Workday: Pricing Model Options and What to Ask For in 2021
April 20, 2021Erwann CouesbotNo Comments There are many System Implementation (SI) firms that can implement Workday in your organization. One of your options is Workday themselves who is often willing to accommodate similar commercial terms as some of the other large SI providers such as Accenture, Deloitte, IBM, etc.
The Fantasy Economics behind the case for Scottish independence
The Act of Union signed on 16 January 1707 states that ‘the two Kingdoms of Scotland and England, shall, upon the first Day of May next ensuing the Date hereof, and for ever after, be united into one Kingdom by the Name of Great-Britain’.[1] That was more than 300 years ago and predates most modern-day countries, such as Germany, Italy and the United States of America.
An Oracle Audit is a Sales Exercise in Disguise
April 7, 2021Jeff LazartoNo Comments Let’s be honest regarding the purpose of Oracle audits – they are sales endeavors. Oracle wants customers to migrate to its cloud, whether to their Fusion SaaS or their Autonomous Database and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) IaaS and PaaS solutions. Over the last few years, Larry Ellison has been consistent in his messaging that Oracle’s future will be determined by its success in selling its Fusion ERP and Autonomous Database.
Podcast: Larry Ellison Speaks Up About Oracle’s New Customers from SAP
Knowledge Center Insights for IT Negotiations Oracle’s Q3 FY’21 earnings call made headlines after Larry Ellison touted cloud growth while making a dig at SAP. He stated that over 100 new customers who either fully or partially moved to Oracle’s cloud products had switched over from SAP. He went on to say that SAP’s customers are “up-for-grabs” because SAP has not rewritten any of its software for the cloud, essentially saying they are not a true cloud provider.
Digital Transformation Leadership - What it Really Looks Like
March 17, 2021John BeldenNo Comments Executive sponsors play a key role in the success (or failure) of digital transformations. Taking these essential actions will tip the scales in your favor. Most companies will face the moment where digital transformation will come to the top of the executive stack of priorities. Typically, one or two executives are selected as the sponsors tasked with putting together the business case and the team to lead the organization into the future.
5 Critical Steps to Relaunch a Transformation Initiative
February 16, 2021John BeldenNo Comments Across all markets, transformation programs that have been on hold for close to a year are being launched or relaunched. Here’s how to make sure your transformation stays on the right track and lower your systems integrator spend by 15-20%.
3 Keys to Negotiating Successful Cloud Agreements
January 26, 2021Adam MansfieldNo CommentsShare It is impossible for enterprises to not use the cloud. Failing to find new ways to lean heavier on cloud solutions to drive expected business outcomes is often a “fireable” offense. For years, enterprises have been drawn to the cloud’s promise of agility, flexibility, reduced costs, and faster time-to-benefits realization. Whether these promises have been realized or not is a topic for another day.
6 Challenges of Agile at Scale for ERP
January 12, 2021John BeldenNo Comments Overcoming these challenges are key to using agile for an ERP implementation. It’s well worth the effort. Agile has been around for a long time by IT standards and has proven to be successful for many companies. As companies have evolved and progressed through the pioneering stage of agile, there has been a tendency to take on larger and larger efforts.
Everything is agreed until nothing is agreed.
Professor David Blake describes how the EU has cornered the UK at every turn. The standard mantra in EU trade negotiations is that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. Everyone knows this, except apparently British trade negotiators who have accepted the very opposite by acceding to the EU’s sequencing of negotiations. First was the divorce bill. The UK agreed to pay a £40bn settlement when under international law there was no legal obligation to pay any bill to leave the EU club.
System Integrator Risk Mitigation Processes Often Have the Opposite Effect
Knowledge Center RSS Feed June 18, 2019John Belden2 CommentsShare I am going to go on a bit of a rant here. I am getting fed up with all of the IT project horror stories I have been reading and writing about. How can it be that projects continue to go wildly over budget or result in significant business disruptions but profits by systems integrators continue to rise?
How the FBI hid their “Russia Special.”
Adapted from my latest book “Loaded for Guccifer2.0.” In normal day-to-day investigations at the FBI it’s the field-offices that take the lead. They have to answer to the ‘adults’ at FBI Headquarters in Washington. The ‘adults’ only take the lead on investigations in certain special circumstances. Ones that require they only have to answer to themselves. The case would involve ‘delicate’ issues.
