By Laura Knox, inside sales team leader, DataSource Mobility
In today’s ever challenging economy it’s no surprise that we see technology customers focusing more and more on cost ... and while I am all about getting a bargain and finding the right solution at the right price for my clients, I often find myself explaining that cost does not always equal value.
Much more goes into the concept of value than the upfront purchase price of any solution. You have to think about potential downtime if the equipment breaks, repair costs, replacement if your workers refuse to use the machine because of poor performance, replacement cost if a device fails, upgraded warranty fees (most low cost solutions come with little or no warranty coverage) and the time any IT staff must spend to keep the devices working properly. So, if we are looking at overall value rather than upfront value the emphasis moves from simply finding something cheap to finding something that is high quality.
Now, most people with a healthy knowledge of IT matters already understand that inferior parts and inferior quality plus lack of service are what equal the attractively low price point of generic industry devices – and they are very anxious not to get stuck trying to support devices that will need constant attention and repair - but try explaining this to a person without IT experience who is tasked with finding a top quality solution at a “bargain bin” price and things get tricky.
So, for those of us who are not IT aficionados but need to make smart decisions for the companies we own or are employed by, the question becomes; how do I tell a high quality device from all the other options? Below is a list of questions that I strongly encourage these folks to ask before purchasing any equipment from a potential vendor.
$ vs. ROI vs. TCO
1) What is it made out of?
2) What type of service and support is included in the cost being quoted (and what will you have to pay extra for)?
3) What is the typical lifespan of the device?
4) Are parts and labor outsourced or does the manufacturer actually make the product?
5) Has it passed any level of rugged certification?
6) What is the typical failure rate for the device?
What do you think?
Showing posts with label information management. Show all posts
Showing posts with label information management. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Mobile technology in the spotlight at Capture 2011
Posted by Mark Brousseau
Smartphones are changing the way people shop, bank, communicate and travel. Now, these types of mobile devices are set to have a profound impact on how knowledge workers organize, access, and use business content, Anne Valaitis, associate director of image scanning trends for Infotrends, said during a keynote presentation this week at Capture 2011 in Dallas. In fact, the integration of mobile technology with data capture processes was a hot topic throughout the Capture 2011 conference.
“Mobile devices are changing how we read and work,” she said, noting that respondents to an Infotrends survey said they read 60 percent of their business documents on a screen versus paper. “As a result of mobile devices, we are accessing more content, in different ways,” Valaitis explained.
“Mobile technology is blurring the line between home and office and business and personal,” she said. Sixty percent of respondents to an Infotrends survey said they purchased their own smartphone or mobile handheld device, about half of the apps on these devices are for business, Valaitis noted.
The challenges facing data capture technology vendors and service providers today is to provide mobile tools and services that enable workers to easily plug into the existing IT infrastructure and business processes without increasing additional layers of complexity and cost, Valaitis explained.
Similarly, corporate IT departments must come to the table as an advocate for the mobile worker and help build bridges that will enable productivity, Valaitis said. “To this point, IT has had a hard time supporting these mobile technologies,” Valaitis said. But there is no time to waste. About half of the respondents to an Infotrends survey said they expect the amount of business-related work they conduct on their mobile phones to increase. What’s more, as knowledge workers return to the workforce, it’s likely they will rely on mobile technologies, Valaitis said: “It’s not clear whether they will work in an office, what tools they will need to be productive, or who will support their IT needs.
Workers already are increasingly mobile. Nearly 40 percent of respondents to an Infotrends survey said they were away from their primary work location at least once a month on business, she said.
What’s more, the evolution of technologies such as GoogleDocs will likely drive mobile adoption. “As some point, GoogleDocs will make it easier to create and edit documents in the cloud,” she said.
Valaitis also foresees growing acceptance of consumer technologies such as social media in the workplace. “Facebook is not just a personal media anymore,” she said, pointing to Goldman Sachs abolishing its policy forbidding Facebook use at work. “It is increasingly being used for business.”
What do you think?
Smartphones are changing the way people shop, bank, communicate and travel. Now, these types of mobile devices are set to have a profound impact on how knowledge workers organize, access, and use business content, Anne Valaitis, associate director of image scanning trends for Infotrends, said during a keynote presentation this week at Capture 2011 in Dallas. In fact, the integration of mobile technology with data capture processes was a hot topic throughout the Capture 2011 conference.
“Mobile devices are changing how we read and work,” she said, noting that respondents to an Infotrends survey said they read 60 percent of their business documents on a screen versus paper. “As a result of mobile devices, we are accessing more content, in different ways,” Valaitis explained.
“Mobile technology is blurring the line between home and office and business and personal,” she said. Sixty percent of respondents to an Infotrends survey said they purchased their own smartphone or mobile handheld device, about half of the apps on these devices are for business, Valaitis noted.
The challenges facing data capture technology vendors and service providers today is to provide mobile tools and services that enable workers to easily plug into the existing IT infrastructure and business processes without increasing additional layers of complexity and cost, Valaitis explained.
Similarly, corporate IT departments must come to the table as an advocate for the mobile worker and help build bridges that will enable productivity, Valaitis said. “To this point, IT has had a hard time supporting these mobile technologies,” Valaitis said. But there is no time to waste. About half of the respondents to an Infotrends survey said they expect the amount of business-related work they conduct on their mobile phones to increase. What’s more, as knowledge workers return to the workforce, it’s likely they will rely on mobile technologies, Valaitis said: “It’s not clear whether they will work in an office, what tools they will need to be productive, or who will support their IT needs.
Workers already are increasingly mobile. Nearly 40 percent of respondents to an Infotrends survey said they were away from their primary work location at least once a month on business, she said.
What’s more, the evolution of technologies such as GoogleDocs will likely drive mobile adoption. “As some point, GoogleDocs will make it easier to create and edit documents in the cloud,” she said.
Valaitis also foresees growing acceptance of consumer technologies such as social media in the workplace. “Facebook is not just a personal media anymore,” she said, pointing to Goldman Sachs abolishing its policy forbidding Facebook use at work. “It is increasingly being used for business.”
What do you think?
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
7 Major Projects CIOs Should Consider
Posted by Mark Brousseau
With 2011 predicted to be the year when the IT industry will reach nearly $3.5 trillion in revenue and show long-term growth for the next five years, Gartner analysts say there are seven business and IT issues that warrant the greatest attention and demand the clearest strategies for the future.
“We are increasingly living, playing and working in a digital world where people will have no alternatives but to become ‘more digital’ with the assets they have available,” said Stephen Prentice, vice president and Gartner Fellow. “In 2012, the Internet will be 75 times larger than it was in 2002, and if Facebook was a country, it would be the third largest in the world (after China and India). Device and data proliferation is also a reality that cannot be escaped. Smart devices will rise from 60 billion devices in 2010 to more than 200 billion in 2020.”
“Technology is no longer the preserve of the CIO,” said Ken McGee, vice president and Gartner Fellow. “It has become everyone’s property and everyone’s issue.”
With the IT industry on track to show a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4 percent for the next five years Gartner has identified seven business and IT issues that CIOs should act on during the next three years. “CIOs will need to begin implementing these technologies within three years to meet the six year predictions,” McGee said. The seven issues include:
IT/OT Alignment- Inadequate software management of operational technology (OT) systems will result in a major business failure of a top Global 100 company by 2013.
Executives are realizing there are cost savings and management efficiencies to be gained by integrating the IT and OT groups together. Although efforts to integrate groups are challenging, benefits from streamlined budgets, coordinated planning, consistent technology architectural decisions and maximizing technology purchasing power make for extremely compelling cases for IT and OT group integration.
Business Gets Social -Through 2015, 80 percent of organizations will lack a coherent approach for dealing with information from the collective.
Today, social media is changing the way business is conducted. “Understanding the power of communities, the multiple personas of their members expectations, their aspirations and how to interact with them will become essential skills for business in the 21st century,” said McGee. “However, vast sums of money and enormous amounts of time will be spent during this decade and beyond to discover how IT and business leaders best capitalize on the growing spread, power and influence of social networks.”
Pattern-Based Strategy- Through 2015, pattern-seeking technology will be the fastest-growing intelligence investment among the most successful Global 2000.
A Pattern-Based Strategy provides a framework to proactively seek, model and adapt to leading indicators, often-termed "weak" signals that form patterns in the marketplace. It will allow IT leaders to seek-out patterns amidst the burgeoning information sources and model future possibilities. “We have found that senior business and IT leaders see lack of information shareability as a barrier to growth,” Prentice said.
Cloud Computing- By 2016, all Global 2000 companies will use public cloud services.
Cloud computing represents a shift in the relationship between the providers and consumers of IT-based solutions. It constitutes the basis of a discontinuity that amounts to a new opportunity to shape the relationship between those who use IT services and those who sell them. Gartner said worldwide cloud services revenue (including public and private services) is forecast to reach $148.8 billion in 2014.
Context-Aware Computing- By 2016, one-third of worldwide mobile consumer marketing will be context-awareness-based.
Context-aware computing will foster people to be more digital with the assets they have available. Context-aware computing is taking advantage of location and time and is a new era of augmented reality. More than $150 billion of global telecom spending will shift from services to applications by 2012, and the global market for context-aware services will amount to $215 billion.
“Unlocking this potential will be one of the next major challenges for IT,” said McGee. “For example, we expect 75 percent of new search installations to include a social search element. The world is digital and business leaders can’t ignore it.”
Sustainability- By 2016, sustainability will be the fastest-growing enterprise compliance expense worldwide.
As long as the current science surrounding climate change remains credible, organizations should anticipate that the current focus on energy, water and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions will continue, and this will draw attention to other environmental issues, such as resource depletion, species extinction, bio-diversity and environmental justice. There will remain many hard trade-offs between an organization’s financial and operational performance and that of its environmental performance. Information systems will be critical in the role — from governance, risk and compliance, through corporate social responsibility systems, to enabling new and more-sustainable business models.
New Realities of IT: Balancing Cost and Innovation with Risk and Governance- Innovation accomplishments will be among the top-three selection criteria for new CIOs by 2016.
With the recent global recession, innovative thinkers must find new ways to create growth — in revenue, jobs and industries — in this new business climate. Cost and value optimization must remain a top priority, while the search for growth continues.
Regulatory and corporate demands for greater attention to risk have already begun to emerge. Gartner also foresees a new emphasis on business change governance.
Beyond 2020, Gartner analysts forecast that two emerging trends will become $1 billion markets. First, human augmentation, a technology that focuses on creating cognitive and physical improvements as an integral part of the human body is slowly but steadily becoming a reality and enhancing peoples’ lives.
