Alignment, staffing and culture are often more critical than software and apps
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I am a big fan of case studies. Even the most overtly promotional ones generally offer enough valuable tips on how companies handle real-life business situations to make them worthwhile. I rec... More >
Does size matter to SMBs when it comes to contact centers? At least one company, Scotland's VoiceStream Group, thinks so. In an interview with Hindu Business Line India , VoiceStream Chairman... More >
We've heard a lot about aligning IT with the business. But what about aligning IT with the customer? After all, many of the channels through which customers come into direct contact with compa... More >
I've been interested for some time now in Amazon's development of a collection of cloud-based services for the enterprise, as is obvious from this post from earlier this year. The retail pow... More >
Timothy Chou, author of "The End of Software," has called software-as-a-service "the most disruptive technology of the last decade." Yet some folks, including experts sitting on a recent panel... More >
Yesterday I wrote about solutions that are helping retailers blur the line between online and offline shopping experiences by making the Web a little more like a physical store . While physic... More >
IT Business Edge blogger Loraine Lawson recently wrote about the serious pain that can occur when companies do not adequately consider how integrating IT systems will affect combined operations aft... More >
IT Business Edge blogger Dennis Byron recently wrote about an "absolutely scary hour" he spent listening to Intel's Craig Barrett, former IBM CEO Lou Gerstner and other experts discussing shortcomin... More >
The line between offline and online retail experiences continues to blur, based on a couple of recent product announcements. Last summer I wrote about the the efforts of retailers with both an... More >
I wrote last year about concerns associated with the growing number of federal outsourcing contracts during the Bush administration and the government's apparently lax oversight of those contracts.... More >
My last job took me on the road frequently to trade shows, user conferences and other industry events. A while back, I decided to sift through the towering stack of business cards I had accumulated a... More >
For me, the most interesting takeaway from press coverage of this week's highly publicized Facebook developer conference is the creation of Great Apps, a program that will stamp applications that a... More >
In an economic downturn, mass layoffs like those just announced by Intuit, which intends to slice 7 percent of its workforce in a reorganization, aren't too surprising. But there is a somew... More >
The news that more tech executives are scaling back discretionary projects and considering making staff cuts in 2009 doesn't change the fact that plenty of companies are still hunting for employees... More >
Last month, I wrote about SMBs' growing fondness for smartphones . Based on the optimistic data I cited from the Computing Industry Association and Access Markets International Partners, SMBs would ... More >
I wrote back in November about how the flux in the business intelligence market following a heated round of consolidation might have an especially large impact on SMBs. I noted that SAP's VP... More >
I write a lot about the general importance of improving communications between IT and the business and the havoc that poor communication between the two camps can wreak. Considering the strate... More >
Yesterday I wrote about growing concerns about IT staff cuts in the coming year, based on a recent Goldman Sachs & Co. survey of IT executives. The number of managers planning to cut internal s... More >
Earlier this month, I cited new data from the National Association of Computer Consultant Businesses that indicates IT employment in the U.S. hit an all-time high of 3,907,800 jobs in June, followi... More >
I wrote last spring about how their flexibility and relative lack of red tape often help SMBs be more innovative than their larger competitors. (Of course, sometimes behemoths like General Electric... More >
Just like those personal relationships gone bad, where you weren't committed enough or sensitive enough, companies are coming up short in their flirtations with Web 2.0. A recent Forrester Res... More >
Sure, General Electric's internal social network is nifty, you may think, as you read my post from earlier today about it. But is it really worthy of the kinds of superlatives thrown around by folk... More >
Earlier today, I wrote about a Canadian province's efforts to promote itself as a destination that welcomes H-1B visa holders and their families. I also referenced the UK's attempts to modif... More >
I recently interviewed Kyle Arteaga, Serena Software's VP of corporate communications, about his company's use of Facebook to replace an internal intranet and improve communications among its nearl... More >
The United States isn't the only country struggling with tweaking its immigration process to ensure that highly skilled and/or educated foreigners are allowed to enter the country while not giving th... More >
Just a few weeks ago I wrote about SMBs and outsourcing , providing links to a number of articles, including one that illustrated the kinds of cost savings SMBs could expect to achieve by outsourcin... More >
Earlier this month, I offered a roundup of recent analyst forecasts that have 2008 shaping up as a banner year for CRM spending. Datamonitor, KensingtonHouse, CSO Insights and Gartner are among the... More >
