This paper highlights the environmental impact of printing and discusses how a managed print service can support an organization's sustainability goals, while also lowering costs and driving business efficiency.
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In late 2011, SNK Canada was engaged to help a sports management client select operations, accounting, and IT management software to replace a legacy system. The client was suffering productivity losses, and the cost of the legacy software was a growing concern. Learn how Technology Evaluation Centers (TEC) helped SNK Manage the complexities of the project, so SNK could quickly identify the right system for the client.
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The widespread adoption of smartphones and tablets, the growth of cloud computing, and the increased need for convenience printing means that organizations must provide employees with a secure and simple managed approach to mobile printing. Read this report and learn about the market drivers for mobile printing in the business environment and some of the best practices for building a mobile print strategy.
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Semiconductor manufacturers can work more closely with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and expand into new markets by using Web 2.0 technologies. Infosys' experts reveal "white spaces" in semiconductor marketing strategies that can be addressed by digital and mobile capabilities. They demonstrate how best practices in information and customer experience embedded in Infosys' Semiconductor Digital Engagement Maturity Model can deliver a competitive advantage.
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This white paper will give you ideas and procedures for monitoring your savings when you invest in outsourcing projects.
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Enterprise configuration management (ECM) is a process to capture data and dependencies about an information technology (IT) infrastructure and to create an audit trail of changes against that infrastructure. The ECM process manages the revision and status of all the digital assets in an IT infrastructure. This white paper by Chris Kincaid from Configuration Management, Inc. discusses the benefits of ECM for risk mitigation.
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In this white paper, the author discusses the real-life challenges faced by field technicians and how those technicians can be empowered with mobility solutions to improve field productivity, increase the accuracy of diagnostics, reduce warranty and invoicing cycle times, increase service revenues, and most importantly, improve the customer experience.
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As a company in the financial sector, you place extremely high demands on your call center. The complicated and sensitive nature of the calls requires an agent who is highly trained and experienced. This leads to a high cost per call. At the same time, sacrificing caller satisfaction is not an option. This creates a tough challenge: How do you decrease the cost per call, while improving the customer experience? Download this white paper to find out.
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Printers can place a huge administrative burden on small to medium businesses (SMBs), which diverts them from their core activities. The solution is to use a managed print service (MPS), combining hardware, service, and supplies into a service based on cost-per-page. This paper discusses the printing challenges faced by SMBs and how a simple and flexible MPS can help save time and money while improving staff productivity.
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The Proximity Hotel in Greensboro, North Carolina, is the first hotel in the US to receive Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification at the platinum level from the U.S. Green Building Council. Combining luxury with energy efficiency and environmental sustainability, the hotel places the highest priority on guest comfort. The owner's goal is a sustainable, energy-efficient hotel that never compromises guest comfort. Learn more now.
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This IDC Buyer Case Study examines BT's successful project to reduce costs and raise efficiency and quality in its release-service introduction, testing, and deployment activities, using offshore-based partner Wipro. It looks at the challenges, risks, and outcomes of the project, and draws some lessons for organizations considering similar challenges.
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Security Information and Event Manager (SIEM) users face the pressure of high costs related to the selection of a SIEM product, its deployment, integration and day-to-day use. Such cost pressure stems from substantial initial cost of the product, additional expenses for specific hardware and third-party product licenses, etc. In the end, what was initially considered as an affordable price for the chosen SIEM solution may turn out to be a large hole in the budget with an enormous total cost of ownership. Download this white paper to learn different approaches for resolving them successfully.
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This report discusses the policy and business drivers of "clean tech," and the development of the clean tech sector in terms of business models, globalization, technological diffusion, and growth. The emphasis on clean tech has increased in recent years due to international concerns about the economic impact of climate change caused by GHG (largely CO2) emissions from energy production and consumption. This report examines government policies in different economies, and focuses on clean tech opportunities for software services such as measurement and monitoring, platform efficiency software, mitigation software, system integration, and managed services consulting.
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This case study showcases the University of Canberra’s (UC) successful outsourcing story amidst an increasingly competitive education industry in Australia. A broad coverage and decentralized approach to administrative support, coupled with lowering student demand and increasing budget deficit contributed to UC’s diminishing performance and margins. In order to rebuild its competitiveness, increase profitability and refocus on their core functions, UC decided to outsource its key functions to Wipro while still retaining some in-house, high-level technical or managerial role. Find out more now.
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Near-field communications (NFC) is the hovering trend in the “mobile tech” world, not only adding convenience to the daily lives of consumers, but opening doors for enterprises to increase revenue, collect useful consumer data, and use that data in targeted marketing efforts. This whitepaper examines the background of NFC and explores the integration of NFC and its various uses. NFC security concerns are also discussed.
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Universities and other higher education establishments have to address the need for savings across the board. One area is expenses from faculty members and other associated with faculty. The complex mix of expense types needs a flexible yet solid means of managing spend as close as possible to the point of expense that encourages the individual to participate in the process without it being seen as an imposition. Know how.
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The advent of powerful yet inexpensive computers and global connectivity has produced data everywhere. Relevant data needs to be identified and brought into court. E-discovery essentially requires a professional approach to managing a project, with application of general principles to the legal world. Read this paper for a review of Electronically Stored Information (ESI) technology used for litigation and e-discovery.
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Integrated water resources management (IWRM) is a framework that supports collaboration and fosters proactive decision making for efficient management of scarce water resources. GoldSim is a software tool for conducting simulations of complex systems to support management and decision making in engineering, science, and business. This paper provides a brief overview of GoldSim, with special emphasis on IWRM applications.
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Service-oriented organizations often find it difficult to balance infrastructure costs with software systems that enable frequent modifications. TEC examines UNIT4’s Vita Cloud Angel approach to this challenge—and lets you know whether it’s a viable option for you. Get the TEC analyst perspective in this special report on Vita Cloud Angel.
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In the ever-changing economy, organizations looking to cut costs and drive innovation are turning to co-sourcing as a cost-effective and less risky alternative to outsourcing or offshoring. This white paper explores the primary business benefits of the co-sourcing model and provides key information for evaluation.
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To analyze enterprise application usage throughout the company, Qualcomm’s product development services team required a solution that was more rapid and analytically driven than the company’s other business intelligence (BI) systems. Learn how the team found a solution that helped speed up product testing, enable real-time access to testing data, and reduce the time required to fulfill new BI application requests.
