In the world of corporate mergers, acquisitions and divestitures, it’s not uncommon for a parent company to sell off divisions or units that have become non-strategic to their future business plans. Divestitures are most common among larger public companies with multiple business units and can include the sale of standalone subsidiaries, product lines, or other company assets. (more…)
Business innovation is one of the truly unexpected side-effects of information technology outsourcing. It is a side-effect that many companies are now seeking when they decide to find a capable IT outsourcing partner.
Innovation is also one of the most popular buzzwords in boardrooms throughout the world, and it has been for many years. Buzzword or not, there is no denying that innovation is real and can differentiate one competitor from the next. Companies large and small have been searching for a magic formula that causes innovation to happen, but the illusiveness of innovation defies management. However, innovation or the ability to innovate does not defy logic. (more…)
Upgrading from one version of Oracle Hyperion Financial Management to a more recent version is a big job and takes extensive planning as well as in-depth technical knowledge to accomplish. Can one do it oneself? I suppose so, but it will take time and a lot of reading before you should tackle a project like that. It would help if you had previous experience doing Hyperion upgrades. It would also be much easier if you had a team of Hyperion experts working for you. Not part of your budget? Keep reading. (more…)
At the turn of the century, that would be the 21st century, third-party hosting services that handled enterprise-class system like SAP were rare. There was a definite bias against enterprise hosting services because it seemed too risky to hand over mission critical systems to a stranger. It was also very difficult to make a rational business case in support of such a decision. Even more consequential, most people in the U.S. were afraid of the term outsourcing. There were simply too many unknowns and technical hurdles that could not be overcome at that time. (more…)
Everyone has heard the cliché: a picture is worth a thousands words. But when it comes to pictures of Information Technology, most are confusing and require thousands of words to explain. The ‘spaghetti architecture’ diagram below is an example of why IT infrastructures challenge our verbal skills and turn normal vocabulary into a series of obscure acronyms. (more…)
In this city, “outsourcing” is a dirty word. Detroit, once the 4th largest city in the nation as a result of the booming automobile industry, has become arguably the hardest-hit among the struggling metropolises built along the rust belt. (more…)
“Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not.” -Galileo
The goal of most statistical approaches in the IT world is two fold: Measure (and reduce) variance, and to increase productivity through the streamlining of processes. To provide a customer with continuous improvement requires that errors that occur are tracked, trended, and addressed. (more…)
When I was learning to cook pork bratwurst in a farm kitchen in Wisconsin, my teacher explained to me “uncooked pig is really bad, so when you cook it you not only want to cook the pig and everything it ever ate – but everything that it ever looked at too!” (more…)
Private Equity companies are in business to deliver profits and high returns on investment to their shareholders/investors. To this end, they look to avoid unnecessary cost throughout their ownership cycle. (more…)
