Articles

Why a $50k System is Overkill for Your Small Business

If you’ve ever bought a computer, you’ve felt it. Felt the pain that comes from seeing your shiny new system drop in price by 10% soon after you bought it… or 25% or 50%. With technology moving as quickly as it does, this price-drop pain is almost inevitable. But

Worldwide IT spending to grow in 2016 – but only just

Just how much will the tech-crazy world blow on IT in 2016? Around US$3.54 trillion… While that number represents growth, it is only just in the green according to the Gartner Worldwide IT Spending Forecast. At a mere 0.6 percent over 2015 spending, the researcher is anticipating

Budgeting for the cloud

Cloud computing is creating an expectation of offering a lot of functionality for next to nothing, but there are broader costs to deployment… There’s a lot of buzz around the cloud and its potential to transform IT in business. However, as with most things in life, there

Billing best practice: Tips for a healthy debtors ledger

We feel like we are being held to ransom by our invoicing, but if we don’t get the dollars in the door more easily and effectively, our livelihoods will be on the line. David McNickel investigates the issues and offers the latest best practice advice on how to ensure

Is cloud computing disenfranchising the CIO?

Cloud computing is continuing its meteoric rise and as a partial result IT control and decision-making is moving to the line of business managers. In the middle of it: the CIO. Clare Coulson considers what these changes mean for the modern CIO… When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set

Shadow IT seduces CFOs

The lure of cloud computing for CMOs is well understood and has seen more of the IT budget head to that department – now it’s the CFO’s turn… Delays and “chaos” in the planning cycle is driving chief financial officers to seek alternatives to the trusty spreadsheet,

Freelancers take flight

The way we work is changing. The market for recruiting creative and project resources has gone global. With the likes of freelancer.com and oDesk, people can work anywhere and, it seems, anyone can hire the right person to do almost anything. Anthony Doesburg investigates the modern way of working…

Using Time Accounting to Create a Culture of Accountability

If you own a company or manage a team of employees, you understand the challenges of motivating staff and establishing a culture of accountability and an understanding of objectives and goals. The best managers and leaders know that you cannot intimidate an employee into good performance, nor

Ever wondered which ERP vendor is best?

Panorama Consulting Solutions ranks ERP vendors for 2017 and comes up with a winner… That winner is Epicor – but at iStart, we have a nagging suspicion that the very notion of ‘the best ERP vendor’ is something of a ‘how long is a piece of string’

Disruption and the supply chain

Consumer demand is colliding with a supply chain that isn’t ready and can’t keep up, writes Jonathan Reay… There are five key consumer trends that will have implications for the supply chain, and that brands should watch over the next 12 months. They are: 1. Give customers