The second trend is wireless power devices. By 2011, there will be more than 1 billion PCs and 5 billion mobile phones in use in the world, and based on the levels of demand Gartner foresees cumulative sales from wireless power products surpassing $1 billion by 2020.
“We are reaching these observations by exploring future IT growth and future adoption projections upon demand,” McGee said. “We are looking at emerging business and societal trends and based upon our findings, we will indicate likely future IT winners and losers. This methodology will not replace any existing methodologies, but simply complement existing models.”
“Looking forward, we expect to see more deployment of existing technologies in new and innovative ways, and fewer and fewer genuinely new technologies emerging in the mainstream,” said Prentice. “That is not to imply that no new developments will occur, but we are now starting to see the early indications of precursor and trigger technologies for the next wave of technology, which is likely to run from about 2025 through 2080.”
What do you think?
With 2011 predicted to be the year when the IT industry will reach nearly $3.5 trillion in revenue and show long-term growth for the next five years, Gartner analysts say there are seven business and IT issues that warrant the greatest attention and demand the clearest strategies for the future.
“We are increasingly living, playing and working in a digital world where people will have no alternatives but to become ‘more digital’ with the assets they have available,” said Stephen Prentice, vice president and Gartner Fellow. “In 2012, the Internet will be 75 times larger than it was in 2002, and if Facebook was a country, it would be the third largest in the world (after China and India). Device and data proliferation is also a reality that cannot be escaped. Smart devices will rise from 60 billion devices in 2010 to more than 200 billion in 2020.”
“Technology is no longer the preserve of the CIO,” said Ken McGee, vice president and Gartner Fellow. “It has become everyone’s property and everyone’s issue.”
With the IT industry on track to show a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4 percent for the next five years Gartner has identified seven business and IT issues that CIOs should act on during the next three years. “CIOs will need to begin implementing these technologies within three years to meet the six year predictions,” McGee said. The seven issues include:
IT/OT Alignment- Inadequate software management of operational technology (OT) systems will result in a major business failure of a top Global 100 company by 2013.
Executives are realizing there are cost savings and management efficiencies to be gained by integrating the IT and OT groups together. Although efforts to integrate groups are challenging, benefits from streamlined budgets, coordinated planning, consistent technology architectural decisions and maximizing technology purchasing power make for extremely compelling cases for IT and OT group integration.
Business Gets Social -Through 2015, 80 percent of organizations will lack a coherent approach for dealing with information from the collective.
Today, social media is changing the way business is conducted. “Understanding the power of communities, the multiple personas of their members expectations, their aspirations and how to interact with them will become essential skills for business in the 21st century,” said McGee. “However, vast sums of money and enormous amounts of time will be spent during this decade and beyond to discover how IT and business leaders best capitalize on the growing spread, power and influence of social networks.”
Pattern-Based Strategy- Through 2015, pattern-seeking technology will be the fastest-growing intelligence investment among the most successful Global 2000.
A Pattern-Based Strategy provides a framework to proactively seek, model and adapt to leading indicators, often-termed "weak" signals that form patterns in the marketplace. It will allow IT leaders to seek-out patterns amidst the burgeoning information sources and model future possibilities. “We have found that senior business and IT leaders see lack of information shareability as a barrier to growth,” Prentice said.
Cloud Computing- By 2016, all Global 2000 companies will use public cloud services.
Cloud computing represents a shift in the relationship between the providers and consumers of IT-based solutions. It constitutes the basis of a discontinuity that amounts to a new opportunity to shape the relationship between those who use IT services and those who sell them. Gartner said worldwide cloud services revenue (including public and private services) is forecast to reach $148.8 billion in 2014.
Context-Aware Computing- By 2016, one-third of worldwide mobile consumer marketing will be context-awareness-based.
Context-aware computing will foster people to be more digital with the assets they have available. Context-aware computing is taking advantage of location and time and is a new era of augmented reality. More than $150 billion of global telecom spending will shift from services to applications by 2012, and the global market for context-aware services will amount to $215 billion.
“Unlocking this potential will be one of the next major challenges for IT,” said McGee. “For example, we expect 75 percent of new search installations to include a social search element. The world is digital and business leaders can’t ignore it.”
Sustainability- By 2016, sustainability will be the fastest-growing enterprise compliance expense worldwide.
As long as the current science surrounding climate change remains credible, organizations should anticipate that the current focus on energy, water and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions will continue, and this will draw attention to other environmental issues, such as resource depletion, species extinction, bio-diversity and environmental justice. There will remain many hard trade-offs between an organization’s financial and operational performance and that of its environmental performance. Information systems will be critical in the role — from governance, risk and compliance, through corporate social responsibility systems, to enabling new and more-sustainable business models.
New Realities of IT: Balancing Cost and Innovation with Risk and Governance- Innovation accomplishments will be among the top-three selection criteria for new CIOs by 2016.
With the recent global recession, innovative thinkers must find new ways to create growth — in revenue, jobs and industries — in this new business climate. Cost and value optimization must remain a top priority, while the search for growth continues.
Regulatory and corporate demands for greater attention to risk have already begun to emerge. Gartner also foresees a new emphasis on business change governance.
Beyond 2020, Gartner analysts forecast that two emerging trends will become $1 billion markets. First, human augmentation, a technology that focuses on creating cognitive and physical improvements as an integral part of the human body is slowly but steadily becoming a reality and enhancing peoples’ lives.
The second trend is wireless power devices. By 2011, there will be more than 1 billion PCs and 5 billion mobile phones in use in the world, and based on the levels of demand Gartner foresees cumulative sales from wireless power products surpassing $1 billion by 2020.
“We are reaching these observations by exploring future IT growth and future adoption projections upon demand,” McGee said. “We are looking at emerging business and societal trends and based upon our findings, we will indicate likely future IT winners and losers. This methodology will not replace any existing methodologies, but simply complement existing models.”
“Looking forward, we expect to see more deployment of existing technologies in new and innovative ways, and fewer and fewer genuinely new technologies emerging in the mainstream,” said Prentice. “That is not to imply that no new developments will occur, but we are now starting to see the early indications of precursor and trigger technologies for the next wave of technology, which is likely to run from about 2025 through 2080.”
What do you think?
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
What’s keeping CEOs up at night?
By Rich Walsh
Storage professionals who want to bring new ideas to their organizations on how better to manage corporate data might want to take note of Gartner, Inc.’s “seven major CEO concerns that CIOs should address.”
Gartner’s guide for CIOs provides some excellent insight into what management (CEOs in particular) expects from any new project that involves additional spending or technology upgrades. For example, what Gartner outlines in “investing in new cost efficiencies” is consistent with offsite e-storage management plans that I have been discussing with companies of late.
Not surprisingly, anything that saves money will be viewed favorably. As Gartner’s analysts put it, “CIOs proposing larger structural cost-saving ideas, such as major end-to-end process changes or automations, will likely receive CEO approval.”
Additionally, Gartner points out that CEOs are increasingly expecting that solutions be long-term and sustainable. Ideally, anything proposed should not simply be a quick fix.
Offsite data storage projects can meet those requirements and, done right, can produce long-term cost savings and sustainable solutions. Your management team might be interested to know that many businesses have been gradually moving to offsite data management, successfully trimming costs while being able to continue to access, control and monitor their records.
What steps are you taking to improve operations, your role in IT and data management overall?
Rich Walsh is president, Document Archive & Repository Services at Viewpointe. Rich has more than 25 years of operational information technology experience.
Storage professionals who want to bring new ideas to their organizations on how better to manage corporate data might want to take note of Gartner, Inc.’s “seven major CEO concerns that CIOs should address.”
Gartner’s guide for CIOs provides some excellent insight into what management (CEOs in particular) expects from any new project that involves additional spending or technology upgrades. For example, what Gartner outlines in “investing in new cost efficiencies” is consistent with offsite e-storage management plans that I have been discussing with companies of late.
Not surprisingly, anything that saves money will be viewed favorably. As Gartner’s analysts put it, “CIOs proposing larger structural cost-saving ideas, such as major end-to-end process changes or automations, will likely receive CEO approval.”
Additionally, Gartner points out that CEOs are increasingly expecting that solutions be long-term and sustainable. Ideally, anything proposed should not simply be a quick fix.
Offsite data storage projects can meet those requirements and, done right, can produce long-term cost savings and sustainable solutions. Your management team might be interested to know that many businesses have been gradually moving to offsite data management, successfully trimming costs while being able to continue to access, control and monitor their records.
What steps are you taking to improve operations, your role in IT and data management overall?
Rich Walsh is president, Document Archive & Repository Services at Viewpointe. Rich has more than 25 years of operational information technology experience.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Companies Unprepared to Address Risks Created by New Technology
Posted by Mark Brousseau
Less than a third of global businesses have an IT risk management program capable of addressing the risks related to the use of new technologies, according to Ernst & Young’s 13th annual Global Information Security Survey. In spite of the rapid emergence of new technology, just one in ten companies consider examining new and emerging IT trends a very important activity for the information security function to perform.
A significant increase in use of external service providers and business adoption of new technologies, such as cloud computing, social networking and Web 2.0, is recognized to increase risk for 60% of respondents. Yet, in spite of this, less than half intend to increase annual investment in information security.
Paul van Kessel, Ernst & Young Global IT Risk and Assurance Leader,comments: “Technology advances provide an increasingly mobile workforce with seemingly endless ways to connect and interact with colleagues, customers and clients. These advances represent a massive opportunity for IT to deliver significant benefits to the organization but new technology also means new risk. It is vital that companies not only recognize this risk, but take action to avoid it.”
Over half of respondents state that increased workforce mobility poses a considerable challenge to the effective delivery of information security initiatives, due to widespread use of mobile computing devices. For almost two-thirds employees’ level of security awareness is recognized as a considerable challenge.
"As the mobile workforce continues to grow, so does the level of risk. In addition to implementing new technology solutions and re-engineering information flows, companies must focus on informing the workforce about risks. The delivery of effective, and regular, security awareness training is a critical success factor as companies attempt to keep pace with the changing environment,” van Kessel adds.
Among the other findings in the report:
•Half of respondents plan to spend more over the next year on data leakage and data loss prevention – up 7% from last year. To address potential new risks, 39% are making policy adjustments, 29% are implementing encryption techniques and 28% are implementing stronger identity and access management controls.
•For the first time, continuous availability of critical IT resources was identified as one of the top five risks.
•23% of respondents are using cloud computing services, a further 15% plan to use within the next 12 months. For 85% of respondents, external certification of cloud service providers would increase trust; 43% state that certification should be based upon an agreed standard and 22% require accreditation for the certifying body.
