Intelligent Business Decisions

Learning must come before deciding. Your brain stores different types of learning in your subconscious, your rote memory bank, and your habits. But no matter how you acquire your knowledge or where you store it, what’s most important is that what you know paints a true and rich picture of the realities that will affect your decision. That’s why it always pays to be radically open- minded and seek out believable others as you do your learning. Many people have emotional trouble doing this and block the learning that could help them make better decisions. Remind yourself that it’s never harmful to at least hear an opposing point of view. Deciding is the process of choosing which knowledge should be drawn upon—both the facts of this particular “what is” and your broader understanding of the cause-effect machinery that underlies it—and then weighing them to determine a course of action, the “what to do about it.” This involves playing different scenarios through time to visualize how to get an outcome consistent with what you want. To do this well, you need to weigh first-order consequences against second- and third-order consequences, and base your decisions not just on near-term results but on results over time. #principleoftheday

This teacher helped her students see their future selves. There is great power in that. Research shows we tend to see our future selves as strangers rather than as who we'll become. But something profound happens, when you connect with your Future Self. When MIT researchers created an AI simulation - 'Future You' - letting people talk to their future selves, they noticed significant psychological shifts: ✅ People began to make bolder decisions today. ✅ They stopped questioning their worth. ✅ They built careers based on purpose, not just praise. According to Dr. Hal Hershfield's research, when we connect with our future selves, we make choices that honor our long-term vision - not just immediate demands. When we don't? ➡️ We sacrifice opportunities for comfort. ➡️ We say yes to everything except our own growth. ➡️ We delay the choices that would align with our deeper purpose. Here are 5 ways to begin connecting with your Future Self: 1/ Create Your Future Leadership Vision ↳ Stop asking: "What should I do next?" ↳ Start asking: "Who am I becoming as a leader?" ↳ Envision not just titles, but the impact you wish to make 2/ Write Letters From Your Future Self ↳ What boundaries would she tell you to set now? ↳ What skills would she want you to prioritize? ↳ What relationships would she tell you to nurture? 3/ Make Decisions Through Your Future Lens ↳ Stop making choices from urgency. ↳ Start filtering through your future wisdom. ↳ Before any major decision, ask: "What would my wisest future self advise?" 4/ Practice Future Self Meditation ↳ Set aside 5 minutes daily to connect with your future self. ↳ Breathe into the leader you're becoming. ↳ Feel the continuity between who you are and who you'll be. 5/ Create a "Future Leader" Board ↳ Collect images, quotes, and stories that represent your future self. ↳ Review it before high-stakes meetings. ↳ Let it guide your present choices when self-doubt appears. When you begin anchoring your identity in your Future Self: You stop waiting to be chosen. You start making conscious choices. You stop dimming your vision. You start embodying it today. This is what conscious leadership makes possible: Clear decisions that honor both your present capacity and future vision. Which of these practices would be most powerful for where you are in your leadership journey right now? I'd love to hear in the comments. 📚 Explore this concept more in my book - The Conscious Choice ♻ Repost if this resonated. 🔔 Follow Bhavna Toor for more insights on leading with purpose

I was Wrong about Influence. Early in my career, I believed influence in a decision-making meeting was the direct outcome of a strong artifact presented and the ensuing discussion. However, with more leadership experience, I have come to realize that while these are important, there is something far more important at play. Influence, for a given decision, largely happens outside of and before decision-making meetings. Here's my 3 step approach you can follow to maximize your influence: (#3 is often missed yet most important) 1. Obsess over Knowing your Audience Why: Understanding your audience in-depth allows you to tailor your communication, approach and positioning. How: ↳ Research their backgrounds, how they think, what their goals are etc. ↳ Attend other meetings where they are present to learn about their priorities, how they think and what questions they ask. Take note of the topics that energize them or cause concern. ↳ Engage with others who frequently interact with them to gain additional insights. Ask about their preferences, hot buttons, and any subtle cues that could be useful in understanding their perspective. 2. Tailor your Communication Why: This ensures that your message is not just heard but also understood and valued. How: ↳ Seek inspiration from existing artifacts and pickup queues on terminologies, context and background on the give topic. ↳ Reflect on their goals and priorities, and integrate these elements into your communication. For instance, if they prioritize efficiency, highlight how your proposal enhances productivity. ↳Ask yourself "So what?" or "Why should they care" as a litmus test for relatability of your proposal. 3. Pre-socialize for support Why: It allows you to refine your approach, address potential objections, and build a coalition of support (ahead of and during the meeting). How: ↳ Schedule informal discussions or small group meetings with key stakeholders or their team members to discuss your idea(s). A casual coffee or a brief virtual call can be effective. Lead with curiosity vs. an intent to respond. ↳ Ask targeted questions to gather feedback and gauge reactions to your ideas. Examples: What are your initial thoughts on this draft proposal? What challenges do you foresee with this approach? How does this align with our current priorities? ↳ Acknowledge, incorporate and highlight the insights from these pre-meetings into the main meeting, treating them as an integral part of the decision-making process. What would you add? PS: BONUS - Following these steps also expands your understanding of the business and your internal network - both of which make you more effective. --- Follow me, tap the (🔔) Omar Halabieh for daily Leadership and Career posts.