5 Tips for Negotiating with ServiceNow
November 3, 2020Adam MansfieldNo CommentsShare Are you considering becoming a new ServiceNow customer or do you have a ServiceNow renewal coming up? Beyond just getting the best ServiceNow pricing and discounting, you will also want to negotiate an agreement that provides transparency, long-term price protections as well as flexibility to meet your company’s evolving needs. These ServiceNow negotiation tips can help you get more from your ServiceNow relationship. 1.
How Accenture’s Strategy Evolved in 2020
October 21, 2020Alex WinthropNo CommentsShare The consulting industry as a whole took a hit in 2020 as businesses postponed or canceled projects to reduce costs in response to the global pandemic. Here we take a look at how Accenture in particular was impacted, what actions they took this year that customers should be aware of, and what customers can expect from Accenture as we move into 2021.
We must stop the UK becoming the Eurozone’s dumping ground — brexit-watch.org
By Professor David Blake THE EUROPEAN UNION is following a classic 'beggar thy neighbour' strategy with its trading partners, in particular the UK, by exploiting the euro’s structural undervaluation. This explains why the EU is seeking a ‘level playing field’ with the UK after Brexit. One of the key issues concerning the EU is ‘dumping’.
SAP and Digital Access – It’s Still a Mess
September 29, 2020Chip HannaNo Comments It’s been two years since I shared the top 3 questions SAP hasn’t answered about what was at the time, its new Digital Access Model. Since then, SAP’s positioning of Digital Access with new and current customers has become increasingly prevalent so I wanted to circle back and see how much the model has matured and to what level it has become more predictable and transparent.
Strategic IT Sourcing & Cost Optimization Webinars
You shared actual helpful information and actionable advice and did not just use this as a marketing lead tool. That’s a differentiator for UpperEdge webinars. — IT Software & Services, Leading Medical Device Manufacturer UpperEdge takes very complex topics down to their elements and explains them perfectly. Well done! — IT Director, Global Power Management Company Thank you for a fascinating webinar. Superb points delivered well. Kudos to UpperEdge on keeping these webinars provocative.
SAP Ariba vs. Coupa for Supply Chain
September 23, 2020Devin DjerfNo Comments Effectively managing your supply chain, vendor relationships, contracting, and compliance are all critical components of maintaining business operations. In the current economic climate where the pandemic has created global supply chain disruption, this has become even more critical. Business leaders often turn to dedicated solution platforms that encompass these functions but selecting the right provider can be a challenge with so many options available.
Oracle Java Inquiries - Audit or Fishing Expedition?
Knowledge Center RSS Feed September 1, 2020Jeff Lazarto2 CommentsReading Time: 4 minutes Multiple Oracle customers have been contacted by an Oracle Java account representative with calls that appear to be directed at IT managers inquiring about their Java licenses. At the outset, it appears to be more of an introductory call followed by some questions regarding the customer’s Java usage, Java versions, and number of individuals and machines with Java installed.
Common (and Avoidable) Divestiture Headaches
Knowledge Center RSS Feed July 30, 2018Jeff LazartoNo CommentsShare As more companies act on their transformation strategies, many see divestments as a way to put more resources into growing their core businesses. This is one reason that nearly 9 out of 10 companies plan to divest assets in the next two years, an increase from around 4 out of 10 just last year. Though the number of global divestitures is increasing, effectively executing a divestiture can be a complex and challenging process.
How 25,000 Accenture Layoffs Will Impact Customers
Knowledge Center RSS Feed August 28, 2020Greg HallNo CommentsShare The pandemic has prompted businesses to hit the brakes on their large transformation projects, seek ways to reduce project costs, or even in some cases, cancel projects indefinitely. This caused a sudden drop in demand for system integrator (SI) services. In an effort to cut their own costs amid decreasing demand, consulting companies like Accenture are turning to layoffs.
SAP SuccessFactors vs. Workday HCM
August 12, 2020Jeff LazartoNo CommentsShare An unbiased HRIS comparison of SuccessFactors and Workday that reviews commercial flexibility and overall approach to relationship. Business leaders who fully recognize the importance of recruiting, developing, and maintaining corporate talent turn to predictive analytics and cloud-based technologies for Human Capital Management (HCM) to get in front of these challenges.
Oracle Support Fee Increases: Win Your Next Oracle Renewal Negotiation
August 4, 2020Jeff LazartoNo Comments Since Oracle’s Q4 is their largest revenue quarter, most of you probably have the majority of your Oracle support renewals sometime in May. Oracle consistently raises support fees 3% annually unless you have support price protections in place. With the economic impact from COVID-19 this year, you were probably tasked with finding a way to not only avoid the annual support fee increase, but to negotiate support fee reductions.