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Midsize businesses are learning the hard way that most enterprise software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications are not truly on-demand, but instead require consulting and specialized customer support services. Learn about the critical consulting and support services required to select, deploy, and fully utilize SaaS solutions to achieve your business objectives and safeguard your mission-critical applications and data.
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This paper focuses on identifying the similarities and differences between Oracle Financial Analyzer (OFA) and Hyperion Planning (HP). For users who are migrating, or thinking of migrating, to Hyperion Planning, strategies will be discussed to ensure their existing functionality can be replicated in HP. The paper is aimed at users who are familiar with OFA or similar multidimensional database applications.
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For managed services providers (MSPs) aiming to serve small and medium-sized businesses, the ability to capture and retain lasting customer relationships is a determining factor for long-term profitability. Only by clearly and consistently communicating your value to your customer can you hope to attain the role of trusted advisor—a position that will help protect you from losing business to lower-priced competitors. Learn how an integrated, offline reporting solution can help ensure that your customers perceive your value in the ways that matter most to all managers within the customer organization.
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A business' success delivering managed services depends on its ability to improve the delivery of effective and efficient services to its customer base. Learn about ways that managed services providers (MSPs) can develop a higher-value business by improving their ability to attract and retain high-quality customers and provide IT services in an effective manner.
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Service companies that want to thrive need to find a better way to deliver services and run their business. Automating IT services is the answer, and it should be the immediate goal of any company that aims to stay in business as market pressures increase. Looking beyond basic automation, becoming a managed services provider (MSP) should be the long-term goal. Discover ways to ensure your service company's survival in today’s competitive IT services market.
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Margins on profitable products and services erode as they become commoditized. And now, the same process is starting to happen to the IT services market. To avoid the commoditization trap and distinguish their services from their competitors, managed services providers (MSPs) need to develop a two-pronged strategy that involves delivering higher-value services that yield greater profit margins, and driving down service delivery costs so they can effectively deliver responsive, tools-based services to compete efficiently in a commoditized market. Find out how.
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Most IT service providers have always and continue to operate in a break/fix service environment. When a customer calls with an issue, the service provider drops everything to fix it. Under these circumstances, service providers have a difficult time forecasting monthly revenues and staffing needs, which has a huge impact on profitability. Add to this the intense competition, excessive customer turnover, low technician utilization rates, and shrinking margins that characterize today‟s market, and the result is IT service providers anxious to find a new way of delivering their services. Learn about innovative IT-as-a-Service initiatives that are defining the new IT value chain of the future.
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For companies considering offering a product with a software-as-a-service (SaaS) business and delivery model, there are many ways things can go wrong—from inadequate market research, to poorly planned release cycles, to a failure to keep up with industry developments. Discover 10 common ways that SaaS companies fail, and learn how to avoid these pitfalls.
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The rapid deployment of nationwide technology rollouts requires well-defined processes, robust management skills, and a unique understanding of how to get the job done. Without a proven technology rollout system, businesses run a high risk of project complications that can result in increased costs, missed deadlines, and an overwhelming burden on internal resources. Learn what a technology rollout system is, how it can lower costs and save time without compromising quality, and what questions to ask a technology rollout company.
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As you begin a customer relationship management (CRM) initiative, software selection is only one facet of a successful project. You may consider implementing your new CRM system with internal resources. But even in providing a simple CRM solution in your company, a number of steps need to take place, including requirements gathering, configuration, and more. Discover the benefits of selecting a CRM implementation partner.
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WebTrends, a leader in Web analytics, needed a way to offer customers reporting and analytical access to the information generated by its Visitor Intelligence product, which combines off- and online data to provide insight into customers. WebTrends sought a scalable best-of-breed business intelligence (BI) solution that would integrate with its own product. Find out about the reporting and analytics solution it chose.
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High Concrete encountered several challenges in trying to understand its customer relationship management (CRM) data. Its CRM reporting involved lengthy and error-prone processes. After seeing a demonstration of a business intelligence (BI) application specifically designed for its Dynamics CRM system, the company knew integrating the two systems would be easy—and provide flexible reports, quickly and accurately.
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Digital marketing involves using your Web site and associated marketing tools to promote your business online. You can learn some basic skills in both search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing. But for optimal results, you’re advised to consult a professional, who can provide you with insight into what SEO services should entail, allowing you to make an informed decision when selecting a supplier.
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Sales at F.J. Westcott began to grow, placing a greater demand on its legacy enterprise resource planning (ERP) system’s inventory capabilities. Unrelieved inventory and other challenges led Westcott to seek a new ERP system—and a software evaluation and comparison methodology within the company’s budget. See how Technology Evaluation Centers’ Software Selection Services provided the resources for a confident decision.
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Today’s mobile software companies face a daunting challenge: How can they achieve quality while getting to market swiftly? After all, speed is king in the mobile market. The trade-off between speed and quality in mobile software development is an illusion—or should be. Get a closer look at the situation with a framework that presents a way to use quality assurance (QA) processes to accelerate development.
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The crucial interoperability of wireless network devices built around the 802.11 standard is threatened by the advent of faster technologies. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is trying to cope by developing the 802.11n standard—but it’s still in draft form. Meanwhile, how can manufacturers cope with the confusion surrounding the future of 802.11? Get an outline of the situation.
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Efforts to improve the efficiency and maturity of a quality assurance (QA) or test organization have largely been academic exercises, and difficult to apply to real-world software development environments. Today, with newer methods such as the Testing Maturity Model (TMM), it’s easier to assess, implement, and improve test processes. Learn about fresh techniques for assessing the effectiveness of QA organizations.
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Stand-alone learning management systems (LMS) often lack scalability, reliability, and secure access—and the interfaces to offer these features. But new development strategies, standards, and tools can move LMS into the “next generation.” If you’re an independent software vendor (ISV), an engineer of educational software products, or the chief learning officer of a corporate university, this info will interest you.
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Today’s technology and application leaders are pressured to deliver functionality that drives efficiency, innovation, and growth—while reducing costs. As a result, technology and application portfolio management (APM) are top business priorities. Learn about a framework for implementing an APM program that can enable your company to monitor and analyze the impact of application changes and reduce portfolio complexity.
