Alignment, staffing and culture are often more critical than software and apps
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I've written before about IT's role in process improvement , concluding that while some business executives believe they are better positioned to lead improvement initiatives, it makes more sense fo... More >
The world isn't as flat as we'd like to think. The technological advances and falling telecommunications costs that have made it possible for companies to employ workers around the world haven't ca... More >
Earlier this week I wrote about some of the ways SMBs can use social media outlets like Digg and Propeller to boost their marketing efforts. And I've also written about pay-per-click advertising, w... More >
Earlier this year, I wrote about Gartner's contention that the business intelligence market is entering a period of flux , characterized by slowing growth rates, largely due to companies' reluctance... More >
As fuel prices rise, interest in telecommuting does as well, as I wrote just last week. My blog mentioned several companies that were adding or expanding telecommuting options for their employees i... More >
Back in December, I wrote about the Butler Group's contention that public-sector agencies should follow the lead of private-sector businesses and invest in business intelligence to improve their de... More >
The idea of using social networking to drive marketing efforts is increasingly being appropriated by corporate giants like Starbucks . Yet it has always seemed to me to be inherently more a... More >
Playing to the hometown crowd is a time-honored tradition in politics. When Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were campaigning earlier this year in economical... More >
Almost a year ago, I wrote about a Forrester Research survey that found a majority of CIOs wanted a suite of Web 2.0 tools from a single vendor , preferably a well-known entity like Microsoft or IBM... More >
The pharmaceutical industry has been slower than other sectors to adopt outsourcing, largely due to concerns over protecting valuable intellectual property. But rising costs and shrinking margins are... More >
When I wrote about Dell's SMB-oriented product lines in July, I noted that several experts stressed that Dell would also need to beef up its service offerings if it hoped to expand its SMB business... More >
A shrinking number of engineering graduates from American universities presents "the greatest single threat to American prosperity," says Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter, co-author o... More >
Last month I wrote about the financial services industry's use of leading-edge technologies in its contact centers, resulting in better-than-average customer satisfaction levels. Without the right ... More >
Back in October, a debate about enterprise software raged briefly throughout the blogosphere. Some folks said that enterprise software needed to be more user-friendly, like its consumer-oriented co... More >
I got a pang of nostalgia when reading this interview with a representative of the Telework Consortium from two summers ago. In it, he mentioned that inflated prices at the gas pump were driving an... More >
Owners of SMBs are often jacks-of-all-trades, but few of them want to tackle such time-consuming IT tasks as troubleshooting PC problems, setting up networks and installing security patches. At the ... More >
As I wrote way back in February of last year, service-level agreements can end up being more trouble than they are worth in outsourcing agreements. As I pointed out, companies often rely too... More >
If we are not comfortable with our personal information ending up in the hands of third-party entities for the ostensible aim of improving national security , why we would be OK with having such dat... More >
In its effort to appeal to SMBs with its new software-as-a-service offering, Business ByDesign, SAP may have been so focused on obvious issues like cost and complexity that it didn't consider staff... More >
Earlier this month, I gave SAP a bit of a spanking in my blog as I wrote about its struggles to add a software-as-a-service offering to its software lineup. To recap: SaaS is a fundamental s... More >
A five-word summary of the current state of H-1B visas in the U.S.: There aren't enough of them. As I wrote last month, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services got 163,000 applications during... More >
Motorola recently introduced a wireless LAN and an adaptive access point with three radios, somewhat breathlessly implying that the products would make it possible for companies to have all-wireless... More >
Just last week, I wrote about China's rapidly growing outsourcing market , which is narrowing the gap between it and world outsourcing leader India, although many experts believe it could take decad... More >
I wrote on Friday about interest in making more business applications, including business intelligence and CRM, available to users of mobile devices like the BlackBerry, prompted both by companies'... More >
Back in December, I wrote about the growing use of business applications on mobile devices like the BlackBerry , noting that it seemed like a good idea to me given companies' interest in real-time d... More >
I wrote last month about how many folks seem to have lost sight of the importance of the Yahoo and Microsoft staffs in the success -- or lack thereof -- in any merger between the two companies. &nbs... More >
Much of the talk about shifting paradigms in IT involves infrastructure, with folks focusing on software-as-a-service and its newer variants such as cloud computing. Meanwhile, a fundamental s... More >
What causes IT project failure? Lots of things can play a part, including a lack of effective governance , poor communication between business and IT, and not enough input from the folks who wil... More >
