Alignment, staffing and culture are often more critical than software and apps
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Two of the most common criticisms of business intelligence are that it is too complex and/or costly. A survey by the UK's National Computing Centre last summer found that 87 percent of BI projects fe... More >
Back in December, I wrote about Georgia's plan to privatize its IT services and to consolidate 11 state agencies that together spent some $617 million a year on technology. Mentioned in that blog w... More >
Just last week, I blogged about how some lenders are reluctant to extend credit to SMBs and the resulting lack of upfront capital makes it tough for them to export their goods to other countries. &... More >
Just last month, I interviewed Anna Frazzetto, VP of Technology Solutions for recruitment firm and IT service provider Harvey Nash. Frazzetto told me that many CIOs these days feel less strategic to... More >
Though the financial services industry is still reeling from the sub-prime mortgage crisis, with many financial institutions forced to take big write-offs and lay off employees , there is one area i... More >
While Indian outsourcing providers seem able to handle just about any task put before them, they sometimes struggle with the English language and with more subtle cultural differences, which are freq... More >
Back in October, I wrote about the contention of some experts that American manufacturers could regain at least some of their former market power if they focused on innovation as well as cost contro... More >
A number of folks took issue after InformationWeek published a recent article titled How to Choose Among the Four Bright Lights of BI . The article discusses the business intelligence approaches o... More >
Though I don't travel much (thank goodness) for my current job, my previous job involved attending lots of conferences and other trade events. Unfortunately, I found most presentations as stale as th... More >
There is a rather large gap between the DSL and cable modem services employed by most residential users for high-speed Internet access and the T1 lines (and above) that businesses use for broadband. ... More >
Earlier this week I blogged about companies that consider the social responsibility policies of suppliers as part of their outsourcing agreements. Not everyone buys this, however. One of the source... More >
Back in December, I blogged about the outsourcing-related woes affecting Boeing's production of its Dreamliner 787 jets, noting that problems with suppliers led the aerospace giant to delay deliver... More >
Just last week I blogged about Vietnam's growing allure for foreign investors , illustrated by Intel's construction of a semiconductor manufacturing facility in Ho Chi Minh City. Other compani... More >
So it turns out all of those fears about autonomous business users keeping IT out of the technology loop -- a concern I blogged about just last week -- may be overblown. One of the most inte... More >
The North American Free Trade Agreement has become a bit of a whipping boy of late, as I blogged recently, with Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama criticizing it on... More >
All of that Web 2.0 goodwill couldn't last forever. Social network darling Facebook finds itself increasingly under fire over how it serves/uses (take your pick) its community. Late last year,... More >
Last summer's recalls of products made in China -- from pet food to children's toys to toothpaste -- had lots of folks pondering cultural differences in outsourcing relationships and how they relate... More >
I've blogged several times recently about the maturing business intelligence market and the forthcoming "flux phase" predicted by experts like Gartner. They expect various aspects of BI such as que... More >
I blogged recently about the question of whether sales on Web sites displace those that would otherwise take place in bricks-and-mortar stores. No one seems sure, including Forrester Research, whic... More >
Two of my perennial favorite topics in this blog are Google (an obsession I share with the world-at-large) and the increasingly autonomous business users who perform IT-related functions with no as... More >
Hot on the heels of yesterday's announcement that AT&T is offering a new SMB-friendly service that allows companies to pool employees' phones and minutes, the telecommunications giant dropped a... More >
So much of the news surrounding Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Yahoo has focused on the executive strategies and broader business ramifications that it's easy to forget about the rank-and-file... More >
When I wrote about Vietnam last summer, I noted that investments from Intel and Taiwan's Hon Hai Technology Group marked the country as a rising star in Asia's red-hot electronics manufacturing mar... More >
SMBs are more cost-conscious than their larger counterparts. That's why, as I blogged in October, using VoIP as an example, vendors with SMB-oriented tech offerings are generally better off selling... More >
Nothing like a little vendor smack talk to liven up what would otherwise be a somewhat routine product announcement. There are plenty of features in Zoho's new CRM Enterprise Edition that will... More >
Earlier this week IT Business Edge blogger Art Cole had an interesting post about the nebulous nature of cloud computing. Among the questions he posed: What are the key characteristics of cloud com... More >