What do you think?
Less than a third of global businesses have an IT risk management program capable of addressing the risks related to the use of new technologies, according to Ernst & Young’s 13th annual Global Information Security Survey. In spite of the rapid emergence of new technology, just one in ten companies consider examining new and emerging IT trends a very important activity for the information security function to perform.
A significant increase in use of external service providers and business adoption of new technologies, such as cloud computing, social networking and Web 2.0, is recognized to increase risk for 60% of respondents. Yet, in spite of this, less than half intend to increase annual investment in information security.
Paul van Kessel, Ernst & Young Global IT Risk and Assurance Leader,comments: “Technology advances provide an increasingly mobile workforce with seemingly endless ways to connect and interact with colleagues, customers and clients. These advances represent a massive opportunity for IT to deliver significant benefits to the organization but new technology also means new risk. It is vital that companies not only recognize this risk, but take action to avoid it.”
Over half of respondents state that increased workforce mobility poses a considerable challenge to the effective delivery of information security initiatives, due to widespread use of mobile computing devices. For almost two-thirds employees’ level of security awareness is recognized as a considerable challenge.
"As the mobile workforce continues to grow, so does the level of risk. In addition to implementing new technology solutions and re-engineering information flows, companies must focus on informing the workforce about risks. The delivery of effective, and regular, security awareness training is a critical success factor as companies attempt to keep pace with the changing environment,” van Kessel adds.
Among the other findings in the report:
•Half of respondents plan to spend more over the next year on data leakage and data loss prevention – up 7% from last year. To address potential new risks, 39% are making policy adjustments, 29% are implementing encryption techniques and 28% are implementing stronger identity and access management controls.
•For the first time, continuous availability of critical IT resources was identified as one of the top five risks.
•23% of respondents are using cloud computing services, a further 15% plan to use within the next 12 months. For 85% of respondents, external certification of cloud service providers would increase trust; 43% state that certification should be based upon an agreed standard and 22% require accreditation for the certifying body.
What do you think?
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Privacy Laws Must Change with the Times
By Todd Thibodeaux and David Valdez
A brave new world of technological innovation is emerging - some would say it has already emerged. Although we cannot predict the next killer app or revolutionary invention, we can be fairly sure that it will involve the use of personally identifiable information. Consumers have enthusiastically adopted personalized applications of all varieties, yet the way things stand now they must be prepared to sacrifice something at least as valuable: their privacy.
Congress is just beginning the complex process of developing legislation to protect consumer privacy while nurturing innovation in products and services. An important way to achieve the delicate balance between encouraging technology and preserving privacy is for Congress to expand the capabilities of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to ensure that it can keep up with the rapidly evolving marketplace.
In the mid to late 1990s, the FTC began reviewing how websites collected and managed consumers’ personally identifiable information. This led to the creation of a set of self-regulatory rules known as the Fair Information Practice Principles, which created four basic obligations: (1) consumers must be notified as to whether their online information is being collected, (2) consumers must provide consent as to whether or not they want their online information collected, (3) consumers must be able to view information a company has collected about them and verify its accuracy, and (4) businesses must undertake measures to ensure that information is accurate and stored securely.
The framework of the Fair Information Practice Principles is a good place to start when considering future privacy legislation. Over the past two decades it has demonstrated a suitable balance between responsible privacy standards and room for innovation. However, as technology evolves, the FTC should be able to keep up. The FTC should be provided with the discretion and flexibility to adapt, update and strengthen the Fair Information Practice Principles as well as its own role in safeguarding consumer privacy in response to changing technologies and consumer needs.
The FTC, in partnership with the private sector, should create privacy notices that are easy to read and understand in conjunction with an education campaign to inform consumers about their rights. Many privacy notices are dense and contain so much legalize that the notices become ineffective because consumers don’t read them.
Congress should provide the FTC with the resources to create an Online Consumer Protection bureau that focuses exclusively on online crimes such as identify theft, e-mail scams, and privacy enforcement. This would expand the FTC’s capabilities to investigate, prosecute and enforce consequences against breaches of privacy.
Any attempt to impose new privacy standards should distinguish between good actors that slip-up inadvertently versus bad actors that aim to cause trouble. A safe harbor program will accomplish this task by reducing liability if actions are preformed in good faith. Safe harbor programs provide a combination of carrot and stick which allow the FTC to execute different programs for different actors.
As policymakers continue to deliberate the best path for balancing the various stakeholder interests around the issue of online privacy, they must remember that any proposed legislation should not be absolute. The current set of privacy principles adopted by the FTC has worked well for over a decade and should serve as a framework for any new legislation. Technology is a moving target and privacy laws should be sufficiently flexible to adapt.
Todd Thibodeaux is CEO and president of CompTIA, a non-profit trade association advancing the global interests of information technology (IT) professionals and businesses (www.comptia.org). Todd can be reached at tthibodeaux@comptia.org. David Valdez is the organization’s senior director of public advocacy. David can be reached at dvaldez@comptia.org.
A brave new world of technological innovation is emerging - some would say it has already emerged. Although we cannot predict the next killer app or revolutionary invention, we can be fairly sure that it will involve the use of personally identifiable information. Consumers have enthusiastically adopted personalized applications of all varieties, yet the way things stand now they must be prepared to sacrifice something at least as valuable: their privacy.
Congress is just beginning the complex process of developing legislation to protect consumer privacy while nurturing innovation in products and services. An important way to achieve the delicate balance between encouraging technology and preserving privacy is for Congress to expand the capabilities of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to ensure that it can keep up with the rapidly evolving marketplace.
In the mid to late 1990s, the FTC began reviewing how websites collected and managed consumers’ personally identifiable information. This led to the creation of a set of self-regulatory rules known as the Fair Information Practice Principles, which created four basic obligations: (1) consumers must be notified as to whether their online information is being collected, (2) consumers must provide consent as to whether or not they want their online information collected, (3) consumers must be able to view information a company has collected about them and verify its accuracy, and (4) businesses must undertake measures to ensure that information is accurate and stored securely.
The framework of the Fair Information Practice Principles is a good place to start when considering future privacy legislation. Over the past two decades it has demonstrated a suitable balance between responsible privacy standards and room for innovation. However, as technology evolves, the FTC should be able to keep up. The FTC should be provided with the discretion and flexibility to adapt, update and strengthen the Fair Information Practice Principles as well as its own role in safeguarding consumer privacy in response to changing technologies and consumer needs.
The FTC, in partnership with the private sector, should create privacy notices that are easy to read and understand in conjunction with an education campaign to inform consumers about their rights. Many privacy notices are dense and contain so much legalize that the notices become ineffective because consumers don’t read them.
Congress should provide the FTC with the resources to create an Online Consumer Protection bureau that focuses exclusively on online crimes such as identify theft, e-mail scams, and privacy enforcement. This would expand the FTC’s capabilities to investigate, prosecute and enforce consequences against breaches of privacy.
Any attempt to impose new privacy standards should distinguish between good actors that slip-up inadvertently versus bad actors that aim to cause trouble. A safe harbor program will accomplish this task by reducing liability if actions are preformed in good faith. Safe harbor programs provide a combination of carrot and stick which allow the FTC to execute different programs for different actors.
As policymakers continue to deliberate the best path for balancing the various stakeholder interests around the issue of online privacy, they must remember that any proposed legislation should not be absolute. The current set of privacy principles adopted by the FTC has worked well for over a decade and should serve as a framework for any new legislation. Technology is a moving target and privacy laws should be sufficiently flexible to adapt.
Todd Thibodeaux is CEO and president of CompTIA, a non-profit trade association advancing the global interests of information technology (IT) professionals and businesses (www.comptia.org). Todd can be reached at tthibodeaux@comptia.org. David Valdez is the organization’s senior director of public advocacy. David can be reached at dvaldez@comptia.org.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Investment in knowledge workers critical to economic recovery
Posted by Mark Brousseau
One of the keys for economic recovery lies in aggressive investment in Social Business Systems designed to dramatically improve the productivity of middle tier knowledge workers.
That’s according to a new report by AIIM and noted author Geoffrey Moore (Dealing with Darwin, Crossing the Chasm, Inside the Tornado, The Gorilla Game and Living on the Fault Line).
These "Systems of Engagement" enhance the ability of knowledge workers to quickly cooperate with each other in order to improve operating flexibility and customer engagement, the report says.
"We have spent the past several decades of IT investment focused on deploying 'systems of record.' These systems accomplished two important things," notes Moore. "First, they centralized, standardized, and automated business transactions on a global basis, thereby better enabling world trade. Second, they gave top management a global view of the state of the business, thereby better enabling global business management. Spending on the Enterprise Content Management technologies that are at the core of Systems of Record will continue -- and will actually expand as these solutions become more available and relevant to small and mid-sized organizations. However, there is also a new and revolutionary wave of spending emerging on Systems of Engagement -- a wave focused directly on knowledge worker effectiveness and productivity. Social Business Systems are at the heart of Systems of Engagement."
According to AIIM Chair Lynn Fraas, Vice President of Crown Partners, "Social Business Systems provide a means for organizations to build on their investment in content management solutions. Increasingly, Systems of Record have become a necessary but not sufficient prerequisite for business success. In the future, organizations will differentiate themselves based on how well they deploy Social Business technologies to improve organizational flexibility and better engage customers. These Social Business technologies are transforming customer engagement through such consumer facing tools as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. They are simultaneously creating new models of employee and partner collaboration, cooperation and conversation within organizations -- models that will eventually replace e-mail as the primary means of internal collaboration."
According to Moore, "The first wave of spending left knowledge workers mostly on their own. We gave our workers laptops, connectivity, email, and the Office suite, and told them to go be more productive. The world of consumer social technology has given our workforces a taste of what is possible beyond this kind of rudimentary e-mail driven collaboration. Given the pressures that global business models are putting on collaboration and coordination across enterprise boundaries, the demand for increased capabilities is escalating rapidly. The implications of this for IT organizations and CIOs are revolutionary -- organizations need to quickly get in front of this curve or they run the risk of getting run over by it. We are on the cusp of a new wave of investment in Social Business Systems that will focus on providing knowledge workers with the tools to collaborate with a business purpose."
"We are not just talking about collaboration for collaboration's sake," concludes AIIM President John F. Mancini. "Nor are we talking about companies tentatively setting up Facebook fan sites or Twitter accounts to appear to be 'social.' We are talking about the strategic deployment of Social Business Systems that can help organizations improve the flexibility and responsiveness of their core processes and be more responsive to customers. As organizations implement these Social Business Systems, they need to meet three criteria: 1) How to do so quickly; 2) How to do so responsibly; and 3) How to do so in a way that achieves a business purpose."
