Project Managment key to IT efficiency

A study conducted by LSE (London School of Economics and Political Science) surveyed CIO from all over the world and half agreed that they could save more than 5% of their annual budgets by improving IT efficiency and reducing waste.Better application integration, better IT training and a closer alignment between IT and business objectives were all cited by more than a quarter of respondents as other factors that made IT less effective than it could be. Another subject they touched on was the under utilization of server, AKA server sprawl. By implementing virtual servers they will utilize more of what they have and that will benefit them also.

Heartland Data Breach: Larger than TJX

On January 20th, 2009 the Presidential Inauguration was taking place in Washington DC and was being watch by most Americans. At this same time Heartland Payment Systems was quietly releasing a statement that the company's systems had been hacked, exposing information of 100 million credit card users and more than 250,00 businesses.

The thieves introduced the Heartland malware in may 2008, and Heartland didn't notice until late fall 2008. Data sercurity analysts believe that, including legal costs, it could be as much as half a billion dollars in losses(twice as big as tjx). Robert Baldwin Jr., President and CFO of Heartland, plots out the next steps, "notify each victim whose data were stolen to comply with data-loss disclosure laws in more than 30 states." 44 states have data-loss disclosure laws and federal legislation is pending. Heartland is doing the bare minimum by not notifying every customer.

Article Here

So we see Heartland showed very poor ethical decisions with this data breach. Heartland shows a bare minimum effort to contact its customers. On top of that, Heartland set out a release on Inauguration day in the interest of transparency.

The Hackers, Alberto Gonzales and two russian co-conspirators, were later arrested for hacking Heartland and many other companies such as TJX.





ps - identity theft was brought up in the chapter so its great to bring back this classic commercial.

IT Governance in State Government

A video that features CIO Teri Takai on IT Governance in the state of California. The state CIO is given authority to set and execute technology priorities as laid out in the states IT strategic plan. So to keep the IT aligned with the strategic plan responsibilities of groups must be defined. So they have chosen to go with a Federated Governance Model, which is in between centralized and decentralized. A three tier structure was created, first a department tier which is headed by department director and manages desktop, LAN, and support functions. Next is the Agency tier, which is responsible for the business direction, investment authorities, and IT resources. Lastly the Enterprise Architecture Tier which is responsible for state infrastructure, shared services, and common applications. Takai's offices are in charge of IT policy direction for both the department tier and the agency tier. Some Policy topics that she has recently reported was Enterprise architecture and project management.

The other Side of outsourcing

The discovery channel brings us a great look at how India has thrived because of outsourcing. The video takes us along with Thomas L. Friedman to Bangalore, India as he shows us how the technology boom has transformed India. We see an inside look at call centers, applications received are 700 a day for these jobs. If they fall in the 6% of the applicants and end up with the job, they must go to accent neutralization programs to speak a more fluent and natural American English Language. Workers in these call centers make $200 a month which is the equivalent to $1,ooo/mo. for American workers. With this economic boom Friedman interviews an optimistic young entrepreneur who foresees India being a superpower in the future. Towards the end of the video we get a glimpse of the slums of India, and how rich Indian businessmen have set up schools with computers and microsoft office for the poor children to learn and hopefully give them a brighter future.

Cloud Computing - Frank Gillett

Frank Gillett of Forester explains how cloud computing is somewhat hyped and overblown. He first begins talking about the three classes of cloud computing and how it is used as a Web Service, Platform(no OS just database), and a virtual infrastructure (no servers or disks). Gillett then brings up the fact small companies can use companies like Amazon to help with oncoming demand. Instead of buying servers in anticipation of demand they can just utilize Amazon's. Big time Enterprise companies got envious of this and began marketing their products as being a cloud but with Enterprise characteristics. Gillett described this as Cloud Washing. To close his interview he does believe that this is a revolutionary step in technology and computing but it is now overhyped and overblown. It involves re factoring OS, clients, and running software so baby steps will be made.

10 Famous ERP Disasters, Dustups and Disappointments

This article shows the problems Enterprise Systems have given real life companies. It demonstrates 10 Famous ERP disasters, dustups, and disappointments companies have experienced with these products. Here are a few examples from the article that show ERP have cause problems for big companies.

1) Hershey Foods - The culprit in this case was SAP R/3. This enterpise system prevented Hersheys from delivering $100 mil worth of kisses for halloween, and causing a stock drop of 8%.

2) Nike - Nike went through with a $400 mil upgrade in ERP and supply chain systems, creating a super system. Good Idea? If $100 mil in lost sales and a 20% stock dips qualifies as a good idea. The icing on the cake is that Nike had a collection of class action lawsuits also.

3) HP - Wanting to centralized its ERP system into one SAP prjoect. So many problems occurred, which resulted in the project costing $160 mil in order backlogs and lost revenue. This cost was 5x the project estimation.

4) UMASS - An estimated 27,000 Umass students were unable to find classes and pick up financial aid checks due to buggy portals and ERP applications. Though after a few tense weeks everything was restored.

5) Waste Management - Waste Management is in a legal battle with SAP over an 18 month installation of ERP software. WM filed a lawsuit claiming SAP executives took part in fraudulent sales scheme that resulted in massive failure.


WEBSITE

Unified Communications

Nurse next door is a elderly care company in Canada the depend highly on unified communications. The company has many caregivers that are outside the four walls so it is important for communication to be frequent. Once the needs of the clients are understood the scheduler will send out a caregiver that will fulfill the needs for the customer. In the video we see the scheduling of the patient all the way down to the caregiver showing up to the door. The information about the patient is critical, so the company can send the best caregiver for that situation. Nurse Next Door is continually investing on leading edge technology to keep an organized structure to their communications.





Here is a cool video of what the future of UC could look like.