CIO July 2011 Issue
CIO July 2011 Issue
Cover Story
Analyze This: Business Intelligence
Business intelligence (BI) means many things to many people but there is one thing that it is most definitely not: an oxymoron. While it isn’t a tool that will come up with new ideas on your behalf, BI, when used correctly, offers insights that can be turned into what is called actionable intelligence and used to advance the business.
BI: Read Between the Numbers
BI is a complex beast. It’s a tussle between long-term value and short-term ROI. Olivia Rud, president and founder of the OliviaGroup, a BI consulting firm, says CIOs should start small and help business decode BI’s true value.
View from the Top
Making IT Big at NSDL
Gagan Rai, MD & CEO, NSDL, shares IT’s role in running an institution that’s in charge of assets the size of India’s GDP.
Case Files
BYOD: The Essar Way
Say BYOD, and CIOs cringe. They complain of security, supporting a flood of devices and losing control. But the CIO of Essar Group just proved his peers wrong. Here’s how.
MSM's Digital Content Transfer Strategy
How broadcasting company MSM’s digital content transfer strategy saved it over a crore a year.
Heading Towards Better Sales Management: Nilkamal
Nilkamal’s attempt to boost the effectiveness of its sales people with Salesforce was being stymied by an inability to efficiently link the SaaS-CRM tool with Nilkamal’s ERP. Could IT find a way?
CIO Debates
Does Age Come in the Way of Technology Adoption?
Mentor
A Circle of Handshakes
Using a project champion from the business to get user buy-in is a great strategy, but it also needs to be thought through.
From the editor-in-chief
From the Editor-in-Chief: No Fight Required
Keep your strategy simple, your team sharp, and delegate while staying in control—that’s an ancient path to success.
Trendline
Voices: The CIO’s Role in Corporate Espionage
Security For months, India Inc has woken up to the news of another security breach at another reputed organization in another part of the world. Then in June, India’s Finance Minster, Pranab Mukherjee, confirmed that an adhesive-like substance was recovered from his office which might have been used to implant electronic listening devices. As a member of the C-suite what is the role of the CIO, especially in organizations where they double up as CISOs? Debarati Roy finds out:
Patent Wars: What to Watch Out For
Devices: Galaxy Tabs Get Onboard
American Airlines will deploy 6,000 new Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablets onboard some of its international and transcontinental flights in business and first class later this year.
Get that Mobile Out of Here
A majority of Indian businesses believe that the risks of allowing the use of personal mobiles outweigh the benefits.
Social Media: Joining the Forces
Combining social media with location services and mobile phones represents the next generation of online marketing.
Your ID in Your Hands, Literally!
Innovation New York University's Langone Medical Center says it uses a biometric infrared scanning system that converts a digital palm image into a unique patient ID.
Technology: Computing in its DNA
Technology Researchers from the California Institute of Technology have built what they claim is the world's largest computational circuit based on DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), using a technology that they say could easily scale to even greater complexity.
Mobile Apps: Life Saver App
There are hundreds of thousands of apps available, but can any of them save your life? A free app from Global Alert Network could possibly save your life, or at least get you to work on time.
Web threats | Riddled by Spear Phishing
It’s official. Hackers are no longer interested in breaking into your company’s network. Why would they when they can spear phish one of your employees into opening the front door for them?
4 Tips to Tackle Failure in an Interview
Career CIOs who experience some kind of enterprise IT failure in the course of their careers—whether a high-profile security breach, massive network outage, or multi-million dollar ERP boondoggle—the incident can feel like a career killer. Here are four tips for addressing the fiascoes that occurred on your watch with prospective employers and executive recruiters.
Alert
Data Breach| Blast Radius: Staying Safe
Even if you or your employees are not unfortunate SonyPictures.com customers, you need to be aware of how to protect yourself and them from a data breach because the odds are, there’s a data breach coming near to you soon.
The Vulnerability of Smartphones to Hackers
Wave your smartphone; buy a latte. Sounds great, doesn’t it? But before running off to participate in Silicon Valley’s next new thing, you might want to think about a scary downside to mobile commerce: The vulnerability of smartphones to hackers.
Book Review
Innovate Today for Tomorrow
Success comes when we look at what lies ahead in future rather than stuck to make today happen. Here is how Jeff Hutchinson, Groupe Danone's CIO for North America, created an innovation team to explore technologies that are key to the future of the business, and found that innovation was the key factor for making his operation succesful.
Essential Technology
Risk Mitigation: Access Denied
The recent outages at cloud providers has everyone questioning the reliability of infrastructure-as-a-service offerings. Here are seven tips for protecting your data in the event of cloud services failure.
IT Infrastructure Strategy: Heading to the Cloud
Organizations looking to deploy private clouds must understand where they're headed. A development cloud is an appropriate start, but consider these three scenarios for how use of your cloud will evolve.
Feature
Learning from Start-up Styles
Groupon, SlideShare, Box.net, and Zendesk are employing novel IT technologies and practices to propel their growth. What you can learn from them.
