Articles

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…

The Many Faces of Time Management Processes and Software

When choosing a time management or time tracking tool, it is best to consider the needs of your organization and why and how you need to track time. A practical consideration and application of your business process will go some way toward choosing the appropriate tools to

CIOs seek balance between innovation and thrift

Australian CIOs are engaged in a balancing act – attempting to deliver the digital agenda that boards and investors crave, while keeping tight rein on costs… According to industry analyst Gartner Australia will this year spend $83.5 billion on IT. But carving up that investment is increasingly

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

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’

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,

Project success comes from the top

Approximately half of all significant ICT projects fail in terms of delivering what the business expected. Marg Roberts considers what needs to be done to improve the success rate… When businesses invest in ICT they are expecting to be able to do business better – that is to say

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

Five ways the cloud increases innovation and productivity

As one of the major step-changing technologies of this decade, expert Craig Deveson discusses how cloud computing has transformed innovation and productivity in the enterprise IT landscape… Cloud computing is a combination of layers of new technology combined with business model innovation. The revolution in the core technology behind

Modular Accounting Systems vs ERP Systems?

Growing companies who find they are straight-jacketed by their current accounting systems are typically faced with the difficult decision of upgrading as they grow. They can either choose to implement an all encompassing system or to ‘bolt on’ smaller applications in order to add capabilities to what