Find analysis of data from Cutter's ongoing industry research efforts, brief treatments of topics that don't require the in-depth research of an Executive Report, updates on previously-covered topics, and more, in 2-4 page Executive Updates.
The Worst-Kept Secret: Trade Secret Protection (or Lack Thereof) Under Current Laws
All businesses possess information in their computer networks and systems that they would rather not share with third parties. These include customer lists, marketing strategies, sales results, product development plans, and a host of other information that could harm a business by giving its competitors a competitive advantage. Businesses label this information with a variety of titles, such as "confidential," "privileged," or "secret," but is calling it a secret enough to protect it as a matter of law?
Outsourcing Insights: Reality Check
Since its introduction in the early 1990s, IT outsourcing has been experimented with and embraced by an increasing number of companies. Given the dramatically changing global business landscape of the last few years, the question arises: where are firms on their outsourcing learning curve? This Executive Update is the first in a series that examines the status of outsourcing. The series is based on a recent Cutter Consortium survey of 95 companies that pursue outsourcing as part of their IT strategy.
The Enterprise Innovation Revolution: Part I
Preparing for the Tsunami of Trends
In my last Executive Update, "What to Expect in 2007 -- and Beyond" (Vol. 8, No. 1), I looked at 10 things likely to come true in 2007. Here, I revisit those issues, forecasting how these trends will unfold and focusing on specific steps companies should take to prepare for them.
Delivering Real-Time Benefits: A Case Study -- Part III
In the first two Executive Updates (Vol. 9, No. 24; Vol. 10, No. 2) of this three-part series, I explained why many companies are implementing the best practices service model IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) and described a case study of its implementation at one company.
The Role of Information in a Service Oriented-Architecture
A service-oriented architecture (SOA) strives to provide an information infrastructure that is highly responsive to rapidly changing business requirements, including new competition, mergers, acquisitions, business models, and regulatory requirements. SOA has shown great promise in reaching these goals and is rapidly gaining widespread interest and acceptance.
Personal Resource Capacity: An Agile Exercise
A Deeper Look at Systems Thinking: The Tragedy of the Commons
Spreading SaaS: Horizontally and Vertically
Achieving Integration Through Selective ERP Customizations: Part I -- Evidence from the Field
Achieving business and IT integration is a strategic goal for many organizations -- it has almost become the "holy grail" of organizational success. In this environment, enterprise resource planning (ERP) packages have become the de facto option for addressing this issue. Integration has come to mean adopting ERP -- through configuration and without customization -- but this all-or-nothing approach has proved difficult for many organizations.
Time for a New Enterprise Architecture Framework
It is time for a new framework for enterprise architecture (EA). It has been exactly 20 years since John Zachman published his first article on information systems architecture in IBM Systems Journal [1]. Since that time, Zachman's model has evolved to become what is known today as the Zachman Framework.
Everywhere Your Customers' Data Wants to Be: The Impact of the PCI Data Security Standard
Businesses are required to comply with a significant number of laws and regulations governing everything from human resources to environmental matters. As if these laws and regulations were not enough, businesses also have to comply with a new industry standard affecting the security of credit card data -- the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI, for short). The goal of PCI is to create a security standard that businesses must follow in their handling of credit cardholder data.
Creating an Agile Environment
It had been nearly 20 years since a new electronic stock exchange had been built, and the community needed new technology. The Swiss Stock Exchange took up the challenge, hoping to sell the system to other exchanges. Two previous attempts had been made to move the traders from the floor to electronic trading, but these attempts failed. The third attempt finally worked.
You Can't Copyright Your Patent with the Trademark Office: Protecting Intellectual Rights in a World of Intangibles
The increase in the proportion of a company's value that stems from its intellectual assets has become a fact of business in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. As companies use, create, and license more and more intellectual property (IP), they are forced to draft, review, and negotiate agreements on a daily basis that contain clauses concerning the licensing, purchase, or protection of IP rights.
The Configuration Concept: Duration
This Executive Update is the fourth in a series that examines information and communications technology (ICT) outsourcing and its various configuration options. The series is based on a recent Cutter Consortium survey of 73 organizations in 25 countries across the globe. 1
Frontiers of Risk Analysis
As security becomes an increasing concern, techniques for risk analysis are again rising to the fore. The IT department faces risk in several different areas. Although widely associated with backup and recovery strategies, risk is also incurred in a variety of other business decisions, particularly in activities such as development, outsourcing, and implementation of new technologies or new services, where there is a defined satisfactory outcome and potential penalties in the event of failure.
The Intricate Dance of Indian Communication
India is poised to become the world's most populated country, and doing business there can be messy, chaotic, and thrilling. It is a nation that is creating its global future at a breathtaking pace, and it is taking the rest of the world along with it. The Indian communication style reflects its own culture: it can dart quickly in a new direction during negotiations and weave artfully through numerous ways of indirectly saying no. Indians see language not just as a means of communicating but as an ongoing process that builds relationships, gleans new ideas, and fosters trust.
The ROI of Understanding ROI
Return on investment (ROI) is a fundamental concept in finance that, until a few years, was all but alien to IT organizations. With the infusion of financial literacy into IT planning and decision making, a number of vendors emerged with ROI calculation software packages. As these programs have evolved, managers shopping for such a utility today must ask whether the software adequately speaks to the complexities of IT investment and the nuances of risk and other elements that can drastically affect investment outcomes?
Delivering Real-Time Benefits: A Case Study -- Part II
Demonstrating real benefits from the organization's investment in information technology is a task faced by the majority of IT departments. In response to this challenge, many IT departments have chosen to implement a best practices service model to deliver real outcomes to the organization.
Service-Oriented Architecture: Development and Ownership
This is the last of a series of four Executive Updates in which I examine the results of a Cutter Consortium survey on service-oriented architecture (SOA). In this final Update, we shall be looking at the favorite products and vendors for SOA development, security, mainframe connectivity, and Enterprise Service Buses (ESBs). We shall also find which dynamic lookup techniques are preferred and see how organizations allocate and share responsibility for the administration of SOAs.