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Consultant Paul Mitnick chose the Training Partner learning management system (LMS) to help a real estate firm consolidate its learning management program. In addition to a breakdown of the steps involved in his LMS software selection process, you’ll also discover how the LMS implementation went—including the testing and timing involved in ensuring that all data was in the new LMS before it was accessed by users.
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Hosted services can offer a sound solution for small and medium businesses requiring safe and reasonably priced platforms. Applying the same concept at a higher level could result in hosting and services providers leasing or renting virtual real estate for the services they provide in order to lower their initial investments or subsequent upgrade costs. Learn more about “hosted hosting,” the new breed of hosting services.
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Oracle’s Accelerate is a program in which Certified and Certified Advantage partners build industry-specific solutions combining Oracle enterprise applications and rapid-implementation tools with the partners’ own expertise or software. The program aims to reduce the time, complexity, and cost of deploying Oracle solutions, to make them suitable for mid-market companies and governmental organizations. Learn more.
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As marketing budgets shrink and companies in the corporate services industry aim to leverage their Web sites as less expensive alternatives to traditional marketing tools, Web-site strategy is becoming more important. Web-site strategy must focus on enhancing credibility, strengthening existing relationships, generating leads, and more. Get tips on how to create a Web-site strategy that will help you achieve these goals.
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The term program management office (PMO) has been around for some time. Its core concepts, methods, and benefits have remained constant, while resources and tools have changed somewhat over the years. But not understanding what a program office is and when it should be leveraged is a common pitfall and reason for failure. Find out more about the program office, and its roles, processes, and responsibilities.
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Currently, India’s population is approximately 1.0009 billion. The middle class is large and still growing; wages were low, but now are some of the best in various industries; many workers are well educated and speak English; and investors are optimistic and local stocks are up. Despite political turmoil, the country presses on with economic reforms. But for potential investors, there’s still cause for worry—find out why.
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During a recession, successful businesses change their approach to managing information technology (IT) sourcing. The challenge is to become more efficient and invest in IT so the return on investment (ROI) is realized quickly and business competitiveness is improved at lower cost. IT vendor management allows you to build a mutually beneficial relationship with your suppliers and service providers. Find out how.
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Discover a framework for crafting a software-as-a-service (SaaS) strategy in your company. Examine key concerns such as data integrity, maintaining compliance, and ensuring proper process management, as well as approaches to help maximize your return on investment (ROI). A SaaS solution for your enterprise resource planning (ERP) or accounting system might be your ticket to improved business and application performance.
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Pronto Software—Australian vendor of software meeting the needs of a range of vertical industries such as retail and food and beverage—wants to ensure it sustains profitable growth. To find partnerships with value-added resellers (VARs) in North America and in other markets, Pronto relies on Technology Evaluation Centers’ (TEC’s) software industry programs. Learn about the other ways Pronto benefits from using TEC.
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There’s nothing like a recession to reveal the efficacy of shared services as a delivery model for human resources (HR) administration. Companies experienced with HR shared services find the model efficiently handles day-to-day administrative transactions, including such delicate issues as the paperwork aspects of layoffs, thus freeing staff to focus on morale and other issues caused by the economic downturn. Learn more.
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IT has long been seen as one of the best ways to address the challenges of the business environment. Yet the complexity and rigidity of IT infrastructure keep IT from fully serving the business. IT could better help serve your customers and reduce business costs if it were provided as a service. Find out more about IT service management standards and best practices, with a focus on SAP’s approach to IT optimization.
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Whether you’re working toward your first or your next payment card industry (PCI) data security standard (DSS) audit, you know compliance is measured on a sliding scale. But full compliance can’t be achieved with just one policy or technology. Using data masking, a technology that alters sensitive information while preserving realism, production data can be eliminated from testing and development environments. Learn more.
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Rising data volume is not the only reason companies are concerned with issues of data integration and data quality. The growing numbers of disparate systems that produce and distribute data add to the complexity. But in many companies, data quality management has not kept pace with the growth of data integration projects, and its use is immature. Find out how moving toward a single data services architecture can help.
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IT has long been one of the best ways to address business challenges. Yet significant obstacles at the level of IT infrastructure stand in the way. Siloed IT operations and rigid IT management processes can impede business agility. When IT partners with the business to act less as a technology provider and more as a service provider, business objectives can be achieved more efficiently and cost-effectively. Find out how.
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Many small to medium businesses (SMBs) do not have experience with software as a service (SaaS), but are looking to adopt SaaS solutions soon. According to studies, 2009 will be the tipping point, with a majority of companies aiming to adopt SaaS this year. But these companies must be cautious, as the old rules for on-premise software analysis and purchase don’t apply. Discover the new rigorous criteria you should use.
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New Avenue Solutions is a consultant for small to medium businesses (SMBs) in network setup and installation, security, data backup, and more. As part of New Avenue’s service offering, it rents rack space in a data warehouse to manage customers’ network and backup solutions. As storage demands grew, transfer rates slowed, and maintenance became increasingly time consuming. Learn how New Avenue overcame the problems.
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Once you decide it’s time to upgrade the enterprise resource planning (ERP) for accounting system, the next question is: “How much does it cost?” However, many variables factor into the total project price—and software is only a fraction of that. Discover 16 insider tips that can help you save money, as well as 30 specific questions to ask your software vendor, so you can avoid hidden costs and understand the total quote.
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Unplanned e-mail outages or even routine maintenance can cause huge disruption, not only to your business, but also to your customers and partners. What issues do organizations face regarding e-mail outages? Learn about the different e-mail continuity solutions available and how a hosted e-mail continuity service can provide a cost-effective, high-availability e-mail solution with minimal deployment efforts required.
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Today’s economic environment requires you to evaluate whether your current financial institution is in it for the long haul and can offer the full breadth of services that you may need. Many of these vital services can be delivered from one source—your bank. Your primary concern in selecting a financial services institution should be the security of your assets and data. Find out what to look for, and what to avoid.
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IT spending is often an issue for companies, but in difficult economic times it’s even more important to see what benefit IT can bring to the business. But IT investments are most effective when they improve business performance. Find out the degree to which organizations in the United Kingdom (UK) understand what IT is doing for their businesses, and in particular how some companies measure this and benefit from it.