As I've written before, one of the best ways for SMBs to compete for employees is to highlight the differences that set them apart from their larger competitors. For instance, a Boston-based... More >
My recent post on Indian services providers establishing operations in the U.S. drew interesting comments from two IT pros, both of whom say they have worked for Indian companies and found them to ... More >
Back in October I wrote about SMBs' interest in unified communications, or at least in aspects of it. Most SMBs were adopting a piecemeal , rather than a platform, approach to UC, said several of th... More >
Back in November, I wrote about a Forrester Research study that made much of the fact a quarter of non-IT executives said they selected tech tools on their own or more often than their IT executive... More >
Back in April, I wrote about efforts in some U.S. cities, including Cleveland, to attract more educated workers and foreign investment. The idea being promoted by Cleveland immigration attorney Ric... More >
The more folks read about successful uses of Web 2.0 technologies in the workplace -- such as Cisco's employment of tools like wikis and blogs , which have helped the company step up its product int... More >
Back in March, I wrote about the expansion activities of Indian service providers like Wipro and Tata Consultancy Services, which are building facilities and hiring local employees in the U.S. and ... More >
Back in December, I asked the question: Can SMBs benefit from blogging ? A recently published study from Forrester Research raises a new question: Are many businesses of any size benefiting... More >
In late 2007, Indian outsourcing providers posted decent financial results but lowered their earnings guidance, leading many analysts to question whether they could sustain growth in the face of ma... More >
Last week I wrote a post about the push-pull aspects of targeting advertisements to Web users based on their online behavior. Advertisers insist such ads will vastly improve the Internet experience... More >
Back in May, IT Business Edge blogger Carl Weinschenk wrote about several vendors, including Cisco and Teliris, that were rolling out scaled-down versions of their pricey telepresence systems desig... More >
So, it's (sort of) official, thanks to Michael Arrington's indictment. Voice mail is the whipping boy of modern office communications. Voice mail has been almost totally usurped by e-mail, which it... More >
Three months of free tech support is no small thing. But that's what Microsoft is offering to get SMBs to give its Vista operating system a chance. The Small Business Assurance offer will be... More >
It appears to be unanimous. Just about every tech analyst out there is predicting a banner year for CRM spending. Back in late 2007, I interviewed AMR Research analyst Robert Bois, who told me... More >
Earlier this week I wrote about the trend of companies reversing earlier decisions to offshore their customer-service positions, largely because of a growing awareness that such positions play a ke... More >
Back in March I wrote a post in which I asked, Is the tech industry recession-proof ? Despite gloomy reports of negative capital spending, an increase in canceled orders and falling sales projection... More >
A few weeks ago IT Business Edge blogger Arthur Cole wrote about the debut of Microsoft's Hyper-V virtualization software, noting the early reviews were mostly good . The release-to-manufactu... More >
I've written that IT folks should strive to communicate with business types in terms they can understand , a bit of advice that is frequently repeated in articles on how to bridge the IT/business di... More >
Blogs, online forums and emerging communications tools like Twitter make it just as easy for customers to punish companies as to give them props. Their wide-open and highly public nature is wh... More >
Last July I wrote about the decision of several U.K. companies to promote the fact that they only used local contact centers . I asked the question: Xenophobia or just good business? I cited... More >
Back in March, I commented on a report by French consulting company Pierre Audoin Consulants that found outsourcing powers like IBM and Accenture turning to locales other than India for their offsh... More >
The primary pitch of companies that target online advertisements to consumers based on their Internet activities is telling us how much more we'll appreciate -- even enjoy -- ads if they are relevant... More >
I posed the question how much CRM do SMBs need in a blog post last August. The answer: "Not as much as most vendors would have us think." An approach advocated by one source I cited in my po... More >
Earlier this year, I wrote about India's burgeoning domestic market for outsourcing. The demand for BPO appears especially strong, as I wrote last August. Although the forecasts I cited in... More >
In their quest for innovation and new ideas, companies are always looking for new and relatively untapped sources, including the consumers of their products and services, especially those located ... More >
If you saw my earlier post today about Google's corporate culture, portrayed in a former employee's blog post as an impediment to winning favor with enterprises, you may think that Google is a succ... More >
I wrote in March about a new approach to globalization in which companies create multiple global hubs to serve emerging markets and then create networks to link their marketing, manufacturing, logi... More >
I love Google. Who doesn't? I use the search engine all day, every day during the week and pretty darned often on weekends. I haven't had as much exposure to the pseudo-Office applications , though I... More >
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