Outsourcing
Gartner, 1/30/04: Programmers’ Lawsuit Shows Government Must Reflect New Economy
U.S. programmers displaced by offshore outsourcing have sued for job-training benefits under a law designed for laid-off factory workers. Government policies do not yet reflect the importance of software and services to the economy.
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Giga, 1/30/04: Offshore Communications Plan Must Be Rooted in Outsourcing Strategy
Stephanie Moore and William Martorelli
Contributing Analyst: Christine Ferrusi Ross
The employee angst and hostility associated with the announcement or discovery of an internal offshore outsourcing initiative can be detrimental to employee productivity and quality. Disgruntled, displaced or even unhappy retained employees can actually derail or sabotage a company’s outsourcing efforts. Because of these risks, companies sometimes attempt to keep their offshore outsourcing plans a secret. Unfortunately, covering up the intention to outsource will likely produce more damage than the decision itself, and a well thought out communication strategy — controversial as that might be — is essential. There is no easy answer to maintaining high morale and employee satisfaction amidst an offshore initiative, but secrecy and defensiveness is a certain prescription for failure. Companies embarking on an offshore outsourcing initiative must make developing and executing a communication strategy a top priority.
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Customer Satisfaction
Fast Company, 2/04: Getting to " Very Satisfied"
Two consultants offer tips to go beyond taking customers' money.
By: Danielle Sacks Illustrations by: Marc Rosenthal
They were just two ordinary, polite midwestern women with pencils, a checklist, and smiles on their faces. Nothing to fear, right? But wait! Pencils? Checklists? Perhaps the 485 salespeople, waiters, and bank tellers who served Cindy Lewis and Marian Brzykcy last summer should have paid more attention. But most didn't
…
And after a three-month, admittedly unscientific $5,000 spree, the duo came to this sad conclusion: Only 3% of their store visits had left them "very satisfied." The remaining 97% failed mostly on the basics: lack of courtesy and skimpy product knowledge. Lewis and Brzykcy distilled their findings into a self-published booklet titled Beyond Taking the Customer's Money (available for $5.50; custservmatters@aol.com ). Here are their essentials of customer service.
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IT Management
Gartner, 1/16/04: How to Tell if Your CIO Has Executive Committee Potential
One CIO in five is operating at executive committee level, and the role will evolve over the next five years. We offer a framework to help you decide if executive committee status can be justified.
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Gartner, 2/5/04: Managing Nightmare Contracts
Enterprises often find that contracts with vendors for products or services are no longer as advantageous as they were when the deal was signed. Faced with such adverse circumstances, enterprises need to know their options. This report provides guidance for managing these contracts.
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Configuration Management
eWeek, 2/16/04: Tools Cut Configuration Time
By Paula Musich
The advent of XML and the effort to reduce the cost of IT operations have unleashed a series of startups focused on configuration management.
This week at the Demo conference in Scottsdale, Ariz., the latest startup to join the fray—mValent Inc.—will launch its suite of tools aimed at streamlining the task of preparing Java application infrastructure for application rollouts.
Today, that task in large IT shops is manual and labor-intensive and executed by specialized administrators in different departments. Throw in different configurations used in development and QA (quality assurance) testing, along with some offshore development, and the process can slow to a crawl.
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Security
Giga, 1/30/04: Best Practices: Desktop Security
David Friedlander and Jan Sundgren
A growing number of viruses, worms and other attacks threaten to compromise desktop security. The sheer volume of security threats, combined with the need to manage remote locations or business units, puts significant pressure on IT to develop standard security policies at the desktop. Remote or mobile users pose additional risks, but mobile access has also become a critical productivity enabler. The cost of responding to a single incident without consistent policies for antivirus, patch and configuration management can be extremely high. One company with 5,000 desktops estimated that the Blaster worm cost it $900,000 in IT costs alone. Legislation and compliance requirements also raise specific security issues for industries such as health care and financial services.
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Gartner, 1/29/04: Sign Up for the New U.S. National Cyber Alert System
The new U.S. National Cyber Alert System will duplicate some information on threats provided by security vendors, but the new system offers better protection in case of a large, coordinated cyberattack.
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Computerworld, 2/17/04: Hackers take advantage of Microsoft ASN flaw
The critical security vulnerability was disclosed just last week
Story by Paul Roberts
Hackers have already found a way to take advantage of a critical security hole disclosed by Microsoft Corp. last week.
A short computer program that exploits the vulnerability, which is in a common Windows component called the ASN.1 Library, was posted to the Internet on Saturday. However, one security expert said the exploit code doesn't pose a risk to confidential data stored on vulnerable systems.
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Microsoft
Gartner, 2/4/04: MBS Consulting Provides Resource for Implementation Partners
Abstract: Microsoft executives explain the mission and go-to-market strategy of Microsoft Business Solutions Professional Services. Challenges certainly lie ahead as Microsoft strives to service larger clients.
By Bob Anderson
Strategic Planning Assumptions
Through 2006, the consulting arm of Microsoft Business Solutions Professional Services
(MBSPS) will focus 50 percent of its effort on supporting implementation and operational issues of corporate accounts customers that have purchased MSCRM or Axapta (0.8 probability).
Through 2006, partners will play a key role while MBSPS will be the primary deliverer of consulting and systems integration services to its corporate accounts that purchase MBS solutions (0.8 probability).
Beyond 2006, MBSPS will play a secondary and supportive role to its service partner channel, which will be the primary provider of services to its corporate accounts worldwide (0.8 probability).
By 2006, the consulting arm of MBSPS will merge and become part of MCS (0.8 probability).
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Giga, 2/2/04: Microsoft Licensing: More for the Money
Julie Giera
Microsoft customers will be pleasantly surprised at the depth and breadth of the recent revisions to the Software Assurance (SA) offering. From the first introduction of this program, Microsoft has been widely criticized for the pricing/value of this software maintenance program. At 25 percent to 29 percent of the license fee, Microsoft has been charging some of the highest rates in the industry for what amounted to little more than upgrade protection. All of that has changed. As Microsoft enters the first big renewal cycle since its Licensing 6.0 program was introduced three years ago, the company has moved to quell these customer complaints by introducing industry-leading enhancements to its software maintenance program. The new benefits of Software Assurance should appeal to many organizations. CIOs will not only find productivity benefits for corporate workers, but there will also be real dollar savings added to the budget as a result. We advise Microsoft customers to take the time to evaluate or re-evaluate SA and determine how the individual features of SA will affect their organizations before making any decisions concerning purchase or renewal of Software Assurance.
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