What do you think?
One of the keys for economic recovery lies in aggressive investment in Social Business Systems designed to dramatically improve the productivity of middle tier knowledge workers.
That’s according to a new report by AIIM and noted author Geoffrey Moore (Dealing with Darwin, Crossing the Chasm, Inside the Tornado, The Gorilla Game and Living on the Fault Line).
These "Systems of Engagement" enhance the ability of knowledge workers to quickly cooperate with each other in order to improve operating flexibility and customer engagement, the report says.
"We have spent the past several decades of IT investment focused on deploying 'systems of record.' These systems accomplished two important things," notes Moore. "First, they centralized, standardized, and automated business transactions on a global basis, thereby better enabling world trade. Second, they gave top management a global view of the state of the business, thereby better enabling global business management. Spending on the Enterprise Content Management technologies that are at the core of Systems of Record will continue -- and will actually expand as these solutions become more available and relevant to small and mid-sized organizations. However, there is also a new and revolutionary wave of spending emerging on Systems of Engagement -- a wave focused directly on knowledge worker effectiveness and productivity. Social Business Systems are at the heart of Systems of Engagement."
According to AIIM Chair Lynn Fraas, Vice President of Crown Partners, "Social Business Systems provide a means for organizations to build on their investment in content management solutions. Increasingly, Systems of Record have become a necessary but not sufficient prerequisite for business success. In the future, organizations will differentiate themselves based on how well they deploy Social Business technologies to improve organizational flexibility and better engage customers. These Social Business technologies are transforming customer engagement through such consumer facing tools as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. They are simultaneously creating new models of employee and partner collaboration, cooperation and conversation within organizations -- models that will eventually replace e-mail as the primary means of internal collaboration."
According to Moore, "The first wave of spending left knowledge workers mostly on their own. We gave our workers laptops, connectivity, email, and the Office suite, and told them to go be more productive. The world of consumer social technology has given our workforces a taste of what is possible beyond this kind of rudimentary e-mail driven collaboration. Given the pressures that global business models are putting on collaboration and coordination across enterprise boundaries, the demand for increased capabilities is escalating rapidly. The implications of this for IT organizations and CIOs are revolutionary -- organizations need to quickly get in front of this curve or they run the risk of getting run over by it. We are on the cusp of a new wave of investment in Social Business Systems that will focus on providing knowledge workers with the tools to collaborate with a business purpose."
"We are not just talking about collaboration for collaboration's sake," concludes AIIM President John F. Mancini. "Nor are we talking about companies tentatively setting up Facebook fan sites or Twitter accounts to appear to be 'social.' We are talking about the strategic deployment of Social Business Systems that can help organizations improve the flexibility and responsiveness of their core processes and be more responsive to customers. As organizations implement these Social Business Systems, they need to meet three criteria: 1) How to do so quickly; 2) How to do so responsibly; and 3) How to do so in a way that achieves a business purpose."
What do you think?
Friday, September 24, 2010
10 Pitfalls to Avoid When Going Social
If you were to make a list of up-and-coming business trends, social media strategies would probably be near the top. Actually, scratch that "up-and-coming" part—social media is already here. However, thousands of companies are rushing headlong into the profile-creating, news-tweeting, blog-posting frenzy...only to find that their valiant efforts are not getting the results they had hoped. If you're looking for fans, followers, and friends to build a Social Nation around your business, don't panic, says Barry Libert. There is simple advice that will help businesses avoid the pitfalls and make a strong online impact.
"It's true: there are countless benefits to joining what I call the Social Nation revolution—but just like any strategy for growth, social media isn't foolproof," points out Libert, author of the new book Social Nation: How to Harness the Power of Social Media to Attract Customers, Motivate Employees, and Grow Your Business. "If you don't want your company's social strategy to fall flat, there are some guidelines you'll need to follow."
Libert knows what he's talking about. After all, he's the Chairman and CEO of Mzinga, a company that provides social software to businesses. Quite literally, it's his job to be social media savvy. And he's adamant that before you start building your own Social Nation, you need to have a well-researched game plan.
"When it comes to building a successful social network for your company, you need to understand that there's a lot of prep work to be done," he explains. "You can't just set up a Facebook profile for your company, tweet once or twice a day, and expect public interest in your company to shoot through the roof. Far from it, actually."
Think about it this way: if you were in charge of your company's booth at a trade show or conference, you wouldn't just slap your company's logo onto a piece of poster board, place your business cards on the table, and hope for the best, would you? Of course not. Yet that's exactly how some companies approach social media—and that's why so many of these initiatives fail.
"If you want to become a meaningful part of social conversations and interactions," explains Libert, "you've got to know who your target 'fan base' is, where they spend their time online, and what sorts of content and programming is valuable and relevant to them, and will foster their continued interest and participation. You also need to make sure you have the wherewithal to commit to growing and sustaining your Social Nation, and you've got to make sure that you have buy-in from within your company. And that's just for starters."
Sure, it may sound intimidating, but don't give up yet. Half the battle is knowing which mistakes not to make, and Libert, in the book Social Nation, is eager to share the top 10 social media pitfalls he's seen organizations fall victim to in the past. Read on to discover what they are:
Pitfall #1: Running a Social Nation like a traditional business. If you want to run a social company, you first need to understand that almost everything you do is a two-way street. That is to say, you're not going to prosper if your products and services are designed solely by folks on the inside. You need to embrace the perspectives and contributions of your employees, as well as those of customers and partners.
Pitfall #2: Underinvesting in social initiatives and abandoning them too soon. Understand that a Social Nation is organic—it won't materialize with a proverbial snap of the fingers. Early on, you'll need to invest a good deal of time, thought, and money in attracting fans and followers—and your efforts will need to be sustained. Only after you've built a firm foundation will your social network begin to sustain itself through participant contribution and recommendation.
Pitfall #3: Neglecting to find ways to encourage and inspire your Social Nation's followers and fans. When you stop to think about it, you'll realize that your fans and followers are essentially volunteering their time and energy to serve as developers, sounding boards, and advertisements for your company. So for goodness' sake, respect what they have to say and take their input to heart!
Pitfall #4: Relying on a "build-it-and-they-will-come" mentality. Ummm...you don't really think that launching a new website and firing off posts at various online networking hotspots will bring fans and followers flocking, do you? Of course not! To some extent—usually a large one—you'll need to purposefully reach out to potential community members and make it worth their while to accept your invitation.
Pitfall #5: Delaying the process of going social. Contrary to what you may wish, your company doesn't have the luxury of waiting until it's "convenient" to go social. Why? Well, you have competitors, right? And if you don't start gathering loyal followers and fans now, there's a good chance that some other company will woo them first.
Pitfall #6: Underestimating the power of a Social Nation. If you believe that social networking is just a window dressing that your company "needs" (but not really), then think again. Social media and community collaboration bring many benefits, including brand-building, customer loyalty and retention, cost reductions, improved productivity, and revenue growth.
Pitfall #7: Neglecting employees, partners, investors, or customers when building your Social Nation. Yes, set up a "focus group" of employees to serve as community leaders who will shepherd your company into the social networking world, but don't put all of the power in their hands. Social Nations are organic organizations, so the more people who are empowered to influence yours, the better.
Pitfall #8: Relying on traditional approaches when designing your Social Nation. A decade ago, you probably would have been horrified at the thought of releasing ideas and products into the hands of your customers before they were as complete as you could get them. With social networking, that monolithic approach is now becoming obsolete.
Pitfall #9: Developing your own social software and analytics solutions. You wouldn't dream of placing "remodeling the office" or "handling legal issues" in the Do It Yourself category, would you? Not too many would. Instead, you'd hire someone skilled in those areas. Do yourself a favor and use the same strategy when it comes to building your own Social Nation.
Pitfall #10: Getting caught without partners to help you succeed. Libert has alluded to this one before, but it bears specific emphasis: make sure that you truly treat your community members as partners, not just as fans or numbers. Yes, integrating into the social web (Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks) is key to your company's future success, but being connected to the social web is only a part of what you need to do. Shifting your business strategically, culturally, and operationally are key components to the equation.
What do you think?
"It's true: there are countless benefits to joining what I call the Social Nation revolution—but just like any strategy for growth, social media isn't foolproof," points out Libert, author of the new book Social Nation: How to Harness the Power of Social Media to Attract Customers, Motivate Employees, and Grow Your Business. "If you don't want your company's social strategy to fall flat, there are some guidelines you'll need to follow."
Libert knows what he's talking about. After all, he's the Chairman and CEO of Mzinga, a company that provides social software to businesses. Quite literally, it's his job to be social media savvy. And he's adamant that before you start building your own Social Nation, you need to have a well-researched game plan.
"When it comes to building a successful social network for your company, you need to understand that there's a lot of prep work to be done," he explains. "You can't just set up a Facebook profile for your company, tweet once or twice a day, and expect public interest in your company to shoot through the roof. Far from it, actually."
Think about it this way: if you were in charge of your company's booth at a trade show or conference, you wouldn't just slap your company's logo onto a piece of poster board, place your business cards on the table, and hope for the best, would you? Of course not. Yet that's exactly how some companies approach social media—and that's why so many of these initiatives fail.
"If you want to become a meaningful part of social conversations and interactions," explains Libert, "you've got to know who your target 'fan base' is, where they spend their time online, and what sorts of content and programming is valuable and relevant to them, and will foster their continued interest and participation. You also need to make sure you have the wherewithal to commit to growing and sustaining your Social Nation, and you've got to make sure that you have buy-in from within your company. And that's just for starters."
Sure, it may sound intimidating, but don't give up yet. Half the battle is knowing which mistakes not to make, and Libert, in the book Social Nation, is eager to share the top 10 social media pitfalls he's seen organizations fall victim to in the past. Read on to discover what they are:
Pitfall #1: Running a Social Nation like a traditional business. If you want to run a social company, you first need to understand that almost everything you do is a two-way street. That is to say, you're not going to prosper if your products and services are designed solely by folks on the inside. You need to embrace the perspectives and contributions of your employees, as well as those of customers and partners.
Pitfall #2: Underinvesting in social initiatives and abandoning them too soon. Understand that a Social Nation is organic—it won't materialize with a proverbial snap of the fingers. Early on, you'll need to invest a good deal of time, thought, and money in attracting fans and followers—and your efforts will need to be sustained. Only after you've built a firm foundation will your social network begin to sustain itself through participant contribution and recommendation.
Pitfall #3: Neglecting to find ways to encourage and inspire your Social Nation's followers and fans. When you stop to think about it, you'll realize that your fans and followers are essentially volunteering their time and energy to serve as developers, sounding boards, and advertisements for your company. So for goodness' sake, respect what they have to say and take their input to heart!
