IT departments rarely have the luxury of spare capacity or sufficient knowledge of all the products and technologies that the rest of their organisation expects. However, IT is an integral part of most businesses, and supporting diverse or specialised technologies and understanding their impact on the business is a necessity. Organisations not only require help from third parties, they need it to be focussed, expert and cost effective, and based on a long term partnership to ensure that internal and external staff work effectively together. ...
06/05/2009 | Body_to_Mind_final.pdf | VIEW
As an employee, you trust that those responsible for the processes that help support the organisation - such as financial reporting and analysis - have them fully under control. ...
16/05/2009 | st-epm.pdf | VIEW
Often the simplest approach yields the best results. A little while ago a study in hospitals in the UK found that one procedure was having a dramatic positive effect. Did it involve complex technology and years of painstaking theoretical research? Not really, it was a checklist that asked two basic questions - is this the right patient, is this the correct organ/limb/procedure? ...
09/04/2009 | Task 1, Adopt simple but effective process.pdf | VIEW
Many approaches to Business Process Management (BPM) have centred around the use of standard workflow technology. However, many business processes straddle two or more business applications, and as such, the workflow needs to straddle the applications, and the data, as well. For example, taking an order from a web customer may well straddle the web site itself, a customer relationship management application, and an enterprise resource management application. ...
11/02/2009 | Approaching BPM from a different direction.pdf | VIEW
Over the past month or so, I've attended two Microsoft events. At the MMS event, discussion focused on an approach to virtualisation that showed a greater appreciation of the problems than I would have expected from Microsoft at this stage of its embryonic Hyper-V play. ...
30/06/2008 | A game of two halves.pdf | VIEW
The extremely competitive nature of the financial services industry today and the changing landscape of customer expectations and their approach to investing in financial products, puts an onus on suppliers to consider how well they are dealing with new and existing customers' business transactions. This research investigates how technology is being applied to manage and improve operations. ...
26/11/2007 | Operations_Management_in_UK_Financial_Services.pdf | VIEW
Business process management (BPM) has been around for years. Although organizations have bought BPM software, many feel that the benefits have not been recognized as expected. The biggest issue is that the tools are predicated on the capability of the organization using them to be able to adequately define its own processes. ...
06/06/2008 | BPM, I'd prefer BTE, Thanks.pdf | VIEW
Calendaring and scheduling - hardly a topic to get the blood racing, but, nevertheless, a cause of stress for many - if not most - people. ...
31/03/2008 | Taking the Time Wasting out of Scheduling.pdf | VIEW
Imagine that you are newly arrived on planet Earth and faced with going to a public library. You are completely unaware of how a library works, but you understand books themselves. You enter and start to look at every single book until you find one on your chosen subject - possibly something along the lines of Social Etiquette for Earth Visitors. Having found this book, you go away, read it and return the next day to find another book on the same subject. You start again from the very beginning, looking at every book (including all the ones you looked at yesterday and found no interest in), until you find another book on the same subject. You patiently continue to do this, day after day, until someone offers to help you. ...
01/02/2008 | The Problems with Megadata Searches.pdf | VIEW
Many moons ago, one of the areas I covered as an analyst was customer relationship management (CRM) software. It rapidly became clear that although the majority of the software had much in the way of capabilities, many businesses would not gain from them, due to misconceptions around what CRM software did. The common approach seemed to be along the lines of "we've spent £x million on CRM, and it's not worked". Much blame was laid at the feet of the vendors (OK, a lot of it was well-founded), and much more money has been spent since on trying to get the expected returns from the investments. ...
01/09/2007 | Has Technology Killed CRM.pdf | VIEW
