Articles

Mindmaps Saved My Head from Exploding

I am an idea person, I have them all the time, and I also have a lot of “lists”. After finally re-writing my list for the 1000th time, I thought, there must be a better way. There must be a way to organize my thoughts (like I

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

Middleware – Bridging Disparate Systems

As businesses evolve, they tend to adopt more than one software system to manage their varied transaction flows and processes. The breadth of their requirements increases, resulting in disparate system usage across the board. Examples include: Financial Reporting Debtors and Creditors Inventory Manufacturing Systems Job Costing Time

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

CFOs should have much to say on cloud computing

Today’s successful CFOs are modernising their departments while partnering with the CEO and line-of-business leaders to find new growth opportunities, says Oracle’s Jeffrey O. Henley… As the managers of risk, planning, and investments in a business, chief financial officers (CFO) have had two main responsibilities: manage the

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,

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’

Expense Management Software Benefits SMBs

Aberdeen Group’s T&E Expense Management Automation Report reveals a number of very interesting findings about the benefits of expense management automation for organisations. An interesting overarching insight is that expense management automation alone- excluding timesheet or project management automation- yields very high cost and risk savings for organisations of

The why, what and how of business agility

Fifty years ago, running a company was much more predictable, with less competition and customers content to buy based on what you had on offer. But things have changed, writes Nat Tanner, and so should you… In the digital age, new companies regularly emerge from nowhere and

The rise of the customer journey map

Gartner analyst Olive Huang explores how businesses can use customer journey mapping to better understand the customer and enrich their experience… Gartner’s 2015 CEO survey identified customer experience management as the top priority for technology investments over the next five years. Customer journey mapping is a common