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Integrative software as a service (SaaS) business systems are a way of transforming your finance operations. SaaS can position finance as the nexus of standardized, real-time information. Finance executives should investigate SaaS solutions and providers, so that finance and IT can work together to enable a cost-effective transformation of finance to a stronger leadership role and improve finance’s value to your company.
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Unmanaged employee use of e-mail and the Web can subject your organization to costly risks including litigation, regulatory investigations, and public embarrassment. Responsible organizations should deploy clearly written acceptable usage policies (AUPs) for e-mail and Web usage, supported by employee training and enforced by technology solutions. Find out how to develop and enforce e-mail and Web AUPs in your workplace.
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The Internet creates new opportunities for mischief—and new challenges for managers. How do you balance individual access with the overall good of the business? What’s the right balance between monitoring and blocking? Learn about a Web security solution that can allow you to monitor and enforce your Internet usage policies, bringing site monitoring and filtering together with anti-virus and anti-spyware protection.
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Utilization is important for all services organizations. Maintaining high utilization of your employees drives higher billing, higher revenue—and higher profits. Yet tracking and measuring utilization poses challenges. Learn how to create a policy for calculating utilization that is consistent with common industry practices—and how to use your professional services automation (PSA) tool to measure and report utilization.
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Most companies are facing a number of pressures, thanks to a stormy economic climate. To help control costs and resources, many small to medium businesses (SMBs) are looking at implementing an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. But you also need to control the costs and the time frame of your ERP implementation. Discover how partnering with a value-added reseller (VAR) can help you with your ERP selection process.
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When marketing managers look to expand their teams, they measure individuals on a number of different attributes, including creativity and attention to detail. And it’s no different when signing on with a marketing services provider. When outsourcing a database marketing solution, you should spend time evaluating the services offerings as well as the capabilities of various marketing services providers. Find out how.
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Office supplies manufacturer Esselte Corporation was the first company to implement Microsoft® Dynamics AX across four continents. About a third of the way through the implementation, the company had already begun seeing a high return on investment (ROI). Find out how Esselte and its global implementation partner, Tectura, managed this large-scale and complex, global enterprise resource planning (ERP) project.
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Dark Pool Trading Systems, used by institutional traders trading in large volumes, help get more liquidity and lower transaction cost. Despite these benefits, there are a few issues, such as inadequate transparency, regulatory requirements, and uniform information access to investors. Considering these systems’ complexity, it’s important that functional testing, as well as gateway and performance testing, be done.
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With the increase in global IT outsourcing agreements, many companies are looking at outsourcing quality assurance (QA) and testing to ensure high-quality deliverables and gain competitive advantages. These companies need to select an outsourcing partner that has local and offshore test centers—and a strong on-site consultancy presence. Find out about these and other issues that will help you in the short and long term.
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Unimed Porto Alegre, with 41 percent of the health care market share in Sao Paolo (Brazil) managed to make significant improvements to its operations by implementing a new solution to deal with hundreds of thousands of monthly online transactions. For one thing, the payment process has been reduced from 3 days to 10 hours or less. Learn about the other benefits this online customer service solution provides.
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Brazilian health care cooperative Assefaz wanted to change its health care plan administration system, as it didn’t offer enough options to create business rules and specific procedures. The new system it chose offers new modules, including Medical Audits. Find out how the co-op divided up the implementation, and how the new solution has streamlined numerous processes related to its administrative health care services.
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Want to know more about distributed agile best practices for software development projects? Find out about the challenges and lessons learned from this implementation of distributed agile for teams distributed across US, Europe, and India. Discover how this large, globally distributed project for a large telecom vendor realized such benefits as better collaboration, higher quality product, and on-time delivery.
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Today, business is driven to change per customers’ needs, and IT organizations must be strategic partners with the lines of business. Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) best practices are gaining popularity as one way to manage change. However, implementing ITIL best practices in an IT organization is not without challenges. Learn about the approaches that can be used for successful ITIL implementation.
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The Delphi technique—drawing wise counsel from senior and experienced software developers—can help you prepare estimates for software development projects. With this method of software estimation, project specifications are given to a few experts, depending on their availability. Learn about the essential steps involved in this software estimation methodology for more accurate estimates of software development effort.
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Project management tools for software development should include a broad range of functionality. Project teams must be able to estimate the scope and duration of each project, divide work into components and tasks; provide quality assurance; and generate detailed performance metrics. Find out how many project management solutions are missing the mark, and learn what to look for when choosing a solution of your own.
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In today’s marketplace, creating sustainable growth requires constant innovation. Innovations—in both product features and service delivery—are increasingly important as a means of differentiating yourself from the competition. Either you invest in innovations or risk losing market share to a competitor. In this webcast, you’ll find out what’s happening globally that makes investing in innovative technology important.
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You can leverage economies of scale to increase production by using existing equipment and people, lowering cost per unit, and increasing profit margins. The same applies to providers of services. Using the talented personnel you have and expanding the quality and distribution of services and support are much easier than starting from scratch. Find out how you can take advantage of economies of scale for profitable growth and gains in market share.
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An unprecedented wave of security breaches has led to the establishment of technical standards, IT governance frameworks and laws designed to improve and enforce IT security. Companies are under increasing pressure to control their IT infrastructures more effectively. Learn how ongoing automated vulnerability assessments, together with well-defined network security policies, can simplify the compliance process.
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Today’s data transmission departments are battling for budget and relevance. Moving files and ensuring delivery is getting tougher every day. To successfully deliver data to an increasing number of target platforms and meet rising customer expectations, leading companies are adopting service-oriented architectures (SOAs) and upgrading their file transfer departments into data transmission services. Find out more.
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Although early customers of human resources outsourcing (HRO) are moderately satisfied, many are not achieving the benefits expected from HRO. Some of the reasons for this include a perceived lack of innovation by service providers, resource constraints, and misaligned expectations. Buyers must thoroughly evaluate several criteria and know what they need to have in place in order to reap the rewards of HRO. Learn more.
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The task of defining test plans, acceptance criteria, and testing deliverables and processes for any software development effort can raise many challenges. Choosing a tool to help support these practices not only can help to alleviate the burden placed on those involved, but it can add efficiency, organization, and the foundation for success. Find out how one company benefited from implementing a quality initiative.
