Alignment, staffing and culture are often more critical than software and apps
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When CIO Insight asked companies about their IT spending earlier this year, SMBs showed far less interest in outsourcing than their larger competitors, planning to spend less on consulting/outsou... More >
Project failure is a reoccurring theme on this blog, because it's an issue that seems to dog IT like no other . Up to three-quarters of IT projects can be considered failures, according to an often-... More >
I wrote last summer about Europe's growing appetite for outsourcing , citing a TPI report that indicated continental Europe accounted for a third of all global outsourcing activity, up from just 12 ... More >
With no end in sight to the H-1B visa shortage, some companies are considering alternative visas for foreign workers such as the L-1, and wecloming a rule change that extends the amount of time f... More >
Web 2.0 is a sexy little minx. While it attracts lots of lustful gazes from CIOs, most of them cling to their solid yet unspectacular communications tools because they fret that Web 2.0 might break t... More >
Just about a year ago, reports of Citigroup's intent to sell its captive BPO operation in India started appearing everywhere, creating buzz of a coming flurry of such sales. Neither that deal nor t... More >
I was so shocked -- not -- to find out that most Facebook applications are "just for fun," gaming or sports, according to a Flowing Data study released earlier this year. I had a similar rea... More >
Last week I wrote about a study that indicates that U.S. job losses due to offshoring are offset by growing sales of U.S.-produced services in other countries. This doesn't mean there won't be "los... More >
As a sometime seller on eBay, I find myself hunting for answers to questions I couldn't imagine caring about in my pre-eBay days. Why do so many people in Japan want an Emerald the Enchanting Witch ... More >
I wrote last week about an article on Workforce.com cautioning human resources professionals that they could open themselves up to employment discrimination lawsuits by checking out job candidates ... More >
Earlier this week, I wrote a blog post about how companies' insatiable appetite for new infrastructure is feeding a high demand for data center specialists . Of course, there's generally a strong co... More >
Back in November, I wrote about a BlackBerry product introduction geared toward SMBs, a streamlined version of the BlackBerry Enterprise Server. I also cited some interesting stats from a Computing... More >
Though many companies now prefer to contract with multiple outsourcing providers rather than just one, as I wrote back in January, telecommunications appears to offer a notable exception to this ... More >
Back in January, IT Business Edge noted several moves by Asian PC manufacturers to target the U.S. market, including Lenovo's introduction of a low-cost line of computers targeted to home users and... More >
I wrote back in December about Facebook's efforts to woo SMB advertisers . The site is now getting a big boost from Visa, and its well-oiled (and funded) marketing machine . According to an ... More >
I've written in the past about the difficulty in creating appropriate SLAs in outsourcing agreements and how an over-emphasis on SLAs can often be counterproductive . Turns out many of the same issu... More >
Shortly after I began seeing articles detailing AMI-Partners' recent research on SMB technology adoption and spending patterns, like this one on eChannelLine , I got a strong sense of deja vu. AMI... More >
Just last week I wrote about how the roles and responsibilities of IT staff will change as cloud computing becomes more accepted in the enterprise, with engineering types working for managed servic... More >
The technology industry is often seen as favoring young hotshots over more experienced employees. Earlier this year, I wrote a blog about that preference, citing research from both Duke University'... More >
When it comes to Facebook and other social networking sites, employers tend to worry about employees spending too much time poking friends and possible compromises of sensitive company data. Some... More >
Can Facebook and other social networking sites make you smarter? Yes, according to a new University of Minnesota study of teens from 13 urban high schools in the Midwest. Or if not smarter, mo... More >
At this point, not much is clear about the ultimate impact of cloud computing, as IT Business Edge blogger Art Cole pointed out just last week. However, one thing seems certain: Cloud computing and... More >
Despite a number of developments in the enterprise search space this year by vendors, including Microsoft's moves to offer products across a broad spectrum of price and sophistication and Google's... More >
Earlier this month, several groups including the Immigration Law Reform Institute and The Programmers Guild filed a lawsuit challenging the Bush administration's decision to extend the amount of ti... More >
As I've written before, it's no secret that it can be tough for SMBs to compete for tech talent, since it's often tough for them to match the salaries and other benefits offered by bigger companies... More >
Last spring and again last summer, some of us at IT Business Edge kicked around the idea of employee ownership of laptops. Gartner has been espousing this idea since 2005 , when it predicted that 10... More >
With all of the buzz about folks bringing Web 2.0 technologies with them to the office because they find them so easy and intuitive to use, it's easy to assume that workers will welcome new collabo... More >
When I wrote recently about some early advocates of telecommuting that were having second thoughts about the practice, I cited an eWEEK article that mentioned HP, AT&T and some federal govern... More >
Earlier this month, I wondered What Will Shareholders Think of Yahoo's Sweet Severance Deal ? They thought so little of it, in fact, that they filed a lawsuit seeking to have the controversia... More >
CRM seems like a enterprise application practically crying out for elements of Web 2.0. After all, sales and marketing are among the most "social" functions at any company. So it seems logical... More >
Just last month I wrote about an IMS report that predicted that profit-challenged U.S. pharmaceutical companies would offshore more manufacturing , followed by offshoring of other activities includi... More >