Though competition for talented IT hires is tight everywhere, it's especially intense in the burgeoning video game industry, which generated sales of $18.8 billion in the U.S. last year. T... More >
The numbers are in from this year's lottery for H-1B visas and, as expected, the number of requests far surpassed the number available. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services received ... More >
Based on my recent blog post about its hiring process, it's safe to say that Google is pretty picky . It's Google, for Pete's sake, so no one is surprised that it subjects job applicants to a rigoro... More >
IT Business Edge blogger Michael O'Neil wrote an interesting post a few months ago in which he shared some of the debate over whether the "Social Graph," the social connections most of us make on the... More >
I've often blogged about how SMBs were taking the lead in adopting software-as-a-service , which has been tapped by experts including Timothy Chou, author of "The End of Software," as the most disru... More >
As I blogged last month, tech companies appear to be weathering the recent economic downturn better than many of their corporate brethren. The companies referenced in that post were located ... More >
Companies are increasingly dissatisfied with the traditional business intelligence routine of pulling content from transactional systems like CRM or ERP, moving it to data warehouses and then generat... More >
When I blogged about the (then-pending) rush for H-1B visas in February, I mentioned a couple of proposals designed to satisfy America's growing need for high-tech talent without raising the current... More >
While companies are interested in the business benefits of social networks such as Facebook, they also worry about their possible downsides , as I blogged back in January. An alternative that... More >
Back in August, I wondered if single-supplier deals were becoming an outsourcing anachronism . I cited a Computerworld Australia article in which an executive who had forged a lengthy, multi-milli... More >
The consensus among industry observers last summer is that Dell would have to add a line-up of services to its new products geared toward SMBs if it hoped to really crack the market, as I blogged b... More >
Back in January, I blogged about healthy outlooks for CRM growth in 2008 from two research firms, Datamonitor and KensingtonHouse. Now there's a third such forecast , from CSO Insights. Wri... More >
Most industry observers don't expect SMBs to slash their technology budgets as dramatically as their larger counterparts as the economy slows, as I blogged back in February. So where will SM... More >
Last June, Forrester Research released an interesting study that found online retail sales were slowing after years of steady growth. As I often do, I managed to work in a reference to my previous ... More >
As if cost and quality weren't enough to worry about with outsourcing initiatives, businesses need to address the inherent security of applications developed for them by outsiders, according to a r... More >
As we reported earlier, EMC recently sweetened its original $3.25-a-share offer for data storage specialist Iomega to $3.75, bringing the proposed sales price to $205.5 million. Not a surpri... More >
As their bread-and-butter business with large North American enterprises suffers in the face of a stagnant U.S. economy, Indian outsourcing providers are overlooking SMBs, a largely untapped -- and... More >
I blogged back in January about Gartner's prediction that the business intelligence market was about to enter a "flux" phase , largely due to market uncertainty following last year's buying spree in... More >
I blogged back in August about a survey that linked technology savvy with business growth among mid-sized companies. Yet many SMBs are relative Luddites -- even in California, the epicenter of the ... More >
WhenI blogged about Second Life in July, it appeared that interest in the virtual world was waning , with consumers largely ignoring the storefronts of companies like Dell and Best Buy and business... More >
I blogged last month about the Democratic presidential candidates' increasing focus on the economy, and particularly global trade issues. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama continue to tout populist ... More >
In my previous life covering the financial services industry, I often worked with multi-tasking owners of independent ATM companies. Many of them took a hands-on role in the running of their business... More >
I blogged back in December about the growing numbers of SMBs selling stuff online , driven largely by sophisticated Internet technologies that helped them compete on a more even playing field with t... More >
Remember the saying, "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle?" You couldn't throw a pet rock in the '70s without hitting a woman wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with it. I wouldn't be ... More >
Just last week, I blogged about AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson's contention that the telecommunications giant was having trouble finding enough warm bodies with the right qualifications to fill U.... More >
It's a safe bet that executives of Waste Management, the company suing SAP for $100 million over a failed ERP implementation, hadn't read the MIT Sloan Management Review article written by Cynthia ... More >
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