Information Technology

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: What amazes me is that after 20-odd years of reporting and attempting to demystify this subject, companies worldwide still have huge problems making technology deliver. Consumers on the other hand, are rapidly becoming more techno-literate and are demanding vendors deliver solutions that are effective.

I’ve worked on a number of publications since my spell on Which Computer? in the 1980s:

I re-launched and subsequently edited ERP Focus, VNU's quarterly magazine that covers the wild and wacky world of enterprise resource planning for those who plan for and manage these complex systems.

I also launched and edited CMI's 'Desktop Computing', a monthly electronic briefing paper for those who have the misfortune as managers to be lumbered with a complex, client server installation, and have to keep the peace between those using the technology on the desktop, and those maintaining it in the IT department.

for seven years, from the late 1980s to the mid 1990s, I edited the fortnightly newsletter 'Executive Systems International' (ESI — 'the' reference work for management support professionals and their suppliers, published by Business Intelligence: 'The OLAP Report' and the annual 'EIS/Business Intelligence' and 'Data Warehousing' conferences and exhibitions), seeing the decision support and enterprise intelligence market grow from a mere handful of players, to over a hundred.

Here are a few of the articles I've written over the last decade:

Accountancy Age

Click here to read about IBM's expertise on e-business projects.

Business Computer World

inter-networking — I handled the 'inter-networking' part of this feature.
mobile data — this may have Wendy Barratt's byline but I wrote the article.

CIO

Link coming

CFO Europe

upgrading: Windows — I worked on the launch phase of this 'Economist' magazine writing a number of articles for the dummy and providing ideas for future content.

CIO Connect

I've completed a number of 'best practice' pieces for this CxO quarterly:

safe keeping — When Bill Hancock, chief security officer at Cable & Wireless, briefed his board recently, he had some uncomfortable news for them. They, Hancock informed them, were responsible for ensuring Cable & Wireless complied with new laws that had just come into force in the US — even though they were holding their board meeting in Britain.
pay-off time for ERP — “ERP is effective where it's used to automate well-understood business processes,” says Andy Hayler, founder and chief strategist for Shell’s former software unit, now Kalido, an independent company. That’s why ERP tends to be most successful running functions like finance, manufacturing and distribution.
leaving home — Outsourcing is all about change management — and that means putting the people involved right at the top of the agenda.
building better relations — If consumer spending turns down, those companies whose CRM systems deliver more customer knowledge will fare best in the battle for “share of pocket”.
putting together IT — Mike Tilley, former CIO of BT Retail, knows all about the difficulties of integrating IT systems. He has managed one of the largest and most complex IT operations in Europe, including one of the most ambitious customer relationship management (CRM) programmes ever undertaken.
open secret — Clive Whincup, CIO at Banco Popolare di Milano, manages one of the first large-scale projects in Europe to use the Linux operating system. For Whincup, the benefits of moving to open source software are clear: "I'm not following a path which gradually reduces my choices, and increases my lock-in to a particular vendor or technology. I'm maintaining the possibility of future choice," he says.
secrets and spies — The growing threat from spyware can't be ignored say four CIOs who've beaten it.
back on its feet — Putting an IT project that's fallen over back on its feet requires special skills — but better to stop it falling in the first place.
as green as they come — Power and heat are becoming the big issue for every company, maintains Bill Vass, CIO at Sun Microsystems. The cost of data centres – the heating, the cooling – continues to scale, he points out. “Many data centres are running out of space for extra power. Power distribution is lagging behind demand, but faster chip cycles are generating a huge amount of heat which requires a lot of power to cool."
service with a smile — William Hill, Harrods and BT Global Services tell how they managed service oriented architecture (SOA) projects.
taking their own medicine — IT vendors like to lecture users about security. Here's how they tackle the virus threat in their own backyards.
intelligent designs — When CIOs use business intelligence software to improve specific commercial processes, they make a bigger difference.
past tense, future perfect — Legacy systems can be a source of corporate strife when they block a business’s ambitions. But two CIOs – and a chief financial officer – have found ways to manage legacy so it doesn’t become an obstacle on the road ahead.
voice of the people — Some say it takes a leap of faith to run customer calls over your data network, but Voice over IP — VoIP — has become less of a gamble than it used to be.
on the move — Staying ahead of competition means giving staff access to information when and where they need it. Three pioneers of mobile IT show there's more than one way to do it.

Computing

Management Consultancy

IT portfolio — case studies of three PriceWaterhouseCoopers clients: The Ministry of Defence, British Telecom and Octane Music.
knowledge management — the art of exploiting bright ideas.
cultural management — your passport to influence abroad.

uk.internet.com

successful e-business? few have achieved it, but everyone can — Now part of eCRM Guide.com — just what exactly does it take to keep a UK e-business ticking these days.