Insight Report: Virtualisation – Delivering Business Benefits
Virtualisation appears to be on almost every company’s agenda
and is rapidly becoming a key element of IT strategies. In many
ways, as our page 4 research article points out, the virtues of
virtualisation are almost too good to be true: lower costs, better
performance and ‘greener’ IT. But virtualisation is not always a
quick fix and requires both time and money to benefit fully from
the technology. The issues around virtualisation are examined by
Ovum Butler’s Roy Illsley (page 8), while NCC research and Computacenter
experts highlight the different opportunities and challenges presented
by virtualising servers (pages 12 and 14) and desktops (pages 22
and 24). Bottom line? Any technology adopted by an industry giant
like Nationwide (page 18) is worth a closer look.
PDF
version (905kb) 
|
|
Insight Report: Document Management for Disaster Recovery
We like to think we live in a digital age but paper still plays
a key role in most organisations. Yet paper documents can easily
be lost or misfiled and are vulnerable to disasters like fire or
floods – not to mention the inefficiency and literal waste of space
that paper, as opposed to electronic documents, represents. With
electronic document management (EDM) now a well-understood technology
with many successful implementations, this Insight Report considers
paper and its alternatives – including research into the takeup
of EDM by UK companies (page 4), advice from document management
expert Malcolm Beach of In- Form Consult (page 8), and case studies
of two major EDM software users, The Access Bank UK (page 14) and
the Peverel property services group (page 18).
PDF
version (708kb)
|
|
Insight Report: Field service – moving to the next level
Companies running teams of engineers and providing field service
operations face a tricky dilemma made worse by the recession: how
to meet increasing demand for improved customer service while at
the same time streamlining their own costs and operational efficiency.
Cell phones and other mobile devices have revolutionised companies’
ability to keep in touch with their service engineers, but running
a slick operation involves a lot more – including having the right
field force management applications back at base. In this Insight
Report, we review the take-up of this technology, with original
market research (page 4), together with case studies of existing
users Anglian Water (page 14) and Konica Minolta (page 22). We also
feature expert advice from Professor Moshe BenBassat, chairman and
CEO of ClickSoftware (page 8).
PDF
version (748kb)
|
|
Insight Report: Bridging the Divide – Unifying paper and digital
information
Combining paper and electronic corporate information makes
obvious business sense. The best way to do it isn’t so obvious.
What is clear is that at a time of recession, paperbased information
is an anomalous overhead that organizations would do well to eradicate
or reduce. Technology – in the shape of cheaper multi-function peripherals
(MFPs), electronic document management (EDM) and workflow systems
– now offers a viable way to bring paper into the electronic fold.
So how does it work in practice? In this report, we present research
into how organizations can streamline and integrate their document
handling (page 4); report the views of DM expert Martin Waldron
(page 8); and provide two case studies of UK organizations who have
successfully tested the technology (pages 14 and 18).
PDF
version (468kb)
|
|
Insight Report: Source-to-Pay: improving the bottom line
In a time of economic uncertainty, it is vital to make business
processes as streamlined and efficient as possible. And no area
has a bigger impact on an organisation’s bottom-line profitability
than its purchasing of goods and services. So how efficient, typically,
is the management of this source-to-pay cycle? We report on NCC
research into progress among UK companies (page 4). But automating
the source-to-pay process is not just a matter of installing new
technology – it involves a range of people and management issues.
So we carry commentary from independent expert David Court (page
8) and Atos Consulting’s David Harrower (page 24) on how you can
best achieve this, together with case studies of organisations that
have already taken this route – the Countess of Chester Hospital
Trust (page 14), Specsavers (page 20) and the Qualifications and
Curriculum Authority (page 28).
PDF
version (752kb)
|
|
Insight Report: Enhancing Customer Communications
Companies have spent heavily on their CRM systems, but the
most important part of customer communication management remains
the humble document – the letters, statements, marketing messages
and contracts companies send out to their customers and prospects.
