Posted by Mark Brousseau
Employees suffering from Chronic Migraines (CM) experience increased lost productive time (LPT) in the workplace, according to new analysis from the American Migraine Prevalence and Prevention Study. Lost productive time (LPT) is estimated as the average weekly time lost due to an employee being absent (absenteeism) and reduced performance while at work (presenteeism).
Migraine is a neurological syndrome characterized by severe, painful headaches that are often accompanied by nausea, vomiting, and increased sensitivity to light and sound. Headaches may last for hours or even days. The pain is often on one side of the head and pulsating. Headaches may be preceded by aura: sensory warning signs such as flashes of light, blind spots, tingling in the arms and legs. Migraine can be divided into those experiencing headache on average 15 or more days per month (CM) and episodic migraine (EM): headache on average fewer than 15 days per month. Of the estimated 30 million Americans who suffer from migraine, approximately one million – mostly women – suffer from CM.
Chronic Migraine (CM) sufferers experience greater LPT in the workplace than those suffering from EM. This study showed that in the age interval 35-44 years, the LPT of CM sufferers was 215.3 hours higher per year than those suffering from EM. The amount of LPT among CM increased over age groups while it remained relatively low and stable among EM.
Cost estimates increased for CM across age cohorts while remaining relatively constant for EM. On an annual basis for those aged 35-44 years, this translated to the LPT for CM sufferers being $5,352.36 higher per year than those with EM. The average cost of LPT per week was based on 2005 census median income estimates.
According to Dr. Dawn Buse, one of the study's authors and Assistant Professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Director of Behavioral Medicine at the Montefiore Headache Center, "The burden of CM is significant in terms of LPT and related costs. The results from these analyses may even underestimate that burden as these data do not capture those who are unemployed and may have exited the labor force through disability or early retirement, representing a significant loss of trained and skilled people who may exit the labor force early due to the burden of CM."
According to Dr. Richard Lipton, one of the study's authors and Professor of Neurology and Epidemiology and Population Health at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Director of the Montefiore Headache Center, "The cost of treatment, whether it be to prevent a headache attack or to treat during an attack, may be considerably lower for employers than the costs associated with LPT. Additionally, treatments may ease the suffering of employees, while recovering the labor value of experienced and knowledgeable employees burdened by the symptom and work-related impacts of CM."
Dr. Buse advised, "By understanding the findings of this study, assessing the amount of lost work time their organization is experiencing due to migraine, and taking measures to educate and encourage migraine sufferers to seek treatment, organizations could reduce the amount of LPT and related costs due to migraine, and improve the health and quality of life of their employees."
What do you think?
Showing posts with label AP certifications. Show all posts
Showing posts with label AP certifications. Show all posts
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Removing the Model T mentality from SAP hosting
Posted by Mark Brousseau
At one time or another, most people have heard Henry Ford’s famous quote about his revolutionary Model T automobile: “Any customer can have a car painted in any color so long as it is black.” Today, we look upon his inflexible, non-customer service-oriented attitude as quaint, a mindset from a bygone era that would never fly today.
But the reality is that attitude is still very prevalent. Not in our vehicles, thankfully – you can get a car or truck painted in just about any crazy color, or combination of colors you want. Instead, it’s the common mindset for IT hosting in the SAP world.
Dan Wilhelms (dwilhelms@sym-corp.com), president and CEO of Symmetry Corporation (www.sym-corp.com), explains:
By now you’ve probably seen all the articles and heard the Webinars talking about IT infrastructure as a commodity rather than a strategic advantage. They tell you how, in this day and age, managing your own infrastructure makes about as much sense as manufacturing your own electricity on a day-to-day basis, and that you’d be better off moving to a hosted model. And they tell you how IT costs to manage SAP average three percent to five percent of revenue, whereas an integrated technical managed services solution incorporating hosting reduces this figure to only one percent of revenue. All of which is true.
Unfortunately, they tend to leave out one small detail. The act of moving your infrastructure to a 20th Century-style hosting provider can be very expensive and time-consuming, especially for a mid-market organization, before it ever becomes smooth and cost-efficient.
