Wholesale & Retail Distribution

IT was able to quickly swing into action to support the business. Michael Dean speaks to Damien Ghee and Paul Egerton about Warburtons Accreditation to the National Computing Centres Standard for IT Departments. When you are the second most valuable grocery brand in the UK, you would expect the organisational statistics to ... read more..

ApplicationsEnterprise collaboration tools can foster better communication and elicit transparency from business units. Here's how Random House implemented an enterprise collaboration suite, encouraged adoption and is measuring its success.Follow this link ... read more..

geographical information systems Geographical information systems (GIS) technology has been around in some shape or form for over 40 years, helping analyse and make sense of spatial data. But today, GIS is helping solve a raft of new challenges in both the private and public sector, as it comes of ... read more..

technology innovation The humble technology that has become a significant part of our lives. Peter Gooding, customer applications team manager, Zebra Technologies takes a look at a technology 55 years young earlier this year. The barcode celebrated its 58th birthday on October 7. Over the years, we have grown to ... read more..

data security complianceIts not too late to start thinking about continuous PCI compliance especially when never is not an option. Rob Warmack of Tripwire provides a strategic viewThe Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) will apply to organisations in the UK from September 30 2010. However, recent research ... read more..

Michael Dean investigates how 2.4bn turnover, sector leader Iceland Frozen Foods Ltd used NCCs IT Department Accreditation Scheme to increase IT team motivation and improve alignment of processes across the business IT. Staff turnover is low here; no-one in IT has resigned in four years! It is a sign that ... read more..

The vision of a cashless society will not be fulfilled in the foreseeable future. Cash is expected to remain the primary method of payment by volume. Consequently, competitive banks need to maintain or expand their ATM channels. However, this needs to happen with a strong focus on efficiency as the ... read more..

Sam Jackson discusses a few key strategies to make business processes more robust and agile in the fashion retail supply chain.All over againFashion businesses have unique complications built into their business models that reflect directly on the supply chain. Trends must be identified quickly, products designed, samples created and then ... 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..

This independent survey conducted by the National Computing Centre and sponsored by IBM, found that most organisations now recognise the importance of good data governance. However, few are actually implementing policies, and when policies are implemented, it is the IT department who is responsible for delivery. The report looks at: ... read more..

The Erudine Behaviour Engine is an innovative technology for the generation and management of complex business rules. This paper examines how the unique benefits the engine can bring to projects requiring business data workflow management, and specifically Business Process Management (BPM) and Business Process Automation (BPA) systems.Unique Improvements to Business ... 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..