In large deals, the real competition is rarely another product. It is inertia. The most effective large deals are often shaped early. When the business user begins exploring a problem, and the right conversations start happening at that stage, the deal gradually evolves into a sole-sourced decision rather than a late-stage RFP comparison. Because once a deal reaches a formal RFP stage, many vendors appear to be at the finish line. In reality, the direction of the deal was usually influenced much earlier. Many deals look healthy for months. The champion is engaged. The demos land well. The value is understood. And then, close to the finish line, the deal slows down… or quietly becomes “No Decision.” More often than not, the issue is not price or product. The deal simply never travelled far enough inside the organisation. Large buying decisions are rarely made by one person. They are shaped by a group. The business user evaluates usability. IT looks at integration. Security looks at risk. Finance looks at cost. Leadership looks at long-term impact. Each of them is solving a different problem. If the conversation is only happening with one or two people, the deal remains fragile. This is where relationship mapping becomes one of the most important disciplines in selling large deals. Not just knowing your champion, but understanding the ecosystem around the deal. Who influences whom? Who signs. Who can block progress quietly? Who needs confidence before the decision moves forward? Building that map takes time. It means asking better questions. • Who else will review this internally?  • Who will be responsible for implementation?  • Who owns the budget?  • Who needs to see this before we move ahead? As more people across the organisation understand the value, the deal becomes stronger. It stops being one person’s initiative and starts becoming a shared decision. And shared decisions move forward with far less resistance. The best sellers know that closing large deals is not just about presenting a solution well. It is about shaping the deal early and building alignment across people, priorities, and perspectives. #LargeDeals #Enterprises #SST

A major UK retailer recently said no to migrating to SAP S/4HANA. Kingfisher plc kept ECC running, moved it to Google Cloud, brought in third-party support, and built AI personalization on top. The story spread quickly. The internet treated it as proof that the SAP roadmap is optional. That is not the lesson worth carrying. The line that should travel further came from John Burns at Summit BHC, quoted in CIO Online. He stressed the importance of Phase Zero. Before any architecture decision, the organization has to standardize its data, align its processes, and govern its front end. Without that work, splitting the layers solves nothing. Kingfisher's choice worked because they had already done the work. Their architecture was modular and API-first by design. The path decision came after the readiness decision, not instead of it. Most organizations get this backwards. They debate the platform options as if the choice itself creates value. It doesn't. The path only creates value if the organization can absorb it. Last week I wrote about scope getting decided by default. Readiness is the deeper version of the same problem. Skip the work and you don't have a real choice between paths. You only have the illusion of one. Across enterprise programs I've delivered on four continents, the predictable failure has not been the platform decision. It has been the assumption that picking the right path substitutes for the work that should have happened two years earlier. No technology decision compensates for an unready organization. #SAP #DigitalTransformation #ProgramGovernance #ERPModernization

