Central Government

The UK government has recently made pronouncements on reductions of the civil service, with options extending to a 40% cut. These have resulted in discussion around the potential of change to redundancy terms, and also the restriction of strike action which could hamper government plans. However, we believe that the ... read more..

In this issue: BPM for the Agile organization Moving from recession to recovery with business intelligence Turning data into intelligence in the public sector Glued on security doesnt work Business agility ... read more..

green IT As part of our look at Greener and more sustainable IT Jason Meers takes a look at repurposing IT Save time and money by converting your old PCs and laptops into thin clients. IT seems that every 10 years or so the computer industry re-invents itself and gives us new ... read more..

John Lovelock, Chief Executive of FAST IiS (the Federation Against Software Theft and Investors in Software), discusses possible threats to the digital economy. The digital economy has received much publicity over the last year, and especially the last few weeks. The Governments Digital Britain Report has led to the Digital ... read more..

IT Assist, the ICT shared services provider for the Northern Ireland Civil Service have become the latest organisation to achieve accreditation to the new NCC national standard. Consolidating IT services and reducing costs in the public sector through Shared Services has been a government objective since the Gershon Review in 2004. ... read more..

With unemployment, hiring freezes and redundancy dominating the headlines, its not surprising that many business professionals will happily say goodbye to a recession-dominated 2009 and look forward to a more positive 2010. The IT sector, like many others, was unable to sidestep the impact of a global recession, experiencing a ... read more..

How do CFOs and FDs gain greater competitive advantage whilst minimising their companys costs? The National Computing Centre and ICAEW brought together senior finance executives and industry experts to debate this key issue. In most organisations the economic decision maker for large-scale IT purchases is the FD, CFO or board ... read more..

As the age of austerity descends upon the UK public sector, attention is turning to shared services as a means of generating efficiency savings. Many organisations in the sector are considering joining forces to deliver services in order to reduce costs and benefit from economies of scale. Major change could ... read more..

Cloud Industry Forum (CIF) to set the standardTop technology leaders have come together to develop a Code of Conduct to help provide understanding and manage users expectations of cloud suppliers.A newly formed self-regulatory body called the Cloud Industry Forum (CIF), a sub-group of FAST and Investors in Software (FAST IiS), ... read more..

A decade into a new millennium, much of our IT infrastructure is fit for digital landfill and we are continuing to pour money into it at an alarming rate. The current approach to IT is to custom-build systems and incrementally change them as required. As the degree of change ... read more..

One of the most difficult challenges facing IT directors today is maintaining and upgrading legacy systems. Legacy is becoming a hot topic: research by the Gartner group show that the main concern amongst IT managers in mid-sized IT companies is integration with legacy systems.The Burden of Legacy ... read more..

The problems and issues around requirements capture and management are well documented within the IT industry. It is the defects in the requirements definition process that very often lead to failure in the successful implementation of major IT projects. We would all contend that truly successful development can only take ... read more..

Programmes and projects are significant investments and key mechanisms by which business change is achieved. Yet many otherwise successful organisations fail to reap full value from this investment by not learning the lessons from this experience.Profiting from Experience ... read more..

Information lies at the heart of effective management. Not only are business executives accountable for the information published to the market, but effective strategic and operational decisions rely on intelligence derived from available data. Organisations need to have access to the 'right' data to improve competitiveness, grow market share, meet ... read more..

Given the significant costs and strategic value of IT, measuring its performance is at least as important as measuring the performance of any other key business function. Yet many organisations find IT performance measurement challenging, so they settle for measuring what they can - rather than what they want or ... read more..

Achieving successful alignment of IT with the business starts with reaching an understanding and agreement between business and IT about IT's role and business contribution. This will get senior management in both IT and the business, involved and accountable for IT governance, and support the board in setting direction. True ... read more..

Organisations recognise the need for risk management, and many purport to have it in place. Further investigation often reveals inconsistent and superficial processes for risk identification and management, and even inconsistent approaches to risk categorisation. Management is reassured by the belief that risk management is in place, as evidenced by ... read more..

For some companies, IT budgeting can seem like a mystical art fit only for specialist accountants; for others, it's a money pit that yields few measurable benefits. The complex issues at play include visible and invisible spend, varying views on approaches such as total cost of ownership (TCO), expected lifespan ... read more..

Increasingly, organisations are handing responsibility for significant parts of their business, including IT, to third parties, often offshore. Attracted by the potential for a known cost base and greater efficiencies, working with third party vendors also carries substantial risks. The appetite for outsourcing to third parties has not decreased, despite ... read more..

Standards for many aspects of business - IT included - have been available for many years. Fully embraced by some, ignored by others on the grounds that attaining and maintaining compliance is too onerous, while others choose a middle path of following the principles without certification or independent verification. Standards ... read more..

IT governance as a critical enabler to Transformational GovernmentThere is no doubt that the pace of business change has increased and will continue to do so. It is also true that opportunities for significant incremental business benefit are diminishing and that, increasingly, organisations are depending on technology to achieve the ... read more..

With falling technology costs, human resources increasingly comprise the largest component of IT expenditure. As IT governance is concerned with achieving value for IT expenditure, it must focus on these human resources, as well as on the technological and financial resources. The constantly changing IT world presents particular challenges for ... read more..

With falling technology costs, human resources increasingly comprise the largest component of IT expenditure. As IT governance is concerned with achieving value for IT expenditure, it must focus on these human resources, as well as on the technological and financial resources. The constantly changing IT world presents particular challenges for ... read more..

IT Governance is a critical topic for business leaders given the significant investment and central role IT plays in today's organisations. However, IT Governance is a much misunderstood subject and means different things to different people. At Ernst Young, we think it's time for organisations to put IT Governance ... read more..

It is intended that this document will provide IT strategists and decision makers with an overview of the benefits, risks and challenges faced in moving to an Exchange 2007 environment and help them to prepare their organisations and infrastructures for the future. This document is not intended to provide a ... read more..

Avanade believe that collaboration is an organizational capability that will become increasingly vital to business success and, further, that digital collaboration - the use of technologies to enable efficient and valuable connections among people and information - represents the area of IT with the greatest potential for improving business performance ... read more..

Mobile phones have now become an essential part of everyday life with more that 40m owned by British residents. Their constantly increasing functionality and the fact that hardly anyone goes anywhere without their mobile means that the information available on both SIM /Handset can determine more about a person's movements, ... read more..

Explore the progression of IT systems and find guidance for improving your organization. Infrastructure Optimization serves as a gauge for IT organizations and provides a logical roadmap to progress from reactive to proactive IT service management.Infrastructure Optimization ... read more..

Whilst the business demand and opportunities to leverage IT for competitive advantage have grown enormously, many organisations are enmeshed in IT for the 'run-the-business'. Indeed research shows that on average over 70% of IT spend goes on run-the-business and this proportion has actually grown in recent years!Accordingly, TCS has evolved ... read more..

Hundreds, even thousands, of applications serve as the lifeblood of each of today's distributed global enterprises - at use in more places and in more ways than ever before. To deal with the growing complexity and cost of application deployment, maintenance and performance, organisations are looking for solutions to streamline, ... read more..