Pitfall #4: Relying on a "build-it-and-they-will-come" mentality. Ummm...you don't really think that launching a new website and firing off posts at various online networking hotspots will bring fans and followers flocking, do you? Of course not! To some extent—usually a large one—you'll need to purposefully reach out to potential community members and make it worth their while to accept your invitation.
Pitfall #5: Delaying the process of going social. Contrary to what you may wish, your company doesn't have the luxury of waiting until it's "convenient" to go social. Why? Well, you have competitors, right? And if you don't start gathering loyal followers and fans now, there's a good chance that some other company will woo them first.
Pitfall #6: Underestimating the power of a Social Nation. If you believe that social networking is just a window dressing that your company "needs" (but not really), then think again. Social media and community collaboration bring many benefits, including brand-building, customer loyalty and retention, cost reductions, improved productivity, and revenue growth.
Pitfall #7: Neglecting employees, partners, investors, or customers when building your Social Nation. Yes, set up a "focus group" of employees to serve as community leaders who will shepherd your company into the social networking world, but don't put all of the power in their hands. Social Nations are organic organizations, so the more people who are empowered to influence yours, the better.
Pitfall #8: Relying on traditional approaches when designing your Social Nation. A decade ago, you probably would have been horrified at the thought of releasing ideas and products into the hands of your customers before they were as complete as you could get them. With social networking, that monolithic approach is now becoming obsolete.
Pitfall #9: Developing your own social software and analytics solutions. You wouldn't dream of placing "remodeling the office" or "handling legal issues" in the Do It Yourself category, would you? Not too many would. Instead, you'd hire someone skilled in those areas. Do yourself a favor and use the same strategy when it comes to building your own Social Nation.
Pitfall #10: Getting caught without partners to help you succeed. Libert has alluded to this one before, but it bears specific emphasis: make sure that you truly treat your community members as partners, not just as fans or numbers. Yes, integrating into the social web (Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks) is key to your company's future success, but being connected to the social web is only a part of what you need to do. Shifting your business strategically, culturally, and operationally are key components to the equation.
What do you think?
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
World of work is changing fast
Posted by Mark Brousseau
The world of today is dramatically different from 20 years ago and with the lines between work and non-work already badly frayed, Gartner predicts that the nature of work will witness 10 key changes through 2020. Organizations will need to plan for increasingly chaotic environments that are out of their direct control, and adaptation must involve adjusting to all 10 of the trends.
“Work will become less routine, characterized by increased volatility, hyperconnectedness, 'swarming' and more,” said Tom Austin, vice president and Gartner fellow. By 2015, 40 percent or more of an organization’s work will be ‘non-routine’, up from 25 percent in 2010. “People will swarm more often and work solo less. They’ll work with others with whom they have few links, and teams will include people outside the control of the organization,” he added. “In addition, simulation, visualisation and unification technologies, working across yottabytes of data per second, will demand an emphasis on new perceptual skills.”
Organizations will need to determine which of the 10 key changes in the nature of work will affect them, and consider whether radically different technology governance models will be required.
1. De-routinization of Work
The core value that people add is not in the processes that can be automated, but in non-routine processes, uniquely human, analytical or interactive contributions that result in words such as discovery, innovation, teaming, leading, selling and learning. Non-routine skills are those we cannot automate. For example, we cannot automate the process of selling a life insurance policy to a skeptical buyer, but we can use automation tools to augment the selling process.
2. Work Swarms
Swarming is a work style characterized by a flurry of collective activity by anyone and everyone conceivably available and able to add value. Gartner identifies two phenomena within the collective activity; Teaming (instead of solo performances) will be valued and rewarded more and occur more frequently and a new form of teaming, which Gartner calls swarming, to distinguish it from more historical teaming models, is emerging. Teams have historically consisted of people who have worked together before and who know each other reasonably well, often working in the same organization and for the same manager. Swarms form quickly, attacking a problem or opportunity and then quickly dissipating. Swarming is an agile response to an observed increase in ad hoc action requirements, as ad hoc activities continue to displace structured, bureaucratic situations.
3. Weak Links
In swarms, if individuals know each other at all, it may be just barely, via weak links. Weak links are the cues people can pick up from people who know the people they have to work with. They are indirect indicators and rely, in part, on the confidence others have in their knowledge of people. Navigating one's own personal, professional and social networks helps people develop and exploit both strong and weak links and that, in turn, will be crucial to surviving and exploiting swarms for business benefit.
4. Working With the Collective
There are informal groups of people, outside the direct control of the organization, who can impact the success or failure of the organization. These informal groups are bound together by a common interest, a fad or a historical accident, as described by Gartner as “the collective.” Smart business executives discern how to live in a business ecosystem they cannot control; one they can only influence. The influence process requires understanding the collectives that potentially influence their organization, as well as the key people in those external groups. Gathering market intelligence via the collective is crucial. Equally important is figuring out how to use the collective to define segments, markets, products and various business strategies.
5. Work Sketch-Ups
Most non-routine processes will also be highly informal. It is very important that organizations try to capture the criteria used in making decisions but, at least for now, Gartner does not expect most non-routine processes to follow meaningful standard patterns. Over time, we believe that work patterns for more non-routine work will emerge, justifying a light-handed approach to collecting activity information, but it will take years before a real return on investment for this effort is visible. In the meantime, the process models for most non-routine processes will remain simple "sketch-ups," created on the fly.
6. Spontaneous Work
This property is also implied in Gartner’s description of work swarms. Spontaneity implies more than reactive activity, for example, to the emergence of new patterns. It also contains proactive work such as seeking out new opportunities and creating new designs and models.
7. Simulation and Experimentation
Active engagement with simulated environments (virtual environments), which are similar to technologies depicted in the film Minority Report, will come to replace drilling into cells in spreadsheets. This suggests the use of n-dimensional virtual representations of all different sorts of data. The contents of the simulated environment will be assembled by agent technologies that determine what materials go together based on watching people work with this content. People will interact with the data and actively manipulate various parameters reshaping the world they’re looking at.
8. Pattern Sensitivity
Gartner has published a major line of research on Pattern-Based Strategy. The business world is becoming more volatile, affording people working off of linear models based on past performance far less visibility into the future than ever before. Gartner expects to see a significant growth in the number of organizations that create groups specifically charged with detecting divergent emerging patterns, evaluating those patterns, developing various scenarios for how the disruption might play out and proposing to senior executives new ways of exploiting (or protecting the organization from) the changes to which they are now more sensitive.
9. Hyperconnected
Hyperconnectedness is a property of most organizations, existing within networks of networks, unable to completely control any of them. While key supply chain elements, for example, may be "under contract," there is no guarantee it will perform properly, not even if the supply chain is in-house. Hyperconnectedness will lead to a push for more work to occur in both formal and informal relationships across enterprise boundaries, and that has implications for how people work and how IT supports or augments that work.
10. My Place
The workplace is becoming more and more virtual, with meetings occurring across time zones and organizations and with participants who barely know each other, working on swarms attacking rapidly emerging problems. But the employee will still have a "place" where they work. Many will have neither a company-provided physical office nor a desk, and their work will increasingly happen 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In this work environment, the lines between personal, professional, social and family matters, along with organization subjects, will disappear. Individuals, of course, need to manage the complexity created by overlapping demands, whether from the new world of work or from external (non-work-related) phenomena. Those that cannot manage the underlying "expectation and interrupt overloads" will suffer performance deficits as these overloads force individuals to operate in an over-stimulated (information-overload) state.
The world of today is dramatically different from 20 years ago and with the lines between work and non-work already badly frayed, Gartner predicts that the nature of work will witness 10 key changes through 2020. Organizations will need to plan for increasingly chaotic environments that are out of their direct control, and adaptation must involve adjusting to all 10 of the trends.
“Work will become less routine, characterized by increased volatility, hyperconnectedness, 'swarming' and more,” said Tom Austin, vice president and Gartner fellow. By 2015, 40 percent or more of an organization’s work will be ‘non-routine’, up from 25 percent in 2010. “People will swarm more often and work solo less. They’ll work with others with whom they have few links, and teams will include people outside the control of the organization,” he added. “In addition, simulation, visualisation and unification technologies, working across yottabytes of data per second, will demand an emphasis on new perceptual skills.”
Organizations will need to determine which of the 10 key changes in the nature of work will affect them, and consider whether radically different technology governance models will be required.
1. De-routinization of Work
The core value that people add is not in the processes that can be automated, but in non-routine processes, uniquely human, analytical or interactive contributions that result in words such as discovery, innovation, teaming, leading, selling and learning. Non-routine skills are those we cannot automate. For example, we cannot automate the process of selling a life insurance policy to a skeptical buyer, but we can use automation tools to augment the selling process.
2. Work Swarms
Swarming is a work style characterized by a flurry of collective activity by anyone and everyone conceivably available and able to add value. Gartner identifies two phenomena within the collective activity; Teaming (instead of solo performances) will be valued and rewarded more and occur more frequently and a new form of teaming, which Gartner calls swarming, to distinguish it from more historical teaming models, is emerging. Teams have historically consisted of people who have worked together before and who know each other reasonably well, often working in the same organization and for the same manager. Swarms form quickly, attacking a problem or opportunity and then quickly dissipating. Swarming is an agile response to an observed increase in ad hoc action requirements, as ad hoc activities continue to displace structured, bureaucratic situations.
3. Weak Links
In swarms, if individuals know each other at all, it may be just barely, via weak links. Weak links are the cues people can pick up from people who know the people they have to work with. They are indirect indicators and rely, in part, on the confidence others have in their knowledge of people. Navigating one's own personal, professional and social networks helps people develop and exploit both strong and weak links and that, in turn, will be crucial to surviving and exploiting swarms for business benefit.
4. Working With the Collective
There are informal groups of people, outside the direct control of the organization, who can impact the success or failure of the organization. These informal groups are bound together by a common interest, a fad or a historical accident, as described by Gartner as “the collective.” Smart business executives discern how to live in a business ecosystem they cannot control; one they can only influence. The influence process requires understanding the collectives that potentially influence their organization, as well as the key people in those external groups. Gathering market intelligence via the collective is crucial. Equally important is figuring out how to use the collective to define segments, markets, products and various business strategies.
5. Work Sketch-Ups
Most non-routine processes will also be highly informal. It is very important that organizations try to capture the criteria used in making decisions but, at least for now, Gartner does not expect most non-routine processes to follow meaningful standard patterns. Over time, we believe that work patterns for more non-routine work will emerge, justifying a light-handed approach to collecting activity information, but it will take years before a real return on investment for this effort is visible. In the meantime, the process models for most non-routine processes will remain simple "sketch-ups," created on the fly.
