Category Archives: IT

Creating IT Heroes

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By Nathan Pearce, F5’s Senior Technical Marketing Manager

As an IT professional, technology evolution can be a blessing and a curse.

The constant conveyor belt of new products mean you have potentially a huge arsenal of tools at your disposal. But the demands of the business and the difficulties of where to place your technology bets means you’re constantly facing difficult decisions.

At the moment, we’re experiencing the most accelerated pace of IT change we’ve ever known. Cloud computing, big data / analytics, mobile and social are transforming the way we work and the way our businesses operate.

Yet, there remains a sentiment in some quarters that the IT department has lost influence in the business in recent years, is unreliable or is a barrier to progress, lacking the necessary knowledge to tackle and implement new solutions and infrastructures efficiently. Continue reading →

How Much Does Your Print Infrastructure Cost?

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By John Taylor, CEO of M2

The reality is that many companies would find it difficult to accurately quantify costs on print across their entire organisation, yet much money is wasted on unnecessary printing, multiple service level agreements and calls to the IT department for printer-related issues.

Described as ‘the last bastion of uncontrolled spending’ analyst research states that an unmanaged print fleet can cost an organisation between one and three per cent of annual revenue, a cost which can be reduced by up to 40%. With print output increasing by an average of 20% a year, despite the advent of the so called ‘paperless office’, how does an organisation control and reduce its print expenditure, as well as alleviate the IT department of 10-20% of its workload? Continue reading →

Texting can help you win customers, and keep them

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By Pieter Streicher, Managing Director, BulkSMS

 

Businesses are using application-to-person SMS messaging (A2P) to drive effective customer relationship management strategies.

There is an overriding factor behind its increasing adoption. Using, sending, receiving texts is second nature to mobile users. The SMS was around pretty soon after the birth of the mobile phone and is set to be here for a long time to come; consolidating its rightful place alongside the sophisticated apps and features today’s mobile users are accustomed to. Continue reading →

Welcome to The New CRM – Debtor Relationship Management

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By Elliot Howard, Director of software solutions specialist Sopra Group

 

CRM (Customer Relationship Marketing) was the software everyone deployed during the 1990s. Sales, marketing and customer service departments found tailoring their activities was the way forward, replacing unfocused mailshots and ineffective cold-calling with targeted campaigns which were much more profitable. CRM applied front office powerful back office technology – repaying the purchase price by helping businesses save time, resource and amplify every opportunity.

How? At the heart of CRM is an approach that allows the business to answer questions that lead to more productive marketing, sales and service activities. For instance, which sales people are most effective? Which promotions worked, and why? Will this demographic be interested in this proposed product? What are customers really asking for – and what are their biggest reasons for not doing a transaction with us today?

Now it’s time to apply that level of science to other parts of the business. If we could apply CRM-style analytics to the issue of customer debt, we could become more strategic in the way we collect, connect and share information about your organisation’s debtors. Continue reading →

Managed services – unlocking enterprise-level IT

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By Ian Jackson, managing director at Imerja

The standard of IT within an organisation is often linked directly to business output. The latest technologies can streamline activities, increase productivity and improve efficiency.

However, cost is often an obstacle to realising this, with the highest quality IT is being the preserve of large, enterprise organisations with deep pools of cash. Given the reliance that all businesses have on IT it seems unjust that only the largest companies can afford to keep up with constant technological advancements. Continue reading →

Top ten tips on winning the IT Asset Management Challenge

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By Brian Hollandsworth, ServiceNow

Companies have a lot to gain by maintaining good control over its IT assets. They can avoid massive unplanned expenses, increase productivity and provide easy access to information for decision making. When designing an IT Asset Management (ITAM) program, keep these ten tips in mind. Continue reading →

M-Commerce: Saviour of the High Street

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By Andy Lloyd, General Manager, Commerce at NetSuite 

Across our homes and offices we have seen a dramatic shift in the way we access information online. With mobile web usage set to outstrip desktop usage by 2014 it’s clear that the way consumers want to interact with retailers is changing. If High Street retailers are unable to adapt quickly enough to these trends then they are putting themselves at serious risk. Continue reading →

Common Project Management Mistakes

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By Chris Fenly, Executive Consultant at Waterstons

 
Businesses need to change, not only to prosper but to survive. Operations no longer follow a static pattern, interspersed by bursts of change. Continuous business change is now the norm.

Software vendors are catching up with this, developing more agile systems and marketing them based on this key feature. However, statistics show that implementation of these changes, through the delivery of projects, particularly IT projects continues to fail. Continue reading →

2013’s Five Most Common Networking Objectives of CIOs

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By Abigail Phillips

 

The 2013 network priorities for typical midsized (500-5000 seat) organisations are an exercise in ‘pragmatic intelligence’ according to Exinda.

CIOs and senior network managers are now wrestling to simplfy, streamline and consolidate in order to embrace the next phase of network innovation.

Exinda is a leading global supplier of WAN Optimization and Network Control solutions, with more than 3,000 midsized enterprise customers spanning industries such as manufacturing, retail, government and education.  The following are the five most common networking objectives within their network plans:  Continue reading →

Five things every business manager should know about file sharing practices

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By Jeffrey Whitney, vice president of marketing for Ipswitch File Transfer

Businesses face a real threat – their employees. That’s right, increasingly tech-savvy employees have turned to a diverse range of file transfer tools that are beyond the sight of IT management.

Employees see webmail, file sharing services, cloud storage, USB sticks and smart devices as easier to use than traditional corporate tools to transfer files. But this trend ignores the security risks and regulatory implications of using file transfer methods entirely outside of corporate control.

Here’s five things you should know about your employees’ habits and the need for secure file transfer technology: Continue reading →