And how many firms have focused properly on this area? Customer
retention should be a key goal for any organisation, and clearly
one way of keeping your customers satisfied is to provide them with
communications that are tailored to their needs and that they can
easily understand. This Insight Report looks into the customer communications
management strategy followed by companies (page 4), and how well
or badly they tailor and target their customer documents. We present
comment from leading CRM analyst Nick Hewson (page 8), together
with case studies of two companies who have worked with EMC Document
Sciences to actively upgrade their direct mail and other communications
channels.
PDF
version (931kb)
|
|
Insight Report: Unified communications – merging separate worlds
The integration of computers and telephony has been debated
for years but the actual application of the idea is still developing.
By combining voice and data systems, companies can cut costs and
provide flexible communications to their increasingly far-flung
and mobile workforce. Yet, according to our latest research (page
4), only 5% of organisations have implemented a unified communications
environment. This Insight Report looks at the market from the perspective
of two organisations who have already stepped up to the plate –
the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales (ICAEW)
and accountancy firm Gambitsis Partners, profiled on pages 14 and
18. Their experiences clarify the business benefits and issues around
unified communications. Meanwhile, our own research and the expert
advice of Butler Group’s Mark Blowers (page 8) add further insight
to this largely untapped opportunity.
PDF
version (568kb)
|
|
Unica: The Use of Web Analytics Software
Web analytics is the process of analysing the behaviour of
visitors to a website. The aim is to help organisations maximise
the value of their internet marketing and improve the design of
their website. By understanding visitor behaviour, organisations
can tailor their marketing initiatives to attract, retain and grow
the value of customers. To see how companies are progressing in
using this relatively new marketing tool PMP research has surveyed
a cross section of leading organisations for their opinions on the
use of web analytics software. To download a copy of the results
click below:
PDF
version (98kb)
|
|
Insight Report: Maximising Business Performance through Application
Integration
These days, application integration has become practically
synonymous with SOA (service oriented architecture). The SOA approach
has become so dominant that almost all current data integration
projects revolve around it. That at least provides continuity and
consistency, and offers those undertaking new SOA-based integration
implementations the chance to learn from the mistakes of previous
projects. That’s a theme pursued by Butler Group’s Rob Hailstone
is his article on page 22. The experience of Barts and The London,
a major hospital trust, is also described on page 18. Elsewhere
in this special integration report, our own research confirms the
importance of data integration among UK corporations but also identifies
the areas most in need of improvement (see page 4). In addition,
expert authors Clive Longbottom (page 8) and Tom Welsh (page 14)
examine the importance of SOA and how best to run these projects.
PDF
version (705kb)
|
|
Insight Report: The importance of getting paper into your compliance
process
Almost everyone has first-hand experience of how compliance
and regulation continues to add a lot of overhead to companies,
in terms of extra records and document keeping, maintenance of information
audit trails and the like. But what is the scale of the burden and
how have companies typically responded – what steps have they taken
to improve their corporate information management? We set out to
answer these questions with a market survey for this issue of Insight
Report. Cliff Mills summarises the results. Elsewhere, we focus
on the management strategies behind the new drive for information
management, the latest technologies available to support this trend,
as well as two case studies of organisations who have taken significant
steps along this road.
PDF
version (536kb)
|
|
IBM System z9 - cost effective and SOA
Remember all those calculations showing how much more cost
effective distributed systems were compared to the expensive, lumbering
old mainframe. Well, times change, requirements alter and IT evolves
and nothing has evolved more in recent years than the mainframe.
Various industry analysts have been re-doing their sums and yes,
much to some people's surprise, the total cost of ownership (TCO)
can work out cheaper and in some cases much cheaper - yes cheaper!
But cost isn't necessarily everything and we're now moving to service
orientated architecture (SOA), surely that doesn't suit the mainframe?
Well the answer is 'why not'? The mainframe can offer a viable,
flexible and cost effective platform for SOA system deployment,
especially for mission-critical applications that demand high performance.
To justify these claims, PMP has reviewed reports from five independent
analyst firms. This white paper gives a synopsis of their views,
with the full text of their reports available by selecting the links.
To read their views and download the paper click below:
PDF
version (391kb)
Page 1 2
3 Next
|