6. Spontaneous Work
This property is also implied in Gartner’s description of work swarms. Spontaneity implies more than reactive activity, for example, to the emergence of new patterns. It also contains proactive work such as seeking out new opportunities and creating new designs and models.
7. Simulation and Experimentation
Active engagement with simulated environments (virtual environments), which are similar to technologies depicted in the film Minority Report, will come to replace drilling into cells in spreadsheets. This suggests the use of n-dimensional virtual representations of all different sorts of data. The contents of the simulated environment will be assembled by agent technologies that determine what materials go together based on watching people work with this content. People will interact with the data and actively manipulate various parameters reshaping the world they’re looking at.
8. Pattern Sensitivity
Gartner has published a major line of research on Pattern-Based Strategy. The business world is becoming more volatile, affording people working off of linear models based on past performance far less visibility into the future than ever before. Gartner expects to see a significant growth in the number of organizations that create groups specifically charged with detecting divergent emerging patterns, evaluating those patterns, developing various scenarios for how the disruption might play out and proposing to senior executives new ways of exploiting (or protecting the organization from) the changes to which they are now more sensitive.
9. Hyperconnected
Hyperconnectedness is a property of most organizations, existing within networks of networks, unable to completely control any of them. While key supply chain elements, for example, may be "under contract," there is no guarantee it will perform properly, not even if the supply chain is in-house. Hyperconnectedness will lead to a push for more work to occur in both formal and informal relationships across enterprise boundaries, and that has implications for how people work and how IT supports or augments that work.
10. My Place
The workplace is becoming more and more virtual, with meetings occurring across time zones and organizations and with participants who barely know each other, working on swarms attacking rapidly emerging problems. But the employee will still have a "place" where they work. Many will have neither a company-provided physical office nor a desk, and their work will increasingly happen 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In this work environment, the lines between personal, professional, social and family matters, along with organization subjects, will disappear. Individuals, of course, need to manage the complexity created by overlapping demands, whether from the new world of work or from external (non-work-related) phenomena. Those that cannot manage the underlying "expectation and interrupt overloads" will suffer performance deficits as these overloads force individuals to operate in an over-stimulated (information-overload) state.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Economic risks of data overload
By Ed Pearce (epearce@egisticsinc.com) of eGistics (www.eGisticsinc.com)
When data pours in by the millisecond and the mountain of information builds continuously, professionals inevitably cut corners and go with their 'gut' when making decisions that can impact financial markets, medical treatments or any number of time sensitive matters, according to a new study from Thomson Reuters. The study indicates that when faced with unsorted, unverified "raw" data, 60 percent of decision-makers will make "intuitive" decisions that can lead to poor outcomes.
Many government regulators have flagged increased financial risk-taking, which can be traced in some degree to imperfectly managed data, as a contributor to the recent financial crisis. Moreover, the world is awash with data -- roughly 800 exabytes -- and the velocity of information is increasing, Thomson Reuters says.
The challenge is that the staffing and investment needed to ensure that information and information channels are trusted, reliable and useful is not keeping pace. In fact, it is estimated that the information universe will increase by a factor of 44; the number of managed files by a factor of 67; storage by a factor of 30 but staffing and investment in careful management by a factor of 1.4.
"The solution to data overload is to provide decision makers with what Thomson Reuters calls Intelligent Information: better organized and structured information, rapidly conveyed to the users preferred device," says David Craig, executive vice president and chief strategy officer.
Fortunately, as the Thomson Reuters study notes, the same technological revolution that has resulted in the explosion of information also opens the way to new and improved tools for providing intelligent information: better organized and structured information, rapidly conveyed to the user's preferred device.
"We must use the benefits of the information technology revolution to minimize its risks. This is a joint task that the private sector and governments must closely focus on if we are to avoid systemic crises, in the future, whether we speak of finance, healthcare delivery, international security and a myriad of other areas," comments Craig.
How is your organization managing information overload?
When data pours in by the millisecond and the mountain of information builds continuously, professionals inevitably cut corners and go with their 'gut' when making decisions that can impact financial markets, medical treatments or any number of time sensitive matters, according to a new study from Thomson Reuters. The study indicates that when faced with unsorted, unverified "raw" data, 60 percent of decision-makers will make "intuitive" decisions that can lead to poor outcomes.
Many government regulators have flagged increased financial risk-taking, which can be traced in some degree to imperfectly managed data, as a contributor to the recent financial crisis. Moreover, the world is awash with data -- roughly 800 exabytes -- and the velocity of information is increasing, Thomson Reuters says.
The challenge is that the staffing and investment needed to ensure that information and information channels are trusted, reliable and useful is not keeping pace. In fact, it is estimated that the information universe will increase by a factor of 44; the number of managed files by a factor of 67; storage by a factor of 30 but staffing and investment in careful management by a factor of 1.4.
"The solution to data overload is to provide decision makers with what Thomson Reuters calls Intelligent Information: better organized and structured information, rapidly conveyed to the users preferred device," says David Craig, executive vice president and chief strategy officer.
Fortunately, as the Thomson Reuters study notes, the same technological revolution that has resulted in the explosion of information also opens the way to new and improved tools for providing intelligent information: better organized and structured information, rapidly conveyed to the user's preferred device.
"We must use the benefits of the information technology revolution to minimize its risks. This is a joint task that the private sector and governments must closely focus on if we are to avoid systemic crises, in the future, whether we speak of finance, healthcare delivery, international security and a myriad of other areas," comments Craig.
How is your organization managing information overload?
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Recession Will Leave Its Mark
Posted by Mark Brousseau
The impact of the economic downturn has clearly been significant, however not all companies are equally affected by the recession, according to a study of executives at 570 leading global companies by Ernst & Young LLP. The comparisons with a similar study in January also reveal that while the white heat of the crisis has passed, the majority of companies are still focused on survival. However, a significant minority are looking to take advantage of the situation to pursue new opportunities.
The study finds nearly half of those surveyed (43%) said that their operating model had been permanently altered by the events of the last 18 months. A further 45% said there had been a temporary impact. Similarly 56% of the executives said that their risk management processes had been permanently altered, 33% temporarily. For 45% the regulatory framework for business had also fundamentally changed.
Other alterations to their business model – price sensitivity, profitability, competitive sensitivity and economic stability were viewed by respondents as more temporary although a significant minority – above 20% in each case – viewed the changes here as permanent as well.
“The impact of the market changes has clearly been significant and some business models have changed radically,” said Michael Rogers, Principal, Transaction Advisory Services, Ernst & Young LLP. “Company management is being forced to review their methods of organization due to a range of macro influences such as challenges from diversification, globalization, and (de)regulation. Businesses that emerge strengthened from the current crisis will be those that reshape intelligently, not those tempted to move quickly to extract additional value. ”
It is still really tough out there
Ernst & Young LLP carried out a similar study five months ago. The corporates Ernst & Young talked to then, and the thousands of companies it has discussed the research with since, are still seeing huge competition on price. Companies are still seeing significant numbers of bankruptcies and competitors withdrawing from their sector, but there was also an increase in those organizations reporting new entrants in their sector.
The overall mood is still somber. Although 64% of executives said they had been able to make cost reductions, 31% said they had improved revenues and more than a third said the environment was more positive in terms of making strategic acquisitions. A majority of executives had seen deterioration in revenues (58%) and profitability (56%). Only 20% had seen an improvement in investor confidence, and a similar low number saw any improvement in accessing affordable capital or credit.
“Perverse as it may seem, a period of crisis can provide an opportunity to drive change more rapidly and effectively than a period of prosperity,” noted Rogers of Ernst & Young LLP. “Company leaders are finding ways to take advantage of this economic climate. This survey shows 25% of companies are actively planning for growth, 34% are seeking strategic alliances and 36% plan to enter new geographies.”
Are we past the worst? A slight shift in emphasis from the responses from January gives some credence to the thinking that the worst ravages of the recession are behind us. At the time of the last study 82% said the focus of their business was on restructuring their business to deal with the recession and 74% were looking merely at survival of the present operations.
Those figures have declined to 74% and 65% - still remarkably high - but in conjunction with the fact that the proportion of companies who said that they were “taking advantage of the recession to pursue new market operations” had increased from 59% to 69% - suggest there are some more companies out there bargain basement hunting.
Cash is actually tighter
Back in January over a quarter of executives said cash was not an issue. That proportion has slipped to 18%. Respondents also highlighted an increase in communications to lenders and rating agencies. There was however less talk of companies disposing of assets purely to raise cash.
“Working capital is the lifeblood of a company, and the ability to manage it becomes even more important in a downturn due to falling revenue and restricted access to funds,” said Kevin Cole, Americas Accounts & Business Development Leader, Ernst & Young LLP. “Companies need to secure their position by identifying and resolving critical issues quickly to protect against value erosion, or to be well placed to take advantage of opportunities.”
How have companies responded in the short term?Over the last year 86% of executives said they had accelerated cost reduction programs, 52% had speeded up their restructuring plans and 38% had pushed the button on a “significant employee reduction program.” When asked about their key drivers in the short term there was increased scrutiny on profitability (73%), pricing strategy (55%) and their relationship with customers (52%). Internally it was no surprise that 38% had seen more investment in risk.What’s next in the longer term?In terms of looking post-recession, executives were pretty evenly split between expanding into new geographies, increased use of strategic alliances, acquisitions and speed to market and divesting non-core business. “Companies that maintain a sustainable business model through the current downturn will not only survive the downturn, but will emerge stronger and in the best position to take advantage of new growth opportunities as the economy improves,” said Cole of Ernst & Young LLP.
“The bottom line is, that in both good and bad economic conditions, successful organizations are those that have clarity around their proposition, strategic direction and brand positioning,” said Donna Campbell, Americas Advisory Performance Improvement Leader, Ernst & Young LLP. “A successful company also has an effective management information capability that is aligned with the business strategy to enable agility in responding to market or other environmental changes.”
What do you think?
The impact of the economic downturn has clearly been significant, however not all companies are equally affected by the recession, according to a study of executives at 570 leading global companies by Ernst & Young LLP. The comparisons with a similar study in January also reveal that while the white heat of the crisis has passed, the majority of companies are still focused on survival. However, a significant minority are looking to take advantage of the situation to pursue new opportunities.
The study finds nearly half of those surveyed (43%) said that their operating model had been permanently altered by the events of the last 18 months. A further 45% said there had been a temporary impact. Similarly 56% of the executives said that their risk management processes had been permanently altered, 33% temporarily. For 45% the regulatory framework for business had also fundamentally changed.