Nine years ago, SAP sued one of its largest customers for $600 million. Not for pirating software. Not for unpaid invoices. AB InBev was sued because it used its own data, inside a system it had paid dearly for, to integrate with Salesforce and other third-party applications that SAP had not sanctioned. At the time, most people filed it away as a licensing technicality. Today it is the single most important question in enterprise architecture: who decides how your data may be used? Because everything executives now want depends on the answer. Composable ERP. Best-of-breed bolt-ons. AI agents that reach across systems. All of it requires moving data in and out of the system of record freely. And SAP has moved in the opposite direction, instituting API policies that restrict integration with third parties unless SAP approves them. My view is straightforward. If you have spent tens or hundreds of millions of dollars on a platform and filled it with your own transactions, your own customers, and your own financials, you should be free to do whatever you want with that data as long as you are not breaking the product. That should not require anyone's permission. Three implications every SAP customer should be thinking about: 1. Vendor lock is now a board-level exposure, not an IT concern. Consolidated data, embedded AI agents, and restricted integration rights stack into a level of dependency very few boards have consciously approved. 2. Costs will rise. AI capabilities are being priced as loss leaders across the industry. Once the workflows are built and switching is impractical, pricing normalizes upward. 3. Rigidity is the real risk. SAP pioneered the integrated ERP model and it served a generation of companies well. But it is a 51-year-old company still operating in many ways like it did in the 1970s, at a moment when Microsoft and even Oracle are building openly. This is not an argument against S/4HANA. It is an argument for implementing it differently: move on your own timeline rather than SAP's 2030 deadline, treat SAP as your system of record rather than your everything, map the sanctioned and unsanctioned APIs before you sign, and use whatever negotiating leverage you have while you still have it. AB InBev had deep pockets, sophisticated leadership, and a massive SAP footprint. It still ended up settling. Answer the data ownership question deliberately and in writing, before signature, and you will be in a far stronger position than they were. Full breakdown in this week's newsletter. What are your thoughts? #SAP #S4HANA #ERP #DigitalTransformation #EnterpriseAI

𝗦𝗔𝗣 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗲. …but it cannot become the only door. That is the real tension in many Procurement Tech strategies. Companies are increasingly tired of SAP. And yet, they still confirm SAP Ariba as their Procurement core. Contradiction? Not really. Many companies still want what SAP gives them: ▪️One strategic partner ▪️One core architecture ▪️One support model ▪️One internal skill base ▪️One integrated backbone ▪️One throat to choke when things go wrong And, of course, compliance, auditability and protection of existing investments matter too. So yes, I get it. The logic could make sense. But in Procurement, it should also trigger a red flag. Because single-sourcing yourself into dependency is rarely a great strategy. Especially when the experience is still full of: Click-e-ti-click Workarounds Notification noise Poor navigation Training slides nobody wants to read And rest assured: more training will not fix that. You cannot train people out of a subpar user experience. Maybe Gen X users like me learned to live with enterprise software pain. Bugs. Shortcomings. Ugly screens. Strange logic. “Just follow the process.” But we have learned to appreciate modern, multimodal tools and contextual interactions too. And the next generation will not buy the „one ring to rule them all“ enterprise logic. They grew up with apps, search, chat and instant answers. They will not ask: “Where is the right buying channel in Ariba?” They will ask: “Why do I need to know Ariba even exists?” Yes, the Next-Gen version will fix many of these things but it will take and require to hook up to a product roadmap and a lot of hope. And this is where the current SAP API debate becomes relevant. Because if SAP also controls which front doors, agents and orchestration layers can access the core, this is no longer only a UX question. It becomes an architecture question, perhaps even a moat question. ☑️SAP as the backbone makes sense. ⛔️SAP as the only door is dangerous. Procurement productivity will not be won by technology people are forced to use. But as i keep repeating: It will be won by the experience people actually want to use. What‘s your view on single-sourcing your technology vs having choice to design your user experience as it best fits.

How I protect my mental bandwidth. We're making too many decisions without a system, and it's draining our mental energy. Leading a company has taught me a simple truth: your decision quality plummets when you treat your mental bandwidth like an infinite resource. Here are the strategies that help me stop the decision drain: Group similar decisions together: Instead of jumping between topics all day, batch similar decisions. Review all budget items Tuesday morning. Handle team questions Thursday afternoon. This simple change reduces the mental switching cost that exhausts your brain. Create simple decision rules: For recurring decisions, establish clear criteria in advance. "If X happens, we do Y." These basic guardrails eliminate hundreds of small mental calculations that drain your energy without adding value. Pass the right decisions down: Not every decision needs your input. Identify choices that will develop your team while freeing your mental space. Give them principles to follow rather than requiring constant check-ins. Schedule recovery between decisions: Your brain needs breaks to maintain judgment quality. Even a 10-minute walk without your phone can reset your mental capacity. I've found that three brief recovery periods each day dramatically improve my decision clarity. No rocket science, but these straightforward practices have helped me think clearly and make solid decisions day after day. Your mental bandwidth is too precious to waste on decisions that don't deserve it. What's one change you'll make this week to protect yours? #Leadership #Performance #DecisionMaking #MentalClarity #ExecutiveEffectiveness

