Cloud Computing ROI Is Sky-High For One SMB
Originially published for CIO Insight Blog By Tony Kontzer As the IT world waits for the various forms of cloud computing to really take hold in large enterprises, stories of small businesses doing amazing things with the cloud continue to pour in. What's holding the large enterprises back? Fear of the unknown, i.e., an unwillingness to take on with perceived security risks. M62 -- a British firm that helps some of the world's biggest companies strategize, develop and deliver sales...
Tools to Get Better Insight into Workforce Issues
Originally published for InformationWeek Healthcare Blogs Marianne McGee, Senior Writer, InformationWeek While the push is on for clinicians to trade in their paper charts for digitized medical records, some health-related organizations are also trading in their old Excel spreadsheet-based methods of talent management with new web-based tools. The deployment of web-based software, from vendors including NetSuite and Halogen, are not only helping some organizations streamline slow and bulky...
Why Profitability Matters
Originally published for PSVillage's PS Pulse for professional services executives. PS Village has been a great source of advice and recommendations, and the best advice I received came a few years ago. I was struggling with balancing the needs to train and develop our professional services team versus the need to keep my team billing in order to ensure high resource utilization. The advice: “Take control of your P&L and you will control your destiny”. I...
For Professional Services, the World is Still Round
One of the most popular trends in healthy living has been the “eat local” campaign. Global and processed food solutions make today’s food economists worry – there are massive trade-offs in quality for the benefits in cost and convenience. Oddly enough, there is a similar debate raging in the services world of today. Thomas Friedman (author, The World is Flat) captured one side of the debate best when he wrote of a world where ubiquitous access to Internet and...
How the SaaS Movement and Cloud Computing Are Transforming Professional Services
Professional Services companies face unprecedented customer, competitive and operational challenges today. Companies of every size and across nearly every industry are facing intensifying competition as a result of globalization and technological advancements. Barriers to entry are disappearing. Companies are no longer competing with just their peers in their own backyard, they must also contend with competitors from around the world. At the same time, the web is making it easier for customers...
Remote control
Providing dependable offline access for an increasingly mobile workforce Professional service organizations (PSO) have come to play an increasingly important role in the global economy. As these companies continue to broaden their footprint, a majority of their resources are being devoted to remote activity. Data suggests that nearly half of all employees spend at least a portion of their workweek outside the office—at home, on the road or at a customer location. However, maintaining a...
People Are the New Capital
Most companies today pay more attention to the cost of a screw than they do to the value of their most highly-educated employees. They are fighting the international manufacturing battles of the past, instead of focusing on the true future of competitive differentiation and profit—the skillful deployment of consultants, domain experts and trainers, or the professional services economy. Disciplines such as manufacturing resource planning (MRP) brought technology-enforced discipline to...
Time Tracking