Other alterations to their business model – price sensitivity, profitability, competitive sensitivity and economic stability were viewed by respondents as more temporary although a significant minority – above 20% in each case – viewed the changes here as permanent as well.
“The impact of the market changes has clearly been significant and some business models have changed radically,” said Michael Rogers, Principal, Transaction Advisory Services, Ernst & Young LLP. “Company management is being forced to review their methods of organization due to a range of macro influences such as challenges from diversification, globalization, and (de)regulation. Businesses that emerge strengthened from the current crisis will be those that reshape intelligently, not those tempted to move quickly to extract additional value. ”
It is still really tough out there
Ernst & Young LLP carried out a similar study five months ago. The corporates Ernst & Young talked to then, and the thousands of companies it has discussed the research with since, are still seeing huge competition on price. Companies are still seeing significant numbers of bankruptcies and competitors withdrawing from their sector, but there was also an increase in those organizations reporting new entrants in their sector.
The overall mood is still somber. Although 64% of executives said they had been able to make cost reductions, 31% said they had improved revenues and more than a third said the environment was more positive in terms of making strategic acquisitions. A majority of executives had seen deterioration in revenues (58%) and profitability (56%). Only 20% had seen an improvement in investor confidence, and a similar low number saw any improvement in accessing affordable capital or credit.
“Perverse as it may seem, a period of crisis can provide an opportunity to drive change more rapidly and effectively than a period of prosperity,” noted Rogers of Ernst & Young LLP. “Company leaders are finding ways to take advantage of this economic climate. This survey shows 25% of companies are actively planning for growth, 34% are seeking strategic alliances and 36% plan to enter new geographies.”
Are we past the worst? A slight shift in emphasis from the responses from January gives some credence to the thinking that the worst ravages of the recession are behind us. At the time of the last study 82% said the focus of their business was on restructuring their business to deal with the recession and 74% were looking merely at survival of the present operations.
Those figures have declined to 74% and 65% - still remarkably high - but in conjunction with the fact that the proportion of companies who said that they were “taking advantage of the recession to pursue new market operations” had increased from 59% to 69% - suggest there are some more companies out there bargain basement hunting.
Cash is actually tighter
Back in January over a quarter of executives said cash was not an issue. That proportion has slipped to 18%. Respondents also highlighted an increase in communications to lenders and rating agencies. There was however less talk of companies disposing of assets purely to raise cash.
“Working capital is the lifeblood of a company, and the ability to manage it becomes even more important in a downturn due to falling revenue and restricted access to funds,” said Kevin Cole, Americas Accounts & Business Development Leader, Ernst & Young LLP. “Companies need to secure their position by identifying and resolving critical issues quickly to protect against value erosion, or to be well placed to take advantage of opportunities.”
How have companies responded in the short term?Over the last year 86% of executives said they had accelerated cost reduction programs, 52% had speeded up their restructuring plans and 38% had pushed the button on a “significant employee reduction program.” When asked about their key drivers in the short term there was increased scrutiny on profitability (73%), pricing strategy (55%) and their relationship with customers (52%). Internally it was no surprise that 38% had seen more investment in risk.What’s next in the longer term?In terms of looking post-recession, executives were pretty evenly split between expanding into new geographies, increased use of strategic alliances, acquisitions and speed to market and divesting non-core business. “Companies that maintain a sustainable business model through the current downturn will not only survive the downturn, but will emerge stronger and in the best position to take advantage of new growth opportunities as the economy improves,” said Cole of Ernst & Young LLP.
“The bottom line is, that in both good and bad economic conditions, successful organizations are those that have clarity around their proposition, strategic direction and brand positioning,” said Donna Campbell, Americas Advisory Performance Improvement Leader, Ernst & Young LLP. “A successful company also has an effective management information capability that is aligned with the business strategy to enable agility in responding to market or other environmental changes.”
What do you think?
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
How BI Should Work
By Mark Brousseau
Kevin Quinn, vice president of product marketing at Information Builders (www.informationbuilders.com), says that there are three levels of business intelligence: strategic, analytical and operational.
The strategic level helps companies monitor performance and communicate strategy. The analytical level isolates information to identify the good and the bad and provide historical trends, as well as forecasts. And the operational level helps automate and accelerate business processes.
These three levels of business work in conjunction with one another to drive business improvements. The trouble is that most organizations implement them as completely separate initiatives, Quinn said today during a presentation at the Gartner Business Intelligence Summit 2009 in Washington, D.C.
For instance, many organizations implement performance management and scorecards at the highest level of the organization, but never bring them down, Quinn said. In fact, Quinn cited a survey showing that most organizations have deployed business intelligence capabilities to fewer than 20 percent of their internal users. That’s a problem since 80 percent of the world’s data resides outside of the data warehouse, Quinn said. “This means that there is no direction at the middle levels of the company. People have to shoot blind and hope for the best,” he said. “Operations will never know if it is working on the right things if it isn’t getting direction from analytical business intelligence.”
“This isn’t how business intelligence should work,” Quinn said. “Companies are neglecting what they can do at the bottom levels of their organizations or the front lines, which is where they can get the highest return on investment. It’s only when you take action at the operational level that you get the largest benefits. Companies should have the three levels of business intelligence work together.”
What do you think? Post your comments below.
Kevin Quinn, vice president of product marketing at Information Builders (www.informationbuilders.com), says that there are three levels of business intelligence: strategic, analytical and operational.
The strategic level helps companies monitor performance and communicate strategy. The analytical level isolates information to identify the good and the bad and provide historical trends, as well as forecasts. And the operational level helps automate and accelerate business processes.
These three levels of business work in conjunction with one another to drive business improvements. The trouble is that most organizations implement them as completely separate initiatives, Quinn said today during a presentation at the Gartner Business Intelligence Summit 2009 in Washington, D.C.
For instance, many organizations implement performance management and scorecards at the highest level of the organization, but never bring them down, Quinn said. In fact, Quinn cited a survey showing that most organizations have deployed business intelligence capabilities to fewer than 20 percent of their internal users. That’s a problem since 80 percent of the world’s data resides outside of the data warehouse, Quinn said. “This means that there is no direction at the middle levels of the company. People have to shoot blind and hope for the best,” he said. “Operations will never know if it is working on the right things if it isn’t getting direction from analytical business intelligence.”
“This isn’t how business intelligence should work,” Quinn said. “Companies are neglecting what they can do at the bottom levels of their organizations or the front lines, which is where they can get the highest return on investment. It’s only when you take action at the operational level that you get the largest benefits. Companies should have the three levels of business intelligence work together.”
What do you think? Post your comments below.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Stopping Information Overload
By Mark Brousseau
Should I disconnect the cell phone? Boycott voice mail? Throw the PDA out the window? As a chaotic 2008 comes to a close and workers resolve to regain sanity in 2009, Xerox Corporation is offering nine tips to help save time and manage information overload.
Breathe. It may sound simple, but not enough people take the time to do it. So schedule breaks into your daily working routine. It helps productivity - even stepping away from your desk for a moment. Even a quick nap helps you regenerate and be more productive. Research supports this, we swear.
Simplify Your Schedule. Try scheduling all of your meetings on specific days so you have more time on non-meeting days to process information coming in - it's much easier to focus when you don't have a meeting looming in 20 minutes.
Back It Up. No information is worse than too much. Make sure you have a solution in place for regular back-up.
De-clutter Your Desktop (both of them). File, pile or toss papers as soon as you receive them. Scan and save important documents to reduce desktop clutter instead of filing. On your computer, consider getting rid of folders altogether and using desktop search engines to find things when you need them.
Touch it Once. Often we waste time dealing with the same piece of information again and again. Respond as soon as you receive it, put it in its file or delete it/shred it the first time you touch it.
Forget the Free Stuff. It comes at a price (e-mail garbage and unsolicited offers). Choose quality over quantity. Manage your bills and accounts online and sign up for the do not call lists and the no junk mail lists.
Use Your Tools. Make use of your phone for getting the right info at the right time. For instance, you don't have to waste time printing maps if you can access them from your phone. GPS phones have the smarts to give you the right information based on your actual location.
RSS Reprieve. Sign up for an aggregator. It helps you see all your news in one place.
Manage Mobile Madness. Use a mobile device with e-mail support to make hours way from your desk more productive. Keeping track of e-mail throughout the day can help you anticipate future work, and take care of mini-projects as they arise instead of waiting until later to sift through a huge pile of e-mail.
"Tackling information overload is important for most global businesses today, tomorrow and five years from now," said Jenny Perotti, ethnographer in the Xerox Innovation Group.
Should I disconnect the cell phone? Boycott voice mail? Throw the PDA out the window? As a chaotic 2008 comes to a close and workers resolve to regain sanity in 2009, Xerox Corporation is offering nine tips to help save time and manage information overload.
Breathe. It may sound simple, but not enough people take the time to do it. So schedule breaks into your daily working routine. It helps productivity - even stepping away from your desk for a moment. Even a quick nap helps you regenerate and be more productive. Research supports this, we swear.
Simplify Your Schedule. Try scheduling all of your meetings on specific days so you have more time on non-meeting days to process information coming in - it's much easier to focus when you don't have a meeting looming in 20 minutes.
Back It Up. No information is worse than too much. Make sure you have a solution in place for regular back-up.
De-clutter Your Desktop (both of them). File, pile or toss papers as soon as you receive them. Scan and save important documents to reduce desktop clutter instead of filing. On your computer, consider getting rid of folders altogether and using desktop search engines to find things when you need them.
Touch it Once. Often we waste time dealing with the same piece of information again and again. Respond as soon as you receive it, put it in its file or delete it/shred it the first time you touch it.
Forget the Free Stuff. It comes at a price (e-mail garbage and unsolicited offers). Choose quality over quantity. Manage your bills and accounts online and sign up for the do not call lists and the no junk mail lists.
Use Your Tools. Make use of your phone for getting the right info at the right time. For instance, you don't have to waste time printing maps if you can access them from your phone. GPS phones have the smarts to give you the right information based on your actual location.
RSS Reprieve. Sign up for an aggregator. It helps you see all your news in one place.
Manage Mobile Madness. Use a mobile device with e-mail support to make hours way from your desk more productive. Keeping track of e-mail throughout the day can help you anticipate future work, and take care of mini-projects as they arise instead of waiting until later to sift through a huge pile of e-mail.
