Strategy Guides
Latest Strategy Guides
Business Intelligence
Business Intelligence refers to software applications that helps turn raw data into information. This information in turn helps organizations take critical decisions, cost-cuttings and identify business opportunities.
Business Intelligence guide will answer these questions:Software as a Service (SaaS)
Vendors tout the software-as-a-service (SaaS) delivery model as an easy way to deploy applications. SaaS promised easier, speedier and cheaper implementations. But is SaaS all it's cracked up to be?
Software as a Service (SaaS) guide will answer these questions:Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA)
The idea behind SOA is that technology should be expressed in chunks that business people can understand rather than as an arcane application such as ERP or CRM
Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) guide will answer these questions:- Q. What is a service?
- Q. What's the difference between SOA and web services?
- Q. How do I know whether I should adopt SOA as a strategy?
- Q. What are the advantages of SOA?
- Q. Advantages of service-oriented development:
- Q. Advantages of an SOA strategy:
- Q. How do I balance the need for architecture planning in SOA with the need to prove value to the business quickly?
- Q. How do I know which services will provide the most value for my investment?
- Q. How will SOA affect my IT group?
Virtualization
Virtualization allows you to run multiple operating systems simultaneously on a single machine. It has its roots in partitioning, which divides a single physical server into multiple logical servers.
Virtualization guide will answer these questions:- Q. What is virtualization?
- Q. Why would I want virtualization?
- Q. How can virtualization benefit my business?
- Q. What is a virtual appliance?
- Q. What is Xen?
- Q. What are the cost benefits of virtualization?
- Q. What kinds of challenges does virtualization present?
- Q. What should I look for in a virtualization solution?
Green IT
Managing information technology sustainably can reduce corporate energy bills and keep toxins out of landfills. Thinking "green" with IT can help companies manage raw materials more efficiently and increase revenue.
Green IT guide will answer these questions:
- Q. What is sustainable IT?
- Q. What is sustainable IT manufacturing?
- Q. What is sustainable IT management and use?
- Q. What is sustainable IT disposal?
- Q. What is the goal of sustainable IT?
- Q. What does it have to do with me?
- Q. Can it help my company?
- Q. How can I cut my energy bills?
- Q. How can I make my data center more efficient?
- Q. How can I reduce my electricity consumption on the desktop?
- Q. Is the government forcing me to be green?
- Q. How do I recycle IT equipment?
- Q. How can IT make my operations greener?
- Q. How can I get executives' attention?
Mobile Security
Mobiles are allowing mobile e-mail, Internet and even corporate network access. Critical enterprise information is leaking onto mobile devices whose risk of loss is much higher than it is for PCs at the office.
Mobile Security guide will answer these questions:
- Q. Where do I start when securing mobile devices?
- Q. Who is responsible for device security?
- Q. What security do mobile devices need?
- Q. For the mobile devices I do need, isn't password protection sufficient?
- Q. So how do I secure the data itself?
- Q. How do I manage passwords and encryption across the devices?
- Q. I can't find sufficient security tools for PDAs, smart phones and so on. So how do I handle them?
- Q. Are there other risks I should watch out for?
- Q. What does mobile security cost to implement?
Enterprise 2.0
Enterprise 2.0 has the potential to provide knowledge and content management in a surprisingly cheap and easy fashion using Web-based tools. Learn what it's about and what distinguishes it from consumer Web 2.0 technologies
Enterprise 2.0 guide will answer these questions:Change Management
A few painstaking steps offer numerous payoffs, including lowering risks associated with change, eliminating resource conflicts and learning from successes and mistakes of the past-all of which help to save money.
Change Management guide will answer these questions:
- Q. What is change management?
- Q. Why is change management so hard?
- Q. What are the business benefits of change management?
- Q. What is a change control board, and who exactly belongs on it?
- Q. What is a change request, and what kind of information should it include?
- Q. What are the intangible elements of successful change-management processes?
- Q. How important is change management compared to other quasi-technical processes?
- Q. What about the importance of change-management software compared to other business process or application lifecycle management tools?
- Q. When is change management most important?
- Q. What are some common change patterns that pop up that need to be managed?
- Q. How do I put these common change-management patterns to rest?
- Q. How do I measure the success of my change-management process?
Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Planning
Disaster recovery and business continuity planning help organizations prepare for disruptive events. Process can range from overseeing the plan, to providing input and support, to putting the plan into action.
Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Planning guide will answer these questions:- Q. "Disaster recovery" seems pretty self-explanatory. Is there any difference between that and "business continuity planning"?
- Q. What do these plans include?
- Q. Where do I start?
- Q. Here are 10 absolute basics your plan should cover:
- Q. Can you give me some examples of things companies have discovered through testing?