Earlier this month I wrote about a UK survey that seemed to indicate that offshoring depressed entry-level IT salaries . The Association of Technology Staffing Companies found that while entry-level... More >
We all know e-mail security is important, since malware and lots of other bad stuff can enter a company through e-mail. But compliance is important too, as companies are increasingly expected to reta... More >
A couple of lessons learned from my recent blog post on the generational gap between people who'd seriously entertain the idea of leaving a job over restricted Facebook access and those who wouldn'... More >
Employers are exploring online avenues for tech talent, including virtual environments like Second Life . Yet many of them continue to overlook relatively untapped real-world options like consultan... More >
A common taboo at most workplaces is asking co-workers how much they earn. That's not to say that some folks don't do it, but now it's easier than ever with Glassdoor , a Web site that does it for y... More >
Back in February, I wrote about how many companies achieve cost savings but not broader business benefits with their outsourcing initiatives. I cited a Deloitte report that highlighted five areas u... More >
The most innovative business strategies won't do much good if a company can't keep its network up and running. That's one of the lessons contained in an interesting strategy+business article ... More >
I've written quite a bit in the last few months about SAP's efforts to win SMBs and its problems with Business ByDesign , the product it created for that audience. But it's been almost a year since ... More >
Last month, I wrote about the unfortunate tendency of organizations to stick with projects gone bad, something that Baseline terms "deadly project lust."Among the problems that can derail a proje... More >
Last summer, a Forrester Research study concluded that the SMB market for business intelligence was pretty wide open , considering that 45 percent of SMBs in 2006 were not using BI. Despite a... More >
Companies may be somewhat ambivalent about telecommuting , as I wrote last week. But employees sure aren't, based on the results of a survey in which 37 percent of tech workers said they'd t... More >
Most outlooks for software-as-a-service are pretty rosy, including Gartner's forecast that SaaS applications will see annual growth of 22 percent through 2011, vs. annual growth of 9 percent for th... More >
IT Business Edge blogger Carl Weinschenk in April wrote about the many benefits of IP applications in the contact center. According to a recent NewsFactor Network article, the benefits may be ev... More >
In crotchety "when I was your age" form, I recently blogged about my disbelief that young folks would seriously consider leaving their jobs if they weren't allowed to use Facebook at work. I was qu... More >
Back in March, I wrote about the contention of several experts, including Duke University's Vivek Wadhwa and Ron Hira of the Economic Policy Institute, that the tech industry's use of immigrant labor... More >
Product developers no longer sit in an Ivory Tower. Now they mingle with the masses, the better to find out what they want. In some cases, the masses become the product developers . Benefits ... More >
What would make you quit your job? Lack of insurance or other benefits? A lengthy and expensive commute? Limited advancement opportunities? No Facebook access? A recent survey by IT services p... More >
When the Labor Department released its employment statistics for April, most media portrayed the loss of 20,000 jobs as a good thing -- because experts had expected the losses to be greater. At the... More >
It's no secret that companies move their manufacturing operations to countries like China to gain a labor arbitrage advantage. But a number of wrinkles in this strategy are emerging. First, w... More >
Is instant messaging a valuable collaboration tool or an invasive time-sucker? It can be both , say researchers from Ohio State University and the University of California. According to The I... More >
Two weeks ago, I wrote about companies' interest in offering employees access to enterprise apps , notably CRM and business intelligence, on mobile devices. I referenced recent moves by SAP and IBM ... More >
I've written about some of the cultural aspects of Microsoft's proposal to buy Yahoo, namely how important rank-and-file workers were likely to be to the deal. One person who seems to get this is Y... More >
Shortly after reading an interesting blog post by IT Business Edge's Loraine Lawson, about the debate over the importance -- or lack thereof -- of enterprise architecture, I found an entry on Info... More >
I wrote in March about several Indian outsourcing companies, including Wipro and Tata Consultancy Services, establishing operations in the United States . Prompted by some of the same market ... More >
Trend Micro is rolling out a new series of security products and services for SMBs, many of which are designed to address shifting work practices, reports Computer Technology Review . For i... More >
When I wrote about telecommuting last week, a couple of readers took me to task for passing along the news, published in eWEEK , that several large corporate proponents of telecommuting, including... More >
When I wrote last summer about the federal government's increasing tendency to hire contractors to perform intelligence tasks , a key issue was the droves of employees leaving government agencies to... More >
It seems logical. As companies accumulate a growing pile of data, they want to derive as much value as possible from it. That desire is driving an increased interest in business intelligence, con... More >
Google appears to have larger enterprise aspirations for its hosted site search. Though the product was largely geared toward SMBs when the search giant introduced it last July, it's now adding a n... More >
I write fairly often about the role of the CIO, whom I once called the James Brown of the Enterprise . Reoccurring themes include the often thankless nature of the job and the increasingly... More >
I wrote last spring about India's coming growth in knowledge process outsourcing , in particular in the area of legal outsourcing. As if to confirm the trend, Indian outsourcing giant Infosys Techno... More >
Just last month I wrote about how SMBs were getting more broadband options , thanks largely to competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs) and Multiple-system operators (MSOs) eager to tap into the ... More >
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