Advisors provide a continuous flow of information on the topics covered by each practice, including consultant insights and reports from the front lines, analyses of trends, and breaking new ideas. Advisors are delivered directly to your email inbox, and are also available in the resource library.
Tips for Keeping Outsourced Departments in Touch
Outsourcing is continuing to evolve toward a wider uptake by businesses of different sizes and in different domains, as well as toward more comprehensive process-oriented offerings. Outsourcing to departments or workgroups, in which related processes are brought together, represents an important development in business process outsourcing (BPO).
As Outsourcing Rises, Managers Must Assess the Value of Ownership
One of the most dramatic outcomes from our 2010 survey on IT budgeting (see "IT Trends 2010: IT Shop Holds Own in Turbulent Economy," Cutter Benchmark Review, Vol. 10, No. 1) comes from a question about the work that respondents are currently or planning to outsource.
Mobile BI Sets Some Courses in Uncharted Waters
In August, I said that we are seeing an increasing number of organizations developing mobile BI applications (see "Mobile BI Comes of Age," 10 October 2010).
To Succeed in Emerging Markets, Become Your Customer's Competitor
We all talk about acting in a culturally correct manner. We know that some cultures take a negative view of giving someone a thumbs-up sign or even shaking with the left hand. And when we travel to emerging markets, we try to follow these cultural rules.
Pitfalls of Agile IX: Who Manages the Project?
Consumerization of Enterprise Software
Getting a Grip -- Demand Management, Part II: Let's Get Critical
As I outlined in my previous Advisor ("Getting a Grip -- Demand Management, Part I: Basic Concepts," 15 September 2010), demand management means handling business demand for IT in such a way that it reaches a harmonious and beneficial relationship wi
EA in Academia
Flex Your VMs: The Benefits of Desktop Virtualization
Server virtualization has made considerable headway in the enterprise. But the use of virtualization for desktop (client) computing has been rather limited. This has been primarily attributed to technical issues that have made for a poor end-user experience and difficulties in managing and scaling virtual desktop infrastructure environments.
Why Variability Is Better than Stability
Gulf Spill Reflections: What's Your Canary?
Bold Advice for IT Leaders: Avoid Quiet Servitude
"Every IT leadership institute I have ever been to has drilled into me that we serve the business." So said a CIO to me recently with a both mildly defiant yet puzzled look. She was not quite appreciating my advice to be bold and dare to lead, yes, the business. Why not take the perspective of the CEO? Or the majority shareholder?
Full-Stack Challenge to Spur Shifts by 2012
A few years ago, when applications started exploding into collections of services -- in the service-oriented architecture (SOA) sense -- a challenge that soon appeared was the number of new skills that an IT architect needed to succeed in this new world. With Web-based collaboration platforms, such as the one just described, we will face the same issue.
CIO As Hero? A Crucial Role As Process Emerges At C-Level
Some people label it as Enterprise 2.0; others see it just as a new faster pace in ongoing business transformation. Whatever you call it, there’s a seismic shift underway. Process is at the heart of it, and CIOs have a critical role in enabling the enterprise to ride this incoming tide.
The enterprise of the near future will be different in three important ways:
A Brief History of Offshoring: Controversy Continues
Offshoring in IT is, arguably, the most significant phenomenon to occur in recent decades.
-- David Avison and Gholamreza Torkzadeh
Can You Hear Me Now? The High Price of Not Listening to the Folks in the Trenches
It's amazing how organizations spend vast sums in the interest of discovering the newest, latest, and most advanced business practices and technologies. They throw their energies behind radical change, while ignoring the improvements that can be made through effective implementation of existing practice.
Seeking the Best Fit for Project Manager, Business Analyst
Positioning -- and Warming to -- Green IT Within Climate Change
Leap to Acceptance: Strategies for Success with Social Media
If social media is unimportant to a company, the company must consider that it is enormously important to its prospects and customers. But a company cannot simply tack it on and expect it to foster satisfied customers and a more innovative enterprise.
Security Architecture: A New Kind of Software Attack, A Whole New Ballgame
Early this year, fellow Cutter Consultants Mitch Ummel, Mike Rosen, and I wrote an Executive Report on the Smart Grid (see "
Service IT Spreads Its Wings
Industry leaders are optimistic about the great success of service-oriented architecture (SOA) in realizing adaptive, real-time, and on-demand enterprises. Services have emerged as the proven construct for rapidly implementing and sustaining mission-critical, enterprise-scale business systems. They provide the most efficient units for realizing business realities and requirements. Services are publicly addressable, discoverable, accessible, and manageable. In addition, they are interoperable and reusable.
IBM Buys Netezza, Joins the Appliance Craze
The most recent major acquisition taking place in the BI and data warehousing market has IBM buying Netezza Corporation, a data warehousing appliance pioneer, for about US $1.7 billion. This deal is significant for several reasons. First, the market for data warehousing and BI appliances is hot, and Netezza's products are well established.