The reason is that Henry Ford mentality. The typical 20th-Century hosting provider has a giant server farm full of equipment onto which it will move your applications. Essentially, they tell you that you can run your applications on any hardware you want – as long as it’s the hardware they already have. If you’re running on the same hardware – say your current system is IBM and so is the provider’s – that part will probably transition fairly smoothly. But if your applications are set up to run on HP servers and they’re using IBM, it’s going to take a lot of work to make the changeover. And guess who has to make the change?
The other big problem with the 20th Century model is sharing resources. Back in Ford’s day, when running water was still a rarity, families often shared bathwater (or even baths) because filling a bathtub was a time-consuming, labor-intensive task. They didn’t want to waste the effort on providing clean water for each bath.
In the traditional hosting world, the resources you’re sharing are servers. In order to operate as efficiently (and profitably) as they can, hosting providers try to fill every micron of disk space on every server with data. That means they’ll often mix data from two or more organizations to increase utilization.
It makes sense from their standpoint. But it’s not so good from yours. If a problem with some other organization’s application takes down the server you’re sharing, you are just as out of luck as they are – even though your applications are running perfectly fine. In addition, if you’re working with a government agency and have to show compliance with laws requiring separation of data, it’s going to be pretty tough to prove when your supposedly secure data is running alongside that of an organization with different (or no) compliance requirements.
There is a solution, however. Rather than settling for a “Model T” type of hosting environment, look instead for a provider using a 21st Century hosting model.
With a 21st Century hosting provider, you don’t have to make your applications fit their hardware. Instead, they will host your applications on whatever hardware you want – whether that means purchasing all new hardware of your choice as part of an upgrade, or actually packing up and shipping your current hardware to their locations. If you’re buying new hardware, a good hosting provider will even give you a choice of procuring it yourself or taking that burden off your hands – whatever method works best for you.
Moving to a hosted system dedicated specifically to your organization instead of one that is carved out of a general storage area network also solves the concerns regarding data separation. Since your hardware operates as separately as if it were in your own facility, there is no chance someone else’s application problems will affect your business. It also makes proving separation of data a very simple task.
A 21st Century hosting provider will also tend to be more specialized. In the early days, hosting meant setting up equipment and running whatever applications its customers sent its way. There was little on-staff expertise to draw from if there was a problem with, say, SAP or another complex system. In the new world of hosting, providers specialize in particular technologies and have deep expertise on staff, which allow them to do what you really want them to do – manage and maintain the system completely, including overcoming any issues immediately rather than having to call an outside specialist.
While moving to a 21st Century hosting provider makes sense for virtually any organization, it is particularly well-suited to mid-market organizations that are increasingly finding more time being spent on IT maintenance and less on actually deriving more value out of their applications. It’s a lot like those early Model Ts. Back then, if you were going to own a car, you had to know how to fix it, too.
Today, most car owners don’t know what’s under the hood and don’t want to know. They just want to get in and drive. Rather than adding IT staff (and finding themselves in the IT business instead of whatever business they’re actually in), these mid-market organizations can stay focused on the reasons they installed their applications in the first place.
When it comes to hosting, why settle for a Model T mentality? Using a 21st Century hosting provider will give you complete control over your environment and keep your data separate, all while saving you as much as 30 percent over traditional hosting. Even Henry Ford would approve of that.
What do you think?
At one time or another, most people have heard Henry Ford’s famous quote about his revolutionary Model T automobile: “Any customer can have a car painted in any color so long as it is black.” Today, we look upon his inflexible, non-customer service-oriented attitude as quaint, a mindset from a bygone era that would never fly today.
But the reality is that attitude is still very prevalent. Not in our vehicles, thankfully – you can get a car or truck painted in just about any crazy color, or combination of colors you want. Instead, it’s the common mindset for IT hosting in the SAP world.