SAP just locked Microsoft Copilot out of customer ERP data. Salesforce just invited every LLM into customer CRM data. Most people are reading the SAP-Salesforce split as “open vs closed.” That framing misses what is actually happening. Both companies are reading their domains correctly. April 27: SAP published API Policy v4/2026. Section 2.2.2 prohibits any AI agent from making sequenced calls against SAP data unless it operates through SAP-endorsed architecture. Microsoft Copilot, Salesforce Einstein, and the long tail of agentic vendors with SAP connectors are out. Earlier this spring: Salesforce announced 60+ MCP tools at TDX 2026, open to Claude, GPT, Gemini, and any LLM a customer wants to bring. Plus a $50M AgentExchange Builders Initiative funding partners who build agents on the platform. Same quarter. Opposite directions. SAP sells to finance, supply chain, HR, regulated reporting. Data that lives under SOX, GDPR, financial controls, audit trails. Autonomous agents executing sequenced calls against the general ledger is a board-level risk before it is a product feature. SAP’s lockdown is governance posture defending a governance-sensitive data domain. Salesforce sells to marketing, sales, customer engagement. Data where speed of experimentation defines competitive position. Locking down agentic access here would mean giving up the experimentation wave that the next two years of CRM differentiation will be built on. Salesforce’s open posture is experimentation posture defending an experimentation-sensitive data domain. Two implications for anyone running enterprise AI strategy right now. 1. The “which side are you on” frame is the wrong question. The right question is which of your data domains needs which posture. Most enterprises will run both at the same time. Closed-and-governed for finance and HR. Open-and-experimental for marketing and customer engagement. The architecture decision splits by function, not by vendor. 2. Multi-vendor agentic workflows that worked across SAP and Salesforce in Q1 may not work in Q3. If your AI stack assumes data fluidity across both, plan for asymmetric paths. SAP-endorsed only for ERP-side. Anything-goes for CRM-side. Build the architecture around that asymmetry now.

𝐓𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐖𝐡𝐨 𝐓𝐫𝐲 𝐉𝐮𝐠𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐓𝐨𝐨 𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐁𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐬 𝐅𝐚𝐢𝐥 𝐌𝐢𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐲. You’re juggling three balls, it feels you’ve got this. Now you’re juggling four, it’s tough but you manage. Now you’re juggling five, chaos builds. Now you’re juggling six, you drop all of them! That’s exactly how cognitive load feels. When your brain is juggling too much information and too many decisions at the same time. As a psychologist, I see this all the time. People think they’re indecisive or unproductive, but the truth is, their mental bandwidth is maxed out. 𝐂𝐨𝐠𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐥𝐨𝐚𝐝 - 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐰𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨𝐨 𝐦𝐮𝐜𝐡 𝐢𝐧𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐬 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐢𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐛𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐜𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫, 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐟𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧-𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠. When your brain is overwhelmed, even small decisions feel monumental. That’s why you might spend ages picking a restaurant after a day of big meetings. Your brain isn’t lazy—it’s overworked. But it’s not just about feeling tired. Cognitive load impacts the quality of your decisions. The more overwhelmed you are, the more likely you are to choose what’s easy, familiar, or convenient, not necessarily what’s best. Sounds scary. Right? I’ve worked with clients who felt stuck, unable to decide between career moves, new opportunities, or even personal goals. Most of the time, the problem wasn’t indecision. It was the sheer amount of information and options clouding their minds. 𝐒𝐨, 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐝𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐥𝐨𝐚𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬? → 𝐋𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐭 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐈𝐧𝐩𝐮𝐭𝐬: Be selective about what you consume. Your brain wasn’t designed to process infinite notifications or social feeds. Filter and focus. → 𝐁𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡 𝐒𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐚𝐫 𝐃𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬: Make decisions in clusters. Planning your week’s meals in one go is far less taxing than deciding every day. → 𝐒𝐞𝐭 𝐁𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬: Not every choice deserves endless time. Give yourself limits. Trust your instincts and move forward. One client came to me overwhelmed by decisions, from strategic career moves to daily operations. We simplified her processes, grouped her tasks, and gave her decision-making space. Within weeks, she felt clearer, more confident, and far more in control. Cognitive load isn’t something you can escape entirely, but you can manage it. By reducing the mental clutter, you create space for clarity, confidence, and focus. If this clicks with you, I’d be delighted to share more insights into the psychology of decision-making with your team! Let’s get talking! #decisionmaking #team #mentalhealth #career #psychology #personaldevelopment