Outsourcing
Giga, 5/19/03: Outsourcing Termination Clauses, Part 1: Infrastructure
Richard Peynot
Is it possible to bring IT infrastructure in-house after a few years of outsourcing?
Outsourcing IT infrastructure brings the risk of losing control after a few years. Indeed outsourced I infrastructure components evolve over time: network components and architecture, servers, storage an backup systems, server tuning, the distribution of applications on servers, monitoring tools and points of measurement. New integration requirements may lead to modifications to global architecture and distribution.
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Giga, 5/19/03: Outsourcing Termination Clauses, Part 2: Applications
Richard Peynot
Is it possible to bring applications back home after a few years of outsourcing?
With outsourcing IT applications comes the risk of losing control after a few years. Application component evolve with time: application code, interfaces, parameters and database tuning. New integration requirement lead to modifying interfaces, developing connectors and possibly the changing the global architecture of applications. Moreover, processes evolve. If a company does not maintain knowledge of its systems, it may be unable to manage them by itself again, or even unable to drive a provider change. The termination clauses in the contract should not be limited to provider compensation but should also include processes and knowledge transfer.
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Help Desk
Giga, 5/19/03: CRM Vendors Offer Compelling Alternative to Traditional IT Help Desk Software
John Ragsdale
Are there advantages to the IT help desk software offered by enterprise CRM vendors, as opposed to the software from traditional IT help desk vendors?
Large help desk operations, especially those supporting multiple service levels, global operations, or help desks with complex reporting requirements, should evaluate help desk software from enterprise customer relationship management (CRM) vendors (Siebel, PeopleSoft, Oracle) when shopping for a new system. CRM help desk products offer some compelling advantages over traditional IT help desk packages, especially for operations that fit these profiles, with previous disadvantages being addressed by new functionality or strategic OEMs in some situations.
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IT Management
McKinsey Quarterly, Spring 2003: Recentralizing IT
Companies can run their IT systems more efficiently by creating new organizational structures in which IT departments and business units share responsibility.
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Giga, 5/13/03: Establish Metrics for Ongoing Vendor Management Success
Robert McNeill
How can we assure the ongoing success of a vendor management function?
In this economic climate, centralization and shared-services strategies continue to streamline processes and educe costs. Vendor management functions are being implemented to initiate a governance structure for educing the absolute number of vendors in the organization and then to provide the shared service to manage srategic vendors on an ongoing basis.
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Optimize, 5/03: CIOs: Broader Business Roles
Gartner study follows evolution of CIOs' business-technology focus
by Ellen Kitzis and Marianne Broadbent
It's widely understood that the CIO's job isn't just about technology anymore. But what is it about? The most successful CIOs spend huge chunks of time educating, leading, and coaching a wide base of business stakeholders—executive colleagues, board members, business-unit managers, supply-chain partners, IT staff, customers, service providers, and external regulators.
This complex array of commitments is changing the CIO's role in the enterprise. The 620 CIOs who responded to the Gartner Executive Programs (EXP) CIO Agenda survey said their responsibility is no longer to the IT staff alone, but rather to the business as a whole and to its customers and partners. There are now six imperatives: to lead, anticipate, strategize, organize, deliver, and measure.
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Baseline, 5/03: The Right ROI Is "Return on Individual"
By Tom Steinert-Threlkeld
Calculating what each employee is worth to your organization is real name of the game.
Information is what you gather, distribute and present.
Information on the most critical business processes and assets your company has. So products can be sold and decisions made.
Obvious, right?
Then, ask yourself: What is your company's most critical asset?
If you answered people, you score 100. Everything else is inert matter, controlled by the people you hire.
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Giga, 5/12/03: Early Failure Detection Is Key to Better Infrastructure Management
Jean-Pierre Garbani
What techniques, tools or approaches are typically being used to provide early warning of application failures?
Early warning of impending infrastructure problems, often referred to as proactive management, is a key ssue. Application problems are typically perceived at two levels:
1. At the macro level when end users experience availability and performance problems
2. At the micro level when a device problem impacts the delivery of application services
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Wireless
Infoworld, 5/16/03: Wireless strategies: Making the right move
Proliferating standards, technology complicate decision-making
By Ephraim Schwartz
The wireless stumbling blocks keep mounting. Despite healthy enterprise adoption, hurdles are holding wireless technologies back from their ultimate end game: ubiquitous access to enterprise data, applications and services.
The list of troubles is not small. Competing Wi-Fi standards, complex wireless LAN infrastructures, spectrum and capacity limitations, security problems, QoS (quality of service), billing issues, and shortage of Wi-Fi hotspots all stand as unresolved roadblocks.
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Government
Information Week, 5/19/03: Try, Then Buy, Buy, Buy May 19, 2003
By Eric Chabrow
Outsourcing begets more outsourcing. That's one conclusion of a global study--Outsourcing In Government: Pathways To Value--from Accenture. "As governments become more experienced with outsourcing, they seek new ways to derive greater value from these arrangements," says Steve Rohleder, group CEO of Accenture's global government practice. The study, based on input from more than 150 officials in 23 governments, found that nearly 90% of respondents deemed outsourcing activities as important or absolutely critical to their missions of delivering services to citizens. It says governments outsource mainly to improve the speed or quality of service.
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