The Art of the Cloud Deal
July 2, 2020Adam MansfieldNo CommentsShare Many companies have had long-standing relationships with their cloud vendors, and their experiences garner lessons to be learned. Regardless of how long they have been doing business together, the size of the organization or the size of the investments made, there are certain ways cloud vendors can help differentiate themselves as true strategic partners.
COVID-19 Language for New Construction Contracts: A Practical Approach | JD Supra
Introduction Those entering into new construction contracts should include custom language addressing the parties’ respective rights and responsibilities related to COVID-19. Many articles and webinars have focused on how traditional contract clauses in existing contracts may respond to COVID-19 issues. The fit is not always clear. Some guesswork is involved and creativity is called upon as square pegs are coaxed into round holes.
5 Steps to Assess Offshore Support Risk (and 5 Steps to Address Critical Needs)
May 19, 2020Greg HallNo CommentsShare To ensure continuity of critical operations, all businesses should take these practical steps to engage, assess, and partner with offshore service providers. Companies all over the globe are experiencing the impacts of the current pandemic first-hand, including service providers. Beyond their focus to protect their workers, service providers are now further challenged to meet support commitments to their clients.
A CIO's Checklist for Executing the COVID Pivot
Knowledge Center RSS Feed May 6, 2020John BeldenNo CommentsShare Simultaneously adjusting to new realities and developing forward-looking plans is near-impossible. This checklist will help you focus your efforts. In The Less Obvious Effects of an Economic Downturn on a Digital Transformation, I discussed the less evident short-term impact of COVID-19 on your digital transformation programs, but there are so many longer-term implications. Will the current economic crisis have an impact beyond 2020?
SAP Audits During COVID-19 - Your Company Should be Prepared
May 4, 2020Mike TucciaroneNo CommentsShare Since the very negative sentiment customers had against SAP related to Indirect and Digital Access in 2018, SAP had kept a relatively low profile tied to audits in 2019. Toward the end of 2019, however, SAP started giving a heads-up to some clients — letting them know that audits were coming. 2020 has already been a significantly heavy audit year in just Q1 alone and I would anticipate SAP’s efforts in this area will continue.
The Two Things Customers Want from Cloud Vendors
April 16, 2020Adam MansfieldNo CommentsShare Cloud vendors could go a long way toward building trust with their customers and differentiating themselves in the market with two key changes in their approach. While many enterprise customers like their cloud products, there are often some general rumblings of frustration with their vendors.
Effective IT Cost Optimization Starts with Internal Alignment
April 15, 2020Len RileyNo CommentsShare Great leaders know that how they get results is just as important as getting the results themselves. In this time of economic turmoil, there is no greater truth. Companies are compelled to undertake unthinkable measures to ensure viability, while maintaining the confidence of employees, customers, shareholders, and partners.
How to Cut or Avoid SAP Costs Amid the Downturn
Knowledge Center RSS Feed April 14, 2020Mike TucciaroneNo CommentsShare SAP customers have been significantly impacted by COVID-19 which has resulted in the acceleration, delay, or flat out cancellation of their strategic programs. Not only have some paused investments in SAP and the related implementations, but many have been wondering how they can cut or avoid costs during these tough economic times.
Potential Federal Vs. State Conflicts Due To COVID-19
By David Blake and Kristina Arianina April 9, 2020, 2:21 PM EDT Law360 (April 9, 2020, 2:21 PM EDT) -- David Blake Kristina Arianina In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, governments have been issuing “stay-at-home” orders. Some countries have gone on national lockdowns, including the U.K., India, Mexico, South Africa and New Zealand, while in other countries, like the U.S., orders are happening more piecemeal, led by the states’ governors utilizing state emergency authorities.
The Top 10 Triggers of an Oracle Audit
April 1, 2020Erwann CouesbotNo CommentsShare Let’s be clear from the outset, Oracle software audits are not random. Oracle is not going to waste their resources on efforts that will yield little to no results. They focus on where they know there is opportunity. Oracle Licensing Management Services (LMS) will tell you otherwise, but there are a number of triggers that will get you in their audit crosshairs.
The Less Obvious Effects of an Economic Downturn on a Digital Transformation
As hard as it is to find a silver lining right now amid the general nervousness, restructuring of portfolios, and cost-cutting, economic downturns also present opportunities that were not previously planned. As anyone who has lived through a recession like the stock market crash of 1929 or the financial bust of 2008 can tell you, plans can change a great deal pre- and post-recession. Unfortunately, I had to navigate this scenario during the financial crisis of 2008 as a VP at a F500 manufacturer.
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