Dan Wilhelms (dwilhelms@sym-corp.com), president and CEO of Symmetry Corporation (www.sym-corp.com), explains:
By now you’ve probably seen all the articles and heard the Webinars talking about IT infrastructure as a commodity rather than a strategic advantage. They tell you how, in this day and age, managing your own infrastructure makes about as much sense as manufacturing your own electricity on a day-to-day basis, and that you’d be better off moving to a hosted model. And they tell you how IT costs to manage SAP average three percent to five percent of revenue, whereas an integrated technical managed services solution incorporating hosting reduces this figure to only one percent of revenue. All of which is true.
Unfortunately, they tend to leave out one small detail. The act of moving your infrastructure to a 20th Century-style hosting provider can be very expensive and time-consuming, especially for a mid-market organization, before it ever becomes smooth and cost-efficient.
The reason is that Henry Ford mentality. The typical 20th-Century hosting provider has a giant server farm full of equipment onto which it will move your applications. Essentially, they tell you that you can run your applications on any hardware you want – as long as it’s the hardware they already have. If you’re running on the same hardware – say your current system is IBM and so is the provider’s – that part will probably transition fairly smoothly. But if your applications are set up to run on HP servers and they’re using IBM, it’s going to take a lot of work to make the changeover. And guess who has to make the change?
The other big problem with the 20th Century model is sharing resources. Back in Ford’s day, when running water was still a rarity, families often shared bathwater (or even baths) because filling a bathtub was a time-consuming, labor-intensive task. They didn’t want to waste the effort on providing clean water for each bath.
In the traditional hosting world, the resources you’re sharing are servers. In order to operate as efficiently (and profitably) as they can, hosting providers try to fill every micron of disk space on every server with data. That means they’ll often mix data from two or more organizations to increase utilization.
It makes sense from their standpoint. But it’s not so good from yours. If a problem with some other organization’s application takes down the server you’re sharing, you are just as out of luck as they are – even though your applications are running perfectly fine. In addition, if you’re working with a government agency and have to show compliance with laws requiring separation of data, it’s going to be pretty tough to prove when your supposedly secure data is running alongside that of an organization with different (or no) compliance requirements.
There is a solution, however. Rather than settling for a “Model T” type of hosting environment, look instead for a provider using a 21st Century hosting model.
With a 21st Century hosting provider, you don’t have to make your applications fit their hardware. Instead, they will host your applications on whatever hardware you want – whether that means purchasing all new hardware of your choice as part of an upgrade, or actually packing up and shipping your current hardware to their locations. If you’re buying new hardware, a good hosting provider will even give you a choice of procuring it yourself or taking that burden off your hands – whatever method works best for you.
Moving to a hosted system dedicated specifically to your organization instead of one that is carved out of a general storage area network also solves the concerns regarding data separation. Since your hardware operates as separately as if it were in your own facility, there is no chance someone else’s application problems will affect your business. It also makes proving separation of data a very simple task.
A 21st Century hosting provider will also tend to be more specialized. In the early days, hosting meant setting up equipment and running whatever applications its customers sent its way. There was little on-staff expertise to draw from if there was a problem with, say, SAP or another complex system. In the new world of hosting, providers specialize in particular technologies and have deep expertise on staff, which allow them to do what you really want them to do – manage and maintain the system completely, including overcoming any issues immediately rather than having to call an outside specialist.
While moving to a 21st Century hosting provider makes sense for virtually any organization, it is particularly well-suited to mid-market organizations that are increasingly finding more time being spent on IT maintenance and less on actually deriving more value out of their applications. It’s a lot like those early Model Ts. Back then, if you were going to own a car, you had to know how to fix it, too.
Today, most car owners don’t know what’s under the hood and don’t want to know. They just want to get in and drive. Rather than adding IT staff (and finding themselves in the IT business instead of whatever business they’re actually in), these mid-market organizations can stay focused on the reasons they installed their applications in the first place.
When it comes to hosting, why settle for a Model T mentality? Using a 21st Century hosting provider will give you complete control over your environment and keep your data separate, all while saving you as much as 30 percent over traditional hosting. Even Henry Ford would approve of that.
What do you think?
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
AR professionals expect a better 2010
OB10, the leading global e-Invoicing network, and International Accounts Receivable Professionals (IARP), a not-for-profit guidance-setting association for the accounts receivable profession, conducted a recent survey of accounts receivable professionals designed to gauge current business practices and the future state of organizations from an accounts receivable and collections perspective.
