And I thought it was only me. Its that sense of relief when you read something that replays the common sense you always knew was correct, but wondered if you were the only one thinking it anymore. Read the rest of this entry »
Website Non-Performance Costs
Posted by Adam Ripley - 13/07/2010Keys to success in a PMO
Posted by Philip Tootell - 30/06/2010
In our previous article we highlighted the need to assess maturity of the PMO capability. But without even assessing this maturity, we can state there are some key factors that can make a PMO function successful: Read the rest of this entry »
Assess your PMO Capability
Posted by Philip Tootell - 10/06/2010
In our previous article we highlighted the problem with approaching PMO tactically. We recognised that many organisations have to take this approach to get a major change done. However, we believe that many organisations don’t really know how to assess their own level of maturity in their PMO capability. This is a critical start point, “what am I doing now?” and “where do I need to get to?”. Read the rest of this entry »
Turning PMO into a Management Function
Posted by Philip Tootell - 15/05/2010
The term PMO has in recent years been updated to cover not only ‘Project’ but also ‘Programme’ and ‘Portfolio’ Management Office. This escalation in the coverage of the term highlights how important the PMO has become to the organisation. It has become a critical element in any large business change programme. In fact a recent survey highlighted that over 55% of PMO’s report to C-level executives. You can see more details on this study here.
Virtualisation – Finally coming of age
Posted by Adam Ripley - 27/04/2010
We have long been a great advocate of virtualisation. The cost benefit for building testing environments is well proven and only the more affluent organisations choose to build dedicated managed testing environments for their projects. With massive vendor support for desktop virtualisation and concerns about increasing desktop migration costs it seems that this will be the next ‘must have’ for CIO’s. See this special feature on Silicon.com
One issue that will be key will be to minimise the number of images maintained otherwise organisations will become overloaded with many desktop versions to meet the needs of individuals who require specific applications. Instead, applications should delivered to the desktop through application virtualisation to meet specific needs.
The rollout can be staged and can ideally meet the needs of user groups, such as workers who work partially at home and partially in the office, for them the opportunity to see the same data and application set in both places without carrying a computer is an efficient and secure solution.
Another issue will be the support and IT skill set changes. Administrators will have to change their processes and skills to manage virtual desktops as well as servers.
Many analysts are predicting an increase in costs, see the following article on Search CIO ‘ Enterprise desktop virtualization may increase costs’ .
We are particularly excited about the opportunities to improve and manage the test process, this will be seen at many levels of testing including operational, system integration and business acceptance. Watch this space for an update on what we see as the issues and opportunities for testing in virtualised desktop environments.
Solvency II – So what is the fuss about
Posted by Graham Smith - 14/04/2010
As you probably know by now, Solvency II is to insurance what Basel II is to banking. It is effectively an update to the capital adequacy rules for the European insurance market.
Apart the huge issues around how insurers adapt to capital adequacy requirements and still maintain a viable business there are some big challenges for IT to cover. Achieving the detailed level of data to support automated risk management is going to be more challenging than it ever was for banking with Basel II. The diversity of investment, complex actuarial algorithms and data will provide significant challenges in reaching the goal.
However, just as in Basel II, the biggest problem will be data quality and this will be amplifed by the fact that risk management data is not typically part of the core MI set. Cleaning, homogonizing and integrating data at the right level of detail (granularity) so that it can provide a cohesive view of the enterprise risk position is a pretty substantial task. We need an integrated view of enterprise data.. ehmm now where have I heard that before!
Where are the Standards for Payment Security?
Posted by Adam Ripley - 16/03/2010
The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) has been looming for some time now with the hope that businesses will adopt it to reduce the costs of fraud. By 30 September merchants that process more than 6 million transactions per year will be forced to be compliant or face heavy fines. But surveys are highlighting the amount of dissent amongst all levels of merchants. Overall only 11 percent of companies are currently compliant see news article
So what is holding companies back? Read the rest of this entry »
Offshore – What is the cost to the business?
Posted by Gary Davies - 02/03/2010
In conversation recently there seems to have been increasing discussion about the escalating costs of offshore outsourcing of IT services. Although this has been further highlighted by the change in VAT laws, see article in ComputerWeekly, there have been rapidly increasing costs due to salary and other operating cost increases in the popular locations such as India and the Philippines. This is logical, although the population is massive, the technology educated population is more restricted and the jobs market is highly competitive.
Even if businesses can continue to project reduced costs of manpower, many of the leading edge organisations are asking questions around the cost benefit case of offshore. Read the rest of this entry »
Banks and Customer Retention
Posted by Adam Ripley - 23/02/2010Interesting to see a few new articles on banks and the need for them to increase customer focus. For example see ‘Keeping the Customer’ by Tom Groenfeldt.
Of course being customers we have all seen the journey banks have been taking for some time, some of these institutions are still building products and then Read the rest of this entry »
Risk is also a Cultural Issue
Posted by Adam Ripley - 16/02/2010
Apparently the money that the top financial institutions spend on risk governance will have doubled over the six years between 2006 and 2012. Many of you will recognise this as the Basel II and Solvency II standards. However, it also relates to all the process and people aspects of risk that companies are under pressure to change.
Of course we can all relate to this much more easily now we have had our ‘financial meltdown’. Read the rest of this entry »