newsletters & other online resources

On our website we maintain a number of online resources. First and foremost are the back issues of our newsletter, BUSINESSBOOST, our briefing paper aimed at board-level business professionals with an input to their company's information systems strategy. You will also find articles of interest on current hot topics in the sphere of information technology generally.

BUSINESSBOOST issue 01
An IS strategy should clearly encapsulate how your information systems provisions meet both the immediate and future needs of the business. In a rapidly-changing and uncertain business climate, with downward pressure on costs, it is imperative that you have a clear vision of how every pound is being spent in order to maximise the commercial return for the business…more

BUSINESSBOOST issue 02
The starting point of a process design review is to identify the processes that your business employs now, and to see whether these are as smooth, efficient and as streamlined as they can be. We look at the flow of information to and from your customers or your suppliers, and at information flows within your business - on the shop floor, in finance, human resources or sales & marketing. Our goal is to ensure that you are not incurring unnecessary extra costs and other resources because your systems are more complicated than they need to be…more

BUSINESSBOOST issue 03
With the global credit crunch biting hard, businesspeople know that they have to be more agile and resourceful than ever to survive. Some respond to these pressures by working harder and for longer hours, others by reducing their prices to win more orders as market conditions get tougher. While these strategies can often bring some short-term gains, they often are not sustainable over the longer term …more

BUSINESSBOOST issue 04
Major system replacement projects often fail to deliver the benefits expected, often running over budget and/or implementation timescales. This is not altogether surprising since most companies run this type of exercise infrequently and the process of buying and implementing new systems is often lengthy and expensive. Basically, you need to have a thorough understanding of the IT marketplace in order to get it right, ie. to be in a strong buying position, to reduce timescales and to minimise your risk…more

BUSINESSBOOST issue 05
Having specified the optimum systems solution, you now need to ensure that you get the best possible deal. But getting the best deal is not just about buying a system that embodies the functionality you need, for the price you’re prepared to pay; it’s about ensuring that the contract embodies sufficient detail and clarity, so that the supplier you choose can deliver what they say, when they say, and in the manner agreed in the contract…more

BUSINESSBOOST issue 06
OK, so you’ve signed up for a new information system and you now need to ‘project manage’ its implementation. Project management is, above all, about planning, for ‘to fail to plan is to plan to fail.’ You have to determine what needs to be done, do it, and then you review that everything that should have been done has been done. If each of those three stages is tackled professionally and thoroughly, then your project has every chance of succeeding…more

BUSINESSBOOST issue 07
If your existing systems have been in place for some time, then they may need a thorough overview. The counter-argument is of course ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’, but an objective assessment of your IS Operations can ensure that you’re getting the best return on your IT investments and our reviews often identify significant opportunities for cost-savings and/or performance improvement…more

Software as a Service (SaaS)
Software as a Service (or SaaS as it’s commonly abbreviated) has been given a fresh shot in the arm recently with a number of major players predicting that, unlike its ill-fated predecessors, the ‘modern’ SaaS is about to hit the big-time…more

More articles on hot topics in IT will be appearing here over the next weeks and months; please check back periodically as we keep our finger on the pulse of industry developments…