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As companies come to grips with current fiscal realities, choices may result more from reaction than the use of sound judgment. Removing vital resources and reducing services can create an even lower return on investment (ROI) than existed before downsizing. Outsourcing may offer a solution. Learn about the effects that the present financial situation will have on the outsourcing community, including buyers and suppliers.
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Retro-sourcing refers to the processes involved in reversion control for outsource engagements. It allows proper care and protection to be related to a plan of return for development and service delivery. This can help you control unexpected and risk-laded initiatives, particularly in first-time outsourcing engagements. Learn about the six stages of retro-sourcing, and how they can help you make better-informed decisions.
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Whatever you offer as a service provider, success depends on how well you manage key accounts to ensure long-term relationships and the highest possible margins. But with today’s challenges, it’s difficult to maintain market share, let alone grow. SAP’s All-in-One fast-start program offers a solution that can help you maximize client and service-line profitability by supporting industry best practices. Learn more.
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Recent EquaTerra market research finds a consensus among western business leaders that increased globalization is inevitable—and that it will generally be beneficial. Quickly and efficiently leveraging opportunities created by globalization is the best way to avoid being overwhelmed by its challenges. Learn how to compare buyer and service provider data and get insight into developing a responsive global strategy.
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For many companies, the second largest cost after people is facilities. Solutions have evolved from traditional out-tasking and outsourcing to the more recent strategy of integrating facilities management and real estate under a single service provider. But first, understand marketplace realities: provider capabilities don’t always line up with buyer expectations. Learn about the challenges of integrating these services.
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Ping Identity provides software for the computer security and identity management industry. Ping wanted to facilitate rapid, high-end development and accelerate time to market for its leading Web security product. When its first outsourcing choice didn’t offer enough Agile development expertise, Ping found another solution that helped reduce costs by 46 percent and doubled in-house performance in key areas. Learn more.
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E-business is more than a smart Web presence or a slick, flash-driven shopping cart. But thanks to astounding hype-over-Internet, droves of large and medium enterprises were woefully late in realizing the need for a sensible strategy deployment. By now, however, they have realized that e-business initiatives have to cohere strongly with overall business strategy. Yes, right, sounds good, but how?
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Expectations of the business community from the database development domain are high, but slightly unsettled. The customer community worldwide needs to understand that while there are common threads among relational databases, they also nurture important differences. Find out what they are.
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Before you talk to a payroll services provider, you need to ask yourself several important questions about the current situation of your organization, and to consider its budget, expected growth, and more. Here’s a checklist of some of those questions so you can make the most of your consultation with potential services providers. Get organized and know your requirements before you commit to buying a payroll solution.
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The user scalability of your applications can be key to your organization’s success. Benchmark results show how a next-generation customer relationship management (CRM) system can meet the needs of an enterprise-level, mission-critical workload of 24,000 users while maintaining high performance response times. Learn how CRM can help you achieve a 360-degree customer view, adapt quickly to business change, and more.
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A software migration can cause pain over many months in at least three crucial areas, though it will provide long-term benefit. But with a migration assurance program, you can completely avoid major pain. Find out how a rollover to Office 2007 and Vista can impact the productivity of your users, your IT staff, and your business. And learn about the steps you can take to minimize or avoid a decrease in productivity.
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IT organizations struggle with the challenges of shrinking budgets, ever-changing technology, compliance pressures, and more. For greater efficiency, many IT organizations are turning to information technology service management (ITSM) to help improve processes. But there’s still too much focus on technology and not enough on business outcomes. Learn key strategies for changing your approach to delivering IT services.
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An estimated two-thirds of IT projects aren’t completed on time or budget, while 15 percent are cancelled entirely. But your IT project doesn’t have to be a gamble. By knowing the most common causes of project failure, your company increases the potential for a successful project outcome. Learn more about how inadequate initial project planning can be one of your greatest obstacles to success—and how you can overcome it.
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The latest Pulse surveys reflect business process outsourcing (BPO) and information technology outsourcing (ITO) market activity during the first quarter of 2008 and projections for the future. If you’re considering BPO or ITO, the surveys’ results can inform you on demand and buying patterns, deal scope, sales cycles and ramp-up time, as well as outsourcing’s role in making human resources more strategic. Learn more.
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The challenges of doing business in today’s economic climate are the same for mid-market companies as they are for larger corporations. The mid-market, however, has typically addressed those challenges differently and has not employed alternative service delivery models. But more and more mid-market firms are discovering that information technology outsourcing (ITO) can have a positive impact on growth. Find out why.
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Small and medium businesses (SMBs) often don’t know how to engage and manage outsourcing initiatives. Both outsourcing provider and seeker should together address several questions when starting a project to outsource business or technology processes. What’s the cost benefit? What are the risks involved? Find out the customer and the vendor perspectives, and how to achieve cost savings and service-level improvements.
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Software-as-a-service (SaaS), also called on-demand software, can be a convenient and profitable business model for vendors. And for clients, SaaS can provide greater processing efficiencies than a company’s own internal systems. As a result, human resources, customer relationship management, or accounting process costs decrease when handled by an SaaS vendor. Learn about the benefits—but also the challenges—of SaaS.
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Genius Project4Domino and Microsoft Project are both project management tools, and though their range of features is different, they are also complementary. Using the solutions together can bring a well-rounded project management solution to companies of all sizes. Learn how they can be used to ensure consistency and eliminate downtime, so your long-term strategic project plans are a success.
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Competitive testing analysis is a vital part of designing, evaluating, and marketing hardware and software products. National Technical Systems (NTS) tested two change management systems, measuring how quickly each compares selected datasets. Find out which solution proved to be twice as fast as the other in a local area network (LAN), and almost 24 times faster in a wide area network (WAN) environment. Learn more.
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Although IT outsourcing can result in cost savings of up to 60 percent, you’re not as likely to see that return if you don’t have an offshore development center (ODC). This team of programmers and developers, hand picked to complement your skill-set and culture, works on your behalf at the service provider’s site, and can be a seamless extension of your IT department. Learn more about the benefits of setting up an ODC.
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Social networking sites offer recruiters a valuable opportunity to seek out, scout, and connect with applicants in ways that traditional channels can’t support. The key to success in this space is to develop a smart, targeted recruitment strategy that works with, not against, the fundamental principals of social networking. Get 5 tips to crafting a social networking recruitment strategy—so you can recruit the best talent.
