Articles

How to justify your technology choice

As technology plays an ever-stronger role in modern business models, predicting and measuring productivity gains from technology investment is becoming paramount to getting project sign off. Alex Gelman shares an excerpt on the topic from his book ‘A practical guide to selecting and justifying the right business technology‘… The

Who’s Your Master? Online Spreadsheets Solve a Common Problem

Have you ever emailed spreadsheets back and forth between people? Typically you’ve got some important, regularly updated information that needs input from others, while still keeping track of who has the latest version? You’re certainly not alone … and it can be a real headache! This problem

Arm against IT project failure

Nearly half of all IT projects fail and the seeds of failure are often planted early in the process by failing to prepare properly and truly understand the return on investment that you can expect from an IT project. Research results published in the Harvard Business Review,

Five tech trends to watch in 2016

Rapid growth in information volume and complexity is putting data centres under pressure, accentuated by customer behaviour changes driven by mobile and social trends, writes Arron Patterson… This is forcing businesses to rethink how they store and manage information. At the same time, there’s a need to

Man, machine and the productivity story

Technology has increased productivity and emancipated humankind from day-to day tasks, enabling automation over drudgery, hasn’t it? As the march of the machine continues into the digital age Chris Bell explores economist Robert Solow’s famous quip that you can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics…

Managing the Production of Food

A number of the customers that we have serviced over the years are well known Australian manufacturers of mass produced food products such as Cakes, Pickles and Chocolates. We have learned a great deal about this vertical as a result of this experience. What are the special

Management practice lags behind tech innovation

In many organisations management practice is about 20 years behind the web. Gerry McGovern discusses what this really means… Rarely do I find organisations where senior management is truly engaged with the web. The web is still seen as some peripheral entity that is somehow disconnected from the core

Encourage and Enforce Time Reporting System Use

The roots of time reporting lie in the timecard systems for manufacturing facilities. These systems tracked hours using a time card stamp. Employees checked in and out and were paid based on the hours worked. As business time tracking evolved, organizations were forced to create spreadsheets or

Gartner: Top technology trends you cannot afford to ignore

Gartner has published its annual list of the top strategic technology trends, which includes software-defined anything (SDx), 3D printing, mobile apps, cloud/client architecture, hybrid cloud and IT-as-service-broker and smart machines… The list covers the technologies that Gartner analysts deem as having the most potential to have significant

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