Backblog

A significant benefit of ERP systems is that they can help forecast inventory needs to better match supply with demand and manage inventory costs. In today’s turbulent economic environment, this business benefit of enterprise software is particularly pronounced.

A lot is asked of internal IT organizations. Do more. Do it faster. Do it with less. That’s the way it has always been, right? Until now, most of the focus has been on “do it with less.” But today, IT organizations are being asked to achieve all three simultaneously.

saw this article on a flexible display demo by HP this week and couldn't help myself from having a brief blog entry about it. You can see in the video there are some significant limitations still, but it is definitely a signpost along the road to a whole different approach to displays.

I recently presented for my first time at an academic conference. The conference, Information Access: Commons, Control & Controversy, was held at my home faculty, iSchool at University of Toronto. I presented on my research findings from my masters thesis. I thought it distilled my findings in a manageable way, so I thought I'd share it here.

At Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital, physicians are using iPhones to access the hospital clinical information system. They accomplished this by developing an in-house iPhone application called VitalHub which gives physicians secure, remote access to patient records, test results, vital statistics, and medical literature from its internal data network.

An inventor with WhatIf Innovation, Arjan Polhuijs, recently highlighted the lessons he and his colleagues have learned from helping firms innovate during uncertain economic times. In his view, market uncertainty creates unique opportunities to innovate.

In case you missed it, we recently published our 2010 ERP Vendor Analysis report, which outlines actual ERP selection and implementation results from over 1,600 organizations across the globe. Although no one vendor stood above the rest, with each having distinct strengths and weaknesses, the report contains some interesting data points for companies about to embark on their ERP software selection project.

Both the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games are world-class sporting events. They both have tremendous athletes who are amazing competitors and, while different, the two events share a lot of commonalities; especially when it comes to the information technology (IT) that helps run the Games.

New data released yesterday by our research arm, TPI Momentum, predicts the number of outsourcing contracts awarded globally will rise this year as organizations seek new ways to optimize critical business functions in an improving economy.

Somehow I missed the release of Microsoft's Security Intelligence Report. This appears to be a good resource for those interested in security and what is happening in the world related to corporate threats. They provide a high level overview (about 2MB) and a more detailed analysis (10MB).

First ... no answers here.  Only questions and ideas based on past HR experience, observations and some familiarity with interactive and participative dynamics online. Back in January in one of the sections of a post titled "Exploring the HR Management Framework for Enterprise 2.0" I offered up the following:

Silicon (in wafer form) is the basis for most conventional potovoltaic cells. When large single crystal rods of silicon are cut into wafers, half of the grown silicon material is lost as dust.

Last weekend I was watching a show on TV about the failure of policy in the US to reform the school education system. Under the Bush administration and pre 911, an education bill was passed with strong bi-partisan support to improve the education level of children with respect to Reading, Writing and Arithmetic. Payment incentives to the states were tied to achieving certain pass levels for those subjects and the more children that passed, the more funding the state received. Sounds like a good policy and it should have driven success.

As with all enterprise software initiatives, the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software selection process can be tricky. There are plenty of solutions to choose from, multiple delivery options, and large amounts of software vendor hype.

Cisco's CR-3 322 Terabyte carrier-grade router is three times faster that its predecessor CR-1 router. Not certain if this is a "change the Internet forever" product. However, it may be a tipping point for rich media providers if it is well adopted by carriers.

Organizations with complex IT purchasing and delivery of hardware, software and services are examining their structures and wondering how they can work more effectively. While the purchasing department usually negotiates the contracts, we often observe vendor management organizations (VMOs) scattered through areas like operations, HR and IT. For example VMOs in the IT area commonly have responsibility for the overall relationships and performance of the hardware and software suppliers.

Our 2010 ERP Report, of which the first installment was published last month, outlines several metrics that are of interest to most CIOs, COOs, and other executives about to embark on an ERP system implementation. Although the numbers improved relative to our 2008 study of hundreds of ERP initiatives across the globe, the data still shows that most ERP software implementations fail.

There was a question the other day by some folks (in the Enterprise irregulars) about the capabilities and the pitfalls of modeling and code generation -- something that's been dear to me since the 1980s. We have definitely moved the ball toward the goal, but there is still a long way to go.

While the cost to deliver a unit of computing resource continues to fall, there is a “traitor” to the cause of lower costs – Software. Software, eight years ago, was typically in the 40% range of the total cost to deliver a MIPS. Now, we see software taking over more than half the spend in mainframe computing; in many cases greater than 60% of the spend. While other major cost drivers have fallen through the years, software costs as a percent of the total spend continue to rise. Why?

These days, selling Business-to-Business can seem like risky business. CSO Insights' latest Sales Performance Report notes that in 2009 the percentage of reps making quota dropped to 51.8% from 58.8% a year earlier. The response? Most firms have increased quotas for 2010, seemingly hoping that an improved economy will be the tide that raises performance. In CSO Insights' view, it's a risky approach prone to fail unless other things occur.

Posted by the ONC - Certification Programs for Health Information Technology: "Certification of Health IT will provide assurance to purchasers and other users that an EHR system, or other relevant technology, offers the necessary technological capability, functionality, and security to help them meet the meaningful use criteria established for a given phase."

Based on this post, it looks like the US congress is looking at how location based mobile device information is used. "The relatively brief joint hearing served as a preliminary discussion about location-based data and its usage for targeting information and advertising to users of mobile devices. While nothing concrete emerged from the discussion, the potential is clear: impending comprehensive privacy legislation could regulate."

The end is in sight. Time to celebrate the athletes, and our team behind the scenes. By the end of the Closing Ceremonies, we will have finished with the majority of the Olympic IT. But “it’s not over until it’s over,” particularly when billions of viewers are counting on our Commentator Information System (CIS).  During the Closing Ceremonies, our CIS is used by thousands of international media who provide their viewers with live commentary and background information about the show and its performers. All that broadcaster knowledge comes from facts, data and surprising factoids we load into the CIS so viewers at home get to hear it.