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Online recruiting is one of the pillars of smart recruiting strategies for firms in every sector. Job seekers and employers alike are turning to electronic resources for their job search and recruiting processes. But human resources staff may not know the best practices for online recruitment, and should stay on top of online recruitment trends. Get a clearer picture of the impact and implications of online recruitment.
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Business processes outsourcing offers a company value in many functions, such as payroll and benefits administration. But recruiting outsourcing is not yet so common. Three hurdles can stand in your way to successfully outsource your HR recruitment process. Learn about these and the top seven success factors in managing HR outsourcing services providers, so you can find the best recruitment outsourcing provider for you.
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Effective CRM deployment can bring many productivity gains. And although free customer relationship management (CRM) tools may sound great to overburdened company directors, there are five reasons why free CRM tools should be avoided. For one, free isn’t always free, as hidden costs can undermine your budget. Find out about the other reasons why it’s better to tighten your CRM budget now, rather than go bust later.
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Software developers need a powerful tool to control and plan the quality of their software applications. With a solution that offers project analysis, testing, and bug administration, you have options that can help increase the quality of your software products. Read about a software test tool that has administrative functions to help you more effectively plan, control, and evaluate your software as it’s developed.
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Electronic health records can provide many benefits for patients and health care providers and insurers. Health care technology managers should have a strategic technical background to make informed decisions about integrating, partnering, or supporting personal health care record (PHR) solutions. Learn best practices on implementation, and how to leverage your existing health care technologies with new PHR platforms.
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Maybe you’re considering software test tools for the first time. Or maybe you have experience but think your existing software test automation process needs retooling. Whatever your perspective, there are tips and tricks you may not know about test design and development. These 10 steps to building software test automation can help you shorten your time to market, improve the quality of your products, and save you money.
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Intranets must be personalized for individual users and will manage themselves if a Web content management system (CMS) is installed. Right? In fact, these are two common and long-standing myths about intranets. One of the main objectives of a knowledge-sharing intranet is to be the authoritative source for up-to-date, company-wide content. Debunk other intranet myths and learn how simple can equal successful.
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Over 80 percent of consultants in service organizations consider spreadsheet-based business plan modeling inadequate. Weak client–partner relationships reflect this inadequacy. An integrated business planning and modeling platform can provide deeper insight into a range of strategic and operational issues. Find out how this can result in enhanced decision making and optimized long-term client engagement and satisfaction.
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Although information technology service management (ITSM) is not a new discipline, many organizations have yet to adopt it as a part of their IT service improvement strategy. To be successful, businesses must start by building a custom road map. Read about how focusing on long-term, strategic objectives—including a realized return on investment (ROI)—can greatly improve your IT service delivery and support.
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In the public sector, where it’s often more about process than the business case, recompeting a current outsourcing relationship doesn’t always make the most sense for ensuring continued value. Due to the cost and time investment in the recompete process, it can often cause more problems than solutions. In many cases, outsourcing agreements simply need to be updated to meet changing business requirements. Find out how.
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In the past 10 years, business process and IT outsourcing markets have become globalized, raising some key issues for outsourcing buyers. How can you develop a service delivery model for your business that fully exploits global sourcing opportunities while supporting overall corporate strategies, goals, and principles? By developing a set of integrated capabilities and processes as part of your core competency.
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Empirical evidence demonstrates that the benefits of a distributed IT services model are considerable—yet many companies still resist the change. If IT professionals took the time to fully understand the positive impact of distributed services models on both cost and value, they’d be better equipped to fight organizational resistance and develop a road map for successful change. Find out how you can build yours today.
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A contact center is a mission-critical component of any organization’s operations—regardless of who they service. Yet stakeholders often remain dissatisfied with its performance. In the past, contact centers benefited from advances in information and technologies, yet many companies struggled to determine how they could take advantage of these benefits. Find out how embracing both old and new technologies today can work.
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For many organizations, undertaking IT and business process outsourcing involves everything from finding and assessing providers, to selecting locations, to determining which services are required. But the hardest part of outsourcing occurs after the deal is done. To help businesses ensure consistency in outsourcing governance, there are nine critical factors to keep in mind that can help guarantee its success.
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Aligning your business plans with your method of execution requires more than a peek at financial metrics. Initiatives, tasks, people, and metrics must be aligned with corporate goals. Find out how strategy management software, alone or as part of a performance management solution, can provide clear visual links between individual initiatives and broader goals, and ultimately enhance your business’s overall performance.
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Choosing the right professional services automation (PSA) solution may be one of the most important decisions a billable services organization will ever have to make. It’s a decision that can clearly impact your company’s bottom line, so it’s crucial that you get all the facts—up front. When talking with PSA vendors, knowing what questions to ask in order to make an informed selection is vital. Read here to find out why.
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Food-borne illnesses are recognized as a significant public health problem in the US today. As such, food inspection and safety administrators have implemented Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) systems regulations. Without the proper software system, however, complying with HACCP requirements can be difficult. With Sage ERP X3 process manufacturing enterprise resource planning (ERP), it doesn’t have to be.
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Corporate governance encompasses the processes and systems by which organizations operate—and it affects every business. To effectively participate in governance processes, businesses should consider closed-loop service oriented architecture (SOA). Although stand-alone applications for governance, management, and security exist, find out why they do not enable the demand and value management that closed-loop SOA offers.
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Today’s complex enterprise networks present unique challenges to those whose task it is to manage and secure them. Existing security measures that worked yesterday may not be sufficient tomorrow. But by combining Configuresoft’s Enterprise Configuration Manager (ECM) with Microsoft’s System Center 2007, businesses can secure their data, protect their bottom lines from costly downtime, and meet regulatory standards.
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Organizations of all sizes face similar challenges when managing storage—not enough capacity or protection. Help has arrived with Internet small computer system interface storage area networks (iSCSI SANs)—and they're steadily gaining momentum. With iSCSI SANs, businesses can effectively manage their storage needs, while lowering costs and increasing security. Find out why many industry leaders are choosing iSCSI today.
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Information lifecycle management (ILM) is rapidly gaining acceptance as a process crucial to the success of many IT initiatives. The reason for this is the importance of managing data. With the growing demand for ILM comes a variety of solutions that follow a disjointed, point product approach. By choosing an ILM software designed to scale to its needs, a business can benefit from software built on a unified platform.