"Tackling information overload is important for most global businesses today, tomorrow and five years from now," said Jenny Perotti, ethnographer in the Xerox Innovation Group.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Green Information Management
By Mark Brousseau
Reduce, reuse, recycle is the green mantra that gained a lot of currency in the 1980s. Today, a large number of enterprises are aggressively pursuing 3R policies, covering everything from paper usage and disposal practices to energy usage and water consumption.
As Green IT moves from the notion of a paperless office into a mainstream corporate social responsibility, CIOs are now also identifying ways in which to minimize the corporate carbon footprint and at the same time achieve their strategic business objectives.
Stuart Butts, a founding member and director of Xenos Group, Inc., says there is, however, one other area that demands equal consideration by organizations: managing structured and unstructured data and documents. Very often enterprises will hold the same information in a variety of different electronic formats and in different physical locations to meet different requirements, Butts notes. Multiple silos of information in technologically incompatible systems mean that information cannot be shared in real time. In addition, this approach consumes inordinate amounts of storage space and the associated costs that go with that.
With the explosive growth in data and documents, Butts says the time has come to apply reduce, reuse and recycle thinking to electronic business information. Embracing a more strategic, ‘green’ approach to information management will deliver a number of benefits, not the least of which is a dramatic reduction in the cost and complexity of power-consuming storage requirements, he believes.
Butts says there are a number of specific offerings that can help to reduce storage demands by eliminating redundancy and simplifying access to business critical information in real time. These include archiving, content migration and consolidation tools that enable real-time, on-demand transformation of customer statements and other key documents contained in electronic print files to PDFs for ePresentment.
By eliminating the constraints imposed by incompatible hardware or software platforms and disparate data and document archives, Xenos has helped organizations to reduce, reuse and recycle their data and documents to lower costs and improve information flow, Butts notes.
On-demand transformation to PDF format allows organizations to eliminate the unnecessary storage of large, graphically rich files, while streamlining version control with a technique known as “document resource optimization”. For some, this approach has effectively reduced storage requirements by as much as 90 percent, Butts says. Given that many large enterprises are spending as much as 70 percent of their IT budgets on their storage infrastructures, it’s time to apply reduce, reuse, and recycle thinking to data and storage needs, he adds.
Reduce, reuse, recycle is the green mantra that gained a lot of currency in the 1980s. Today, a large number of enterprises are aggressively pursuing 3R policies, covering everything from paper usage and disposal practices to energy usage and water consumption.
As Green IT moves from the notion of a paperless office into a mainstream corporate social responsibility, CIOs are now also identifying ways in which to minimize the corporate carbon footprint and at the same time achieve their strategic business objectives.
Stuart Butts, a founding member and director of Xenos Group, Inc., says there is, however, one other area that demands equal consideration by organizations: managing structured and unstructured data and documents. Very often enterprises will hold the same information in a variety of different electronic formats and in different physical locations to meet different requirements, Butts notes. Multiple silos of information in technologically incompatible systems mean that information cannot be shared in real time. In addition, this approach consumes inordinate amounts of storage space and the associated costs that go with that.
With the explosive growth in data and documents, Butts says the time has come to apply reduce, reuse and recycle thinking to electronic business information. Embracing a more strategic, ‘green’ approach to information management will deliver a number of benefits, not the least of which is a dramatic reduction in the cost and complexity of power-consuming storage requirements, he believes.
Butts says there are a number of specific offerings that can help to reduce storage demands by eliminating redundancy and simplifying access to business critical information in real time. These include archiving, content migration and consolidation tools that enable real-time, on-demand transformation of customer statements and other key documents contained in electronic print files to PDFs for ePresentment.
By eliminating the constraints imposed by incompatible hardware or software platforms and disparate data and document archives, Xenos has helped organizations to reduce, reuse and recycle their data and documents to lower costs and improve information flow, Butts notes.
On-demand transformation to PDF format allows organizations to eliminate the unnecessary storage of large, graphically rich files, while streamlining version control with a technique known as “document resource optimization”. For some, this approach has effectively reduced storage requirements by as much as 90 percent, Butts says. Given that many large enterprises are spending as much as 70 percent of their IT budgets on their storage infrastructures, it’s time to apply reduce, reuse, and recycle thinking to data and storage needs, he adds.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Companies Require Fast ROI
By Mark Brousseau
Russ Stalters, Information/Records Manager for BP America has a message for data capture solutions vendors: if your solution can’t solve an end-user’s business problem, or can’t help solve a problem, don’t even bother pitching it to the end-user.
Stalters spoke during AIIM's 33rd Annual Document Management Service Providers Executive Forum in Austin last week.
In light of the current economic situation, end-users are solely focused on solving current problems, and achieving significant hard dollar savings. "Going into next year, companies like us will be head count constrained, and we're going to be looking for solutions to help us reduce costs and improve efficiency," Stalters said.
Similarly, if your data capture solution can’t deliver ROI in a year, forget it. “Companies like BP America simply aren’t looking at anything with a long-term ROI,” Stalters says. "We need vendor solutions to add value quickly and easily."
“Because of the economy, we are not going to be making big capital investments,"Stalters says. "And if I’m going to tell a business unit about an information management solution, and it doesn’t deliver hard-dollar savings, they don’t want to hear it. When you can prove it can solve a business problem, and deliver hard dollar savings, it will fly.”
As a result of the focus on fast payback, data capture solutions must also be up and running a quarter, or two quarters tops. “Business leaders are driven by time-to-market,” Stalters says. “And they are looking for ways to differentiate themselves from their competition.”
What do you think? Post your comments below.
Russ Stalters, Information/Records Manager for BP America has a message for data capture solutions vendors: if your solution can’t solve an end-user’s business problem, or can’t help solve a problem, don’t even bother pitching it to the end-user.
Stalters spoke during AIIM's 33rd Annual Document Management Service Providers Executive Forum in Austin last week.
In light of the current economic situation, end-users are solely focused on solving current problems, and achieving significant hard dollar savings. "Going into next year, companies like us will be head count constrained, and we're going to be looking for solutions to help us reduce costs and improve efficiency," Stalters said.
Similarly, if your data capture solution can’t deliver ROI in a year, forget it. “Companies like BP America simply aren’t looking at anything with a long-term ROI,” Stalters says. "We need vendor solutions to add value quickly and easily."
“Because of the economy, we are not going to be making big capital investments,"Stalters says. "And if I’m going to tell a business unit about an information management solution, and it doesn’t deliver hard-dollar savings, they don’t want to hear it. When you can prove it can solve a business problem, and deliver hard dollar savings, it will fly.”
As a result of the focus on fast payback, data capture solutions must also be up and running a quarter, or two quarters tops. “Business leaders are driven by time-to-market,” Stalters says. “And they are looking for ways to differentiate themselves from their competition.”
What do you think? Post your comments below.
Monday, August 18, 2008
The Value of Business Intelligence
Posted by Mark Brousseau
An interesting article from ComputerWeekly.com on the value of document management:
Information management to deliver real value to businesses
Author: Joe O'Halloran
Posted: 14:32 11 Aug 2008
Topics: Data Management Business Intelligence Compliance
Information management (IM) solutions are moving to the centre of IT strategies as a way of driving IT and business alignment and delivering real and visible value to the business, according to a recent survey from Forrester research.
The market analyst believes that the driver for such a move is the fact that wherever there is a hot growth market in IT, there will be plenty of IT consultants, systems integrators, and managed services providers to help architect, plan, implement, and manage the solution.
After surveying vendors of both IM software and services to assess the size of the IM services market, Forrester expects the global information services market to grow from its present value of $7.9 billion to $10.9 billion by 2012, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.2%.
Business intelligence (BI) and business performance solutions will likely dominate this spend, although Forrester adds that the information strategy segment will see the fastest growth throughout the forecast period.
Data warehouse services should also witness strong growth over the next two years as with greater interest in and deployment of BI and BPS solutions, the requirements for data warehouses to store all of the data should also grow commensurately. On a long term basis, data warehouses will likely start to take over some of the functions typically found in the data management segment and also require more consulting and integration services.
Forrester also thinks that content management and portal services should witness high growth in 2009. It says the content management market has consistently underperformed the high expectations set for it and that even though the promise of enterprise content management (ECM) solutions has never really been delivered by the software providers, in those cases where heavy ECM solutions have failed, portals are beginning to deliver. Some organisations are beginning to use portals as their ad hoc ECM solution, and Forrester predicts that this trend will accelerate in 2009.
Forrester advises firms to define clearly and information management services strategy and adhere to it, ensuring that it can take the company forward, should the current focus segment start to merge with another. It adds that firms should assess core competencies as part of the strategic due diligence in defining a strategy, put them into context with the total market opportunity, and balance a portfolio of new areas and old areas.
Are business intelligence intelligence solutions playing a more central role in your enterprise IT planning? Post your comment below.
An interesting article from ComputerWeekly.com on the value of document management:
Information management to deliver real value to businesses
Author: Joe O'Halloran
Posted: 14:32 11 Aug 2008
Topics: Data Management Business Intelligence Compliance
Information management (IM) solutions are moving to the centre of IT strategies as a way of driving IT and business alignment and delivering real and visible value to the business, according to a recent survey from Forrester research.
The market analyst believes that the driver for such a move is the fact that wherever there is a hot growth market in IT, there will be plenty of IT consultants, systems integrators, and managed services providers to help architect, plan, implement, and manage the solution.
After surveying vendors of both IM software and services to assess the size of the IM services market, Forrester expects the global information services market to grow from its present value of $7.9 billion to $10.9 billion by 2012, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.2%.
Business intelligence (BI) and business performance solutions will likely dominate this spend, although Forrester adds that the information strategy segment will see the fastest growth throughout the forecast period.
Data warehouse services should also witness strong growth over the next two years as with greater interest in and deployment of BI and BPS solutions, the requirements for data warehouses to store all of the data should also grow commensurately. On a long term basis, data warehouses will likely start to take over some of the functions typically found in the data management segment and also require more consulting and integration services.
Forrester also thinks that content management and portal services should witness high growth in 2009. It says the content management market has consistently underperformed the high expectations set for it and that even though the promise of enterprise content management (ECM) solutions has never really been delivered by the software providers, in those cases where heavy ECM solutions have failed, portals are beginning to deliver. Some organisations are beginning to use portals as their ad hoc ECM solution, and Forrester predicts that this trend will accelerate in 2009.
Forrester advises firms to define clearly and information management services strategy and adhere to it, ensuring that it can take the company forward, should the current focus segment start to merge with another. It adds that firms should assess core competencies as part of the strategic due diligence in defining a strategy, put them into context with the total market opportunity, and balance a portfolio of new areas and old areas.
Are business intelligence intelligence solutions playing a more central role in your enterprise IT planning? Post your comment below.
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