Results of the survey, which will be conducted annually, indicate that AR professionals are taking a number of steps to ensure more predictable payment from customers while predicting a general improvement in their organization’s overall economic situation in 2010. Survey participants included presidents, CEOs, owners, CFOs, AR directors and AR managers from organizations across a broad spectrum of industries and sizes.
“The results of the survey provide very strong insight into the current invoicing and collections practices of AR professionals and give a glimpse of where they are going to direct their efforts and resources in the future to ensure more predictable cash flow,” said Thayer Stewart, Vice President of Marketing for OB10. Although generally satisfied with their collections results, 41 percent of respondents have increased their collections efforts and slightly more than half have been contacting their customers more frequently in order to receive payment. Furthermore, in light of the increased collections activities, 71 percent of respondents said they had received requests from their customers in 2009 to invoice them electronically, with 42 percent saying they had received more requests in 2009 than in previous years. AR professionals view this positively, as 82 percent who received requests believe that submitting invoices electronically expedites the collections process.”
The survey also asked AR professionals to indicate the average number of days it takes their customers to pay them once an invoice has been submitted. The result was an average Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) number of 36.1 days, with 69 percent of respondents citing that their invoices are paid between 26 and 50 days after submitted to their customers.
“Almost two-thirds of the AR professionals we polled told us that 2009 was worse than or about the same as 2008 financially,” said IARP CEO Tom Bohn., “However, the outlook going forward is increasingly positive, as almost 60 percent of respondents said they believe their businesses will do better financially in 2010 compared to 2009. Of those expressing optimism, 63 percent say they have a positive outlook because their companies have become more focused in their sales and marketing efforts, 61 percent said they have been more successful in reducing costs and 58 percent say they expect the economy to rebound.”
To read more about the results of the 2010 OB10-IARP Accounts Receivable Survey, download the executive summary as well as the full report from the OB10 and IARP Web sites at http://OB10.com/ARSurvey or http://www.theiarp.org/ViewItem-324.do?parentCatId=219 respectively.
Results of the survey, which will be conducted annually, indicate that AR professionals are taking a number of steps to ensure more predictable payment from customers while predicting a general improvement in their organization’s overall economic situation in 2010. Survey participants included presidents, CEOs, owners, CFOs, AR directors and AR managers from organizations across a broad spectrum of industries and sizes.
“The results of the survey provide very strong insight into the current invoicing and collections practices of AR professionals and give a glimpse of where they are going to direct their efforts and resources in the future to ensure more predictable cash flow,” said Thayer Stewart, Vice President of Marketing for OB10. Although generally satisfied with their collections results, 41 percent of respondents have increased their collections efforts and slightly more than half have been contacting their customers more frequently in order to receive payment. Furthermore, in light of the increased collections activities, 71 percent of respondents said they had received requests from their customers in 2009 to invoice them electronically, with 42 percent saying they had received more requests in 2009 than in previous years. AR professionals view this positively, as 82 percent who received requests believe that submitting invoices electronically expedites the collections process.”
The survey also asked AR professionals to indicate the average number of days it takes their customers to pay them once an invoice has been submitted. The result was an average Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) number of 36.1 days, with 69 percent of respondents citing that their invoices are paid between 26 and 50 days after submitted to their customers.
“Almost two-thirds of the AR professionals we polled told us that 2009 was worse than or about the same as 2008 financially,” said IARP CEO Tom Bohn., “However, the outlook going forward is increasingly positive, as almost 60 percent of respondents said they believe their businesses will do better financially in 2010 compared to 2009. Of those expressing optimism, 63 percent say they have a positive outlook because their companies have become more focused in their sales and marketing efforts, 61 percent said they have been more successful in reducing costs and 58 percent say they expect the economy to rebound.”
To read more about the results of the 2010 OB10-IARP Accounts Receivable Survey, download the executive summary as well as the full report from the OB10 and IARP Web sites at http://OB10.com/ARSurvey or http://www.theiarp.org/ViewItem-324.do?parentCatId=219 respectively.
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