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While virtualization technology can simplify server management and reduce operating costs, in production environments it presents a disaster-recovery challenge. The problem: simply backing up a host server doesn’t always ensure that data within virtual machines is recoverable. With Acronis’s True Image, IT managers can rest assured their data, settings, applications, and operating systems are protected against disaster.
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To boot or pre-boot, that is the question. There’s no doubt that operating systems (OSs) are complicated given the sheer amount of code that must be flawlessly interfaced and the potential vulnerabilities that can ensue. While full disk encryption (FDE) is one step closer to a more secure OS, encryption without strong authentication isn’t enough. For security-conscious users, pre-boot authentication is the only way to go.
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On top of the many challenges faced by IT managers today comes yet another challenge: ensuring efficient and secure user access to SAP. Because of the unencrypted communication between users’ workstations and the backend servers, the SAP environment—and the confidential data it stores—become vulnerable. With a secure single sign-on solution to SAP, however, you can significantly improve the security of this environment.
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Protecting your company’s data is not only wise, but often legally necessary. In order to beef up their data security programs, more companies are implementing full disk encryption (FDE). In the past, FDE was software based, which left it open to greater security risks. With the advent of new technology, however, it is now possible to migrate from software- to hardware-based FDE while still protecting your existing systems.
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With ever-changing technology, businesses often spend too much time and money trying to sustain their outdated systems. But is it possible to maintain a legacy system without the substantial costs of frequently updating it? By adopting service-oriented architecture (SOA)—which provides a suite of automated tools and services for migrating and extending legacy platforms—businesses can maximize quality and minimize costs.
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Today’s support organizations often face the challenge of providing efficient and effective customer service. Without the right tools, it can become an uphill battle. To gain true scale and effectiveness in service and support, many organizations are now turning to knowledge management initiatives like knowledge-centered support (KCS)—a business process that directly addresses the root causes of support inefficiencies.
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Registry cleanup is inarguably an integral component of PC maintenance. However, many PC users may be wasting time and effort cleaning their registries more often than necessary, depending on the age of their computers, as well as how often software and other utilities are installed. In order to save time and get the most out of your PC, there are a number of myths about registry cleanup you ought to dispel.
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Out of 100 IT projects, 94 will start over again at least once. Before your company launches its next package implementation or upgrade, make sure you don’t cripple the project from the start. Make sure your company has a clear understanding of how important the requirements definition stage is, and carries it out properly. Most importantly, find out about tools and ideas you can put into practice immediately.
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Benchmarking is a process where companies compare their performance over time against their competition. In doing so, they can identify where their strengths lie and where improvement may be needed. The point of benchmarking is to focus on areas that will yield the best return. For companies to succeed in their benchmarking efforts and gain a sustained competitive advantage, five key steps should be considered.
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E-mail is a powerful business tool that most enterprises can’t live without. Unfortunately, along with its capability of accelerating commerce, productivity, and social interactions, there are some drawbacks—such as spam! Companies that rely on e-mail to do business simply can’t afford the negative affects of spam. However, new technology is emerging that helps stop spam and allows users to get on with business.
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Industry today demands more quality of manufacturers, and as such, ISO 9001—the yardstick by which quality products and services are measured—is forcing more and more companies to become ISO-certified. However, companies can use a browser-based tool to help bridge any information gaps they may encounter during the process—and to give them the head start they need to intelligently manage their ISO certification.
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In today’s global market, providing quality products and services is essential for any manufacturer’s continued growth—but maintaining a competitive edge is not always easy. For success, quality awareness must begin at the conception of the product and continue throughout the various stages of its development. To improve in this area, many manufacturers are now adopting the total quality management (TQM) approach.
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When considering any software solution, two things come to mind: flexibility and cost. With virtualization technology, multiple applications can now be hosted safely and securely on a single server, eliminating the overhead of running multiple operating systems (OS) per server. This capability can greatly reduce costs and help organizations deliver consistent service levels despite unpredictable workloads.
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An important question facing IT professionals today is how best to harness computing power to further improve automated business processes. This is especially critical in business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce. While service-oriented architecture (SOA) delivers the benefits of IT integration to business, it needs a programming language—such as Lisp—that can optimize its capabilities and scale in size and complexity.
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The Web has become a vast potential business asset for many companies today. But while business users have the vision, it’s the IT department that actually creates and deploys the Web application. This often raises the question of Web site ownership. Empowering both parties with the right tools to match their respective skills can help address this question—and many others—for businesses in this confusing situation.
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It’s no coincidence that the surge in counterfeiting over the past decade has coincided with a huge increase in Internet access around the world, and the more recent shift toward broadband connections. The Web provides a shop window to the world, yet it is impossible to police. New, intelligent, automated monitoring technologies are beginning to offer powerful solutions to this rampant online problem.
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Understanding how a system really works is the first step toward using, improving, automating, or explaining it to others. The basic concept of a system is that it is driven by cause and effect—but there is so much more to understanding its full complexity. The best place to start is by learning how causal loop diagrams (CLDs) are used to model dynamic systems by identifying variables and causal effects.
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As a business employing IT, you may have encountered situations where the software application you purchased didn’t come with a help file. With no time to write complete documentation yourself and no budget to hire a professional technical writer to do it for you, what do you do? By applying the basic principles of cost-effective documentation, your business can develop impressive documentation quickly—for a minimal cost.
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Your competitors are adopting business rules management solutions (BRMS) to achieve agility and reduce maintenance costs. With enhanced ability to store all business rules in one central location, enterprises have a unique opportunity to use non-conventional methods to test these rules, as well as their interactions with each other—without tying up their mission-critical software.
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The client: a US-based provider of reusable rack rental, recovery, and closed loop logistics management for bulk shipping and display of live goods, from nurseries to retailers. Faced with growing demand for its racks, the distributor required an enterprise-wide application that allowed flexibility for growth, while reducing operational complexity and maintaining the company’s excellent track record.
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A software consulting service provider needed to develop a web-based interface having touch screen functionality to provide instant schedule visibility, eliminate double bookings, and fully automate the reservation process—including sending attendee invitations, managing catering
orders, and reserving equipment. The service provider turned to Rishabh for development services.
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A leading application service provider of business applications needed to develop a replica of enterprise resource planning (ERP) for veterinary practice. The application required customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain management (SCM), a financial accounting system, human resource (HR) management, and medical records management. Rishabh Software developed the solution using EJB, XML, Java servlets, JSSE, JBoss, and J2ME technologies.