- Q. What are the top mistakes that companies make in disaster recovery?
- Q. I still have a binder with our Y2K contingency plan. Will that work?
- Q. Can we outsource our contingency measures?
- Q. What advice would you give to security executives who need to convince of the need for disaster recovery plans? What arguments are most effective?
- Q. Continuity planning comes down to basic risk management: How much risk can your company tolerate, and how much is it willing to spend?
Outsourcing
Outsourcing has become the IT mantra, which every company, whether IT or non IT, chants these days. Here is everything that you need to know to avoid the pitfalls of outsourcing.
Outsourcing guide will answer these questions:
- Q. What is outsourcing?
- Q. Why outsource?
- Q. ITO, BPO, KPO-what's the difference?
- Q. Why is outsourcing so hard?
- Q. How is outsourcing priced?
- Q. What about bundling?
- Q. What is an SLA?
- Q. What is the best length for an outsourcing contract?
- Q. Should I outsource everything to one vendor? Or should I use a best-of-breed approach?
- Q. How do I decide what vendor or vendors to work with?
- Q. Can I get outside help with this decision?
- Q. Do you have any tips for negotiations?
- Q. What are the "hidden costs" of outsourcing?
- Q. What do I need to know about the transition period?
- Q. How important is ongoing relationship management to outsourcing success?
- Q. Where's the best place in the world to outsource IT?
- Q. What if outsourcing doesn't work out? Can I just bring the work back in?
Service-Level Agreements (SLAs)
SLAs are a critical component of any vendor contract. Beyond listing expectations of service type and quality, an SLA provides remedies when requirements aren't met.
Service-Level Agreements (SLAs) guide will answer these questions:- Q. What is an SLA?
- Q. Why is it important to have an SLA?
- Q. Which side should prepare the SLA?
- Q. What are the basic components of an SLA?
- Q. What about indemnification?
- Q. Are SLAs transferable to a third-party provider?
- Q. How can I be sure the service provider is meeting the service levels set out in the SLA?
- Q. What is SLA monitoring and verification?
- Q. What are some SLA metrics?
- Q. What should I consider when selecting metrics for my SLA?
- Q. What are the typical uptime provisions for an IT network services provider?
- Q. Should we review our SLAs periodically?
IT Governance
Solid IT governance-from regulatory compliance to financial and technological accountability-ensures that companies achieve their strategies and goals.
IT Governance guide will answer these questions:- Q. What is IT governance?
- Q. Is it something every organization needs?
- Q. What are the drivers that motivate organizations to implement IT governance infrastructures?
- Q. What's the business case? That is, how can I convince top management that we need to do this?
- Q. What are the major focus areas that make up IT governance?
- Q. This appears pretty complicated; how do you actually implement everything involved in IT governance?
- Q. There are a lot of framework choices. How do I choose?
- Q. Can we do this alone, or should we get some outside help?
- Q. What can go wrong if it's not implemented effectively?
- Q. What are some tips for making sure it goes smoothly and delivers positive results?
Web 2.0
Web 2.0 is a set of technologies, a huge set of related functionality and almost a lifestyle choice. This straight-up, non-techie tutorial will help you separate the facts from the hype.
Web 2.0 guide will answer these questions:Enterprise Blogs and Wikis
Indispensable business collaboration tools and a powerful means of communicating with customers, partners and employees, wikis and blogs can have a great impact on an enterprise
Enterprise Blogs and Wikis guide will answer these questions:- Q. What are blogs?
- Q. what are wikis?
- Q. what is social softare?
- Q. how can blogs and wikis benefits my business?
- Q. Why should I care about blogs and wikis?
- Q. What blog- or wiki-related challenges should I watch out for?
- Q. What types of blog technologies should I know about?
- Q. What types of wiki technologies should I know about?
- Q. What blog terminology should I know?
- Q. What wiki terminology should I know?
Knowledge Management
KM is the process by which organizations generate value from their intellectual and knowledge-based assets. It involves codifying what employees, partners and customers know, and sharing with other companies.
Knowledge Management guide will answer these questions:- Q. What is knowledge management (KM)?
- Q. What constitutes intellectual or knowledge-based assets?
- Q. Besides using technology, how else can tacit knowledge be transferred?
- Q. What benefits can companies expect from KM?
- Q. How can I sell a KM project in my organization?
- Q. How can I demonstrate the value of a KM initiative?
- Q. Is there a best way to approach KM?
- Q. What are the challenges of KM?
- Q. How can I gain support for my KM effort and get people to use the systems and processes we're putting in place to facilitate KM?
- Q. Who should lead KM efforts?
- Q. What technologies can support KM?
- Q. What is social network analysis (SNA) and how is it related to KM?
