By inmedia
The PC World Canada email newsletter just alerted me to their Partner Resource Centre, which is featuring How new technology can help your Small Business’ bottom line (PDF). The article discusses some of the challenges small businesses are faced with when trying to measure the ROI on technology investments and shares the following tips:
1. Study headcount and work processes for different jobs and assess their related costs.
2. Examine overall workflow, paying special attention to any ad hoc or manual processes that could be helped through automation.
3. Analyze the cost of maintaining an older technology, then factor in the savings you may realize through reduced maintenance or service costs.
4. Check out remote monitoring and other outsourcing services and compare that to managing your own systems in-house.
5. Identify the quickest areas of return (e.g. integrating POS data with accounting systems can reduce input requirements and administrative headcount).
Specifically, the article recommends small businesses invest in technology that will allow them to automate routine processes, create real-time business reports and connect business information and staff. For more details, head over to the Partner Resource Centre.
By inmedia
Yes, you heard correctly. Just as the world seems to be reaching a general level of acceptance about the link between air pollution and global warming, New Scientist informs us that the blanket of smog that now covers much of India is being credited with reducing the effect of global warming in the region.
“India is losing out on sunshine because a cloud of tiny air-borne particles released by the nation’s industries hovers above the subcontinent, blocking light from reaching the Earth,” states the article. “Maximum temperatures, which occur during the day and are driven by sunshine, have risen by just 0.04°C because of the protective effect of the smog.”
Ah, the irony.
For more, read the full article here.
By inmedia
This morning’s Network World Daily News pointed to a news item “Back up e-mail, judge tells White House” outlining that “The White House must preserve e-mail and maintain copies of millions of backup e-mail messages that were allegedly deleted improperly from servers, according to a temporary restraining order issued Monday by a U.S. judge.” Directives such as this certainly validate the business case for email archiving solutions like those offered by companies like Exclaimer, an inmedia client. Businesses of all sizes can learn from this situation and deploy solutions in advance of the onset of external pressures. Transparency in government and public companies is increasingly in demand; compliance and accountability issues within both private and public organizations will continue to be powerful market drivers for these sorts of solutions.
By inmedia
The November issue of Baseline features a large piece on business intelligence, “Getting Smarter, But Still Learning.” In the article, Darrell Dun writes about the growing adoption of BI, as well as the obstacles that are keeping it from reaching its full potential. The article includes a list of pain points identified by CIO Insight’s October survey on BI. Here’s a snapshot of what respondents using BI identify as their biggest pain points:
-64% say integration and interoperability with other systems such as customer relationship management and enterprise resource planning pose a problem.
-57% say poor data quality significantly diminishes the value of their BI initiatives.
-67% say spreadsheets are still their most widely used BI tool.
-58% say most users misunderstand or ignore data produced by BI tools because they don’t know how to analyze it.
By inmedia
As the calendar year winds down, we begin to see lists, lists and more lists being released by the publications to which we subscribe. Topics for these lists range from assessing the near-term state of the technology nation, to round ups of the “best” technologies, from the greatest products of the year, to looking at where money has been spent and where it will be spent in the months ahead.
One such list, appearing on the Baseline Magazine web site, assesses the Top 20 SMB Technologies and Purchasing Trends for 2007 as well as provides some insight into where SMBs will be spending their dollars in early 2008. Is your company developing products or services for which 2008 IT dollars are already allocated? Find out here.