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A global marketing information firm was conducting paper- and telephone-based employee exit surveys. However, its manual process was time-consuming and costly. There was also the challenge of obtaining honest, accurate data from the employees in a completely confidential manner. Thus, the firm needed to automate its manual employee exit survey process, and replace it with a web-based application.
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A US-based multinational company providing end-to-end customer service via an online shipment and tracking system needed to develop an application that would allow customers to track shipment without going to the service provider’s web site. The multinational turned to Rishabh for development services.
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Software testing is carried out primarily to unearth system defects, and to prevent defective products from reaching customers. It’s also carried out to convince customers that a product conforms to and fulfils the agreed-upon specifications and functionality. However, in order to evaluate potential approaches to estimating test efforts, it’s vital to understand what the activity of testing actually consists of.
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Installing software and patch updates can be frustrating and time-consuming for IT staff and users alike. But it's critical to update your computers regularly to keep security filters current. This need increases exponentially if your users are mobile and geographically dispersed. Should this continue to be the responsibility of your IT staff? Or should you outsource this function to a managed service provider (MSP)?
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Companies spend staggering investments to make and keep their offerings competitive. By providing a centralized location to store account history and detailed contact information for every buyer and automating what had been manual tasks, sales force automation (SFA) and customer relationship management (CRM) have begun to positively impact sales efforts.
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The concept of getting business requirements right sounds straightforward. However, flawed requirements trigger 70 percent of project failures. The larger the number of stakeholder groups involved, and the more complex the processes, the more likely a project will fail. Success in large projects is not just about completeness, but also about getting complete requirements information early in the development process.
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Ten years ago, very few managers would consider “subscribing” to their mission critical technology solutions over the Internet, as they would subscribe to cable television or telephone services. Today, these same managers are realizing the substantial cost savings and productivity increases that the software as a service (SaaS) deployment option can bring to their organizations.
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Ensuring the quality of software can be difficult given the copious amounts of code that accompanies an application. Software quality automation, however, can leverage prewritten code so analysts can develop and execute test without extensive programming knowledge.
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The decision to use external resources on a project of any size or focus can be a tough one for a company facing the need to look outside its trusted staff to make something happen. "Can the appropriate skills be found at an acceptable cost?" is the first question. Indeed, defining your service needs, and then developing and maintaining a proper relationship with the provider you've hired is one of the most important things you can do to increase your success potential.
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How many times do you hear network administrators scream at the top of their voice, "I have spent millions of dollars buying expensive and the best antivirus software solutions and yet every two months, when a new virus strikes, I have my entire network go down!" This is a common complaint you will get to hear from one and all network administrators, primarily because most security vendors today concentrate more on a "reactive" approach to stop virus attacks, than a “preventive” approach!
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Decison support systems range from simple electronic filing cabinets to complex data intensive and analytically sophisticated executive information systems. This primer provides an overview with real case studies.
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You can blame your sales people all you want, but if the lead data is bad, they’re not going to bring in business. You can blame your product managers for ineffective promotions, but if the target lists are redundant, the pitches fall on deaf ears. You can blame your customer service representatives for low satisfaction scores, but if customer data is missing, then no wonder the complaint resolution pipeline is backed up. Think it’s your customer resource management (CRM) system? Think again. It’s bad data, and it’s costing you millions. Request your copy of The Bottom Line on Bad Customer Data that delivers detailed advice from Jill Dyche, partner and co-founder of Baseline Consulting, about what you can do to address the impact of bad data on your company. The report gives you insight into how bad data is impacting your company and what you can do about it. How to identify where the bad data is and quantify its impact, and different approaches to determine the sources and causes of bad data are all offered in this paper.
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The task of managing and maintaining today’s IT infrastructure has become vastly more complicated and complex as IT has become more critical to business success. The response from a technology perspective has been the introduction of services oriented architectures that enable IT to be responsive to the business needs but also live within their economic constraints. But the very technologies fueling this success create significant problems. Even small changes can cause major disruptions in today’s highly interactive and interdependent applications. Unfortunately, the pace of change means traditional testing architectures with lengthy development and testing will not work. But the testing must be done. Worksoft’s Certify is discussed as the test management repository and framework solution to this testing problem for XML-based applications.
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The Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act of 2002 (also known as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act 0f 2002) was passed by US lawmakers to reinforce honest and transparent corporate practices in the wake of the various public accounting scandals and corporate failures of the 1990s. The Act, named after US Senator Paul S. Sarbanes and US Congressman Michael G. Oxley, has changed the way public companies do business. Although not specifically covered under the Act, non-public entities are also finding that bankers, investors, and acquisition candidates are now conditioned to expect increased transparency and real-time disclosures, in effect placing a greater accounting and reporting burden on companies that are not legally obligated to comply with this act. As with any far-reaching legislation of this magnitude, there is plenty of hype that has emerged in connection with this law. This document is designed to help companies large and small navigate some of the "hype" that sometimes blurs the line between fact and fiction.
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In the relentless pursuit of profitability and competitiveness, more and more companies are turning to lean manufacturing to reduce or eliminate waste in their production processes. Once confined to the automotive industry, lean principles are becoming standard operating procedure in many industries today. The reason is simple: When implemented with a good performance management system, lean principles have a proven track record of operational and strategic success, which ultimately translates into increased value to the end customer. This paper illustrates how IFS Applications supports lean principles, particularly in the many manufacturing environments that require both rate-based (takt-driven) and order-based shop-floor execution.
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For a distributor to be successful in today’s competitive market, inventory-carrying costs must be minimized and accurately tracked. One way of accomplishing this in many industries is by assembling finished goods to meet customer orders. This is particularly true when numerous items are sold containing the same base components, but have minor modifications that make them unique.
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Creating an efficient centralized maintenance and operations program is made easier if you start with the right planning. This article addresses a tactical view to making your CMMS and EAM implementation work the first time.
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Nearly half of all new products do not justify the resources it takes to launch them—they fail in the marketplace. Product lifecycle management (PLM)—a powerful IBM e-business on-demand enabler—is a strategic approach to creating and managing a company. Learn how to improve supply chain communication and business process, and innovation by linking technology islands together and break down the barriers between function silos.
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