ERP systems have taken a hit of late in my blog. I've reported on a a failed ERP implementation that led to a $100 million lawsuit against SAP and on SAP's struggles to deliver an ERP solution in... More >
If there's one thing that HP's just-announced intent to purchase EDS indicates, it's that the IT services market is thriving -- in spite of, or perhaps because of, the slowing economy. Citin... More >
Most of us don't lack good ideas. What we lack is the focus, motivation and discipline required to transform those ideas into tangible products or services. So maybe many of us aren't so diffe... More >
It sure sounded ambitious when in March HP unveiled a bundle of hardware, software and services that it said would help transform the data center into a more efficient and flexible entity. T... More >
My son is only 7, so I haven't experienced the teen years yet. But many of my friends with older kids tell me they find it hard to motivate their offspring to do their homework. Yet apparently... More >
At one time, e-commerce was just for big companies. But with the ready availability of broadband and Web hosting services that help even non-tech savvy SMBs create and maintain Web sites, size doesn'... More >
Just last week I wrote about Facebook's lack of business-oriented applications . In commenting on my blog post, a reader named Robert lauded Facebook's "collaborative power," noting that more than 3... More >
There has been a sea change in how banks view their customers. For a time banks focused on finding the least expensive methods of conducting banking transactions -- up to and including having folks d... More >
IDC last summer came out with a prediction that China would overtake India as the globe's favored site for outsourcing by 2011. While there's no doubt China's outsourcing industry is experie... More >
When re-engineering business processes, moving from simple to complex is usually less of a challenge than the other way around. During my stint as a reporter covering the automated teller mach... More >
Increasing interest in cloud computing and software-as-a-service is leading more companies to consider outsourcing IT functions, including data management. IT Business Edge blogger Loraine Lawson las... More >
Back in October, I wrote about Facebook's efforts to make itself more attractive to business users by, among other things, allowing users to segregate their business contacts from their strictly soc... More >
Based on the wildly disparate numbers offered in a couple surveys released earlier this year, it's hard to know how many U.S. companies send work offshore. Just 6 percent of respondents to a... More >
With maturity comes growing pains. That appears to be the case with the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), a framework for best practices in IT service delivery that was updated in a new versio... More >
As I've written before, "soft" benefits such as flexible work schedules are an increasingly big deal in today's workplace. Twenty-five percent of respondents to a TheITJobBoard.com survey published... More >
As I've written before, Google expects its employees to work pretty much all the time , and fills its offices with free gourmet food and other perks to entice them to do so. And Google isn't the onl... More >
In late 2007, Intel Chairman Craig Barrett wrote an angry op-ed piece in which he lambasted the U.S. government for its inaction on immigration reform and lauded the European Union for its proposed... More >
Researchers have long been fascinated by IT's effect on productivity. Though the introduction of new technologies like PCs and e-mail has had an obvious impact, in recent years there has been much d... More >
As the economy continues to struggle, it's tempting to slash IT spending. But, as I wrote back in March, that may not be such a good idea . Companies that do so risk losing customers, says Accenture... More >
Though software-as-a-service appears to be driving much of the growth in what was, until recently, a pretty stagnant CRM market, it's not always the most appropriate choice. In fact, two of ... More >
Though it's hard to see how a loss of 20,000 jobs could be a good thing, that's largely how the media portrayed it Friday after the Labor Department released its employment statistics for April. The ... More >
Software-as-a-service has rattled traditional software's cage in lots of different ways, not the least of which is creating user expectations that software should be easy to purchase. Those growing e... More >
A statement that stuck with me on my way home from this week's Outsourcing Institute RoadShow in Chicago was made by David Kinnear, founder of the Global Sourcing Council and a global sourcing advise... More >
When evaluating Web 2.0 technologies, most companies tend to focus on security or control. But instead of asking themselves questions like " Could this expose sensitive data ?" or " Will our IT depar... More >
As I wrote back in February, many experts look to SMBs to hold a little more steady on IT budgets than their larger counterparts during this year's economic downturn. One area in which SMBs ... More >
Just last month I wrote about an ERP implementation so painful that the client company, Waste Management, sued SAP for $100 million . While suing for damages is not common, failed ERP deploym... More >
Back in November, I blogged about the outstanding work ethic that seems to differentiate many foreign-born entrepreneurs from their counterparts born in the United States. A new study from the Ewin... More >
In the midst of what most folks describe as a talent shortage, it's not surprising that many companies are choosing to outsource their human resources functions to specialists to help locate the righ... More >
NetGear's revenues grew 14 percent in 2008's first quarter, to $198.2 million, though profits fell 20 percent to $11.2 million, largely due to a 17 percent increase in operating costs and sluggish ... More >
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