IT
Risk Management
by Ari J. Salonen, PhD
There are many providers of security products,
assessment services, and training that follow
standard security best practices. These types
of activities are necessary to reduce the risks
related to information technologies. However,
improving the quality of risk management requires
improvement the quality of the decisions that
can be made surrounding the trade-offs between
technologies and operations. Risk management
is performed to enable business; to be effective
any solution that is developed will need to
focus on supporting the business needs and goals
of the organization. Ultimately, the best solution
for the management of IT security and operational
risks will include the integration of best of
breed elements of technology and processes from
several vendors along with the culture and goals
of a client. |
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Application
Portfolio Management
by Ari J. Salonen, PhD
Capital projects are crucial to organization
growth as they are investments for the future.
Critical questions arise when investments are
to be made – how much should be invested
and in which projects? In most organizations,
it is difficult to know if these decisions are
being answered correctly. Capital project funding
among business units tends to be tied to traditions
or revenue generation, instead of organization
needs, leading to local optimization of investments,
and perhaps leaving the organization unprepared
for the future. |
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Innovation
in the Utility Industry
by Business Innovation Services
Real-time generation of operating, financial,
and regulatory metrics allows for improved management
and credible communications to customers, regulators,
and financial markets. Integrated views of disparate
projects, systems, and jurisdictions, tying
together data from multiple sources such as
GIS and AMR systems, correlating data to create
actionable information for managers. A field
force that can interact and collaborate dynamically
while mobile to respond rapidly to outages,
and solve service problems on-the-spot. These
are some of the innovative ways in which utilities
are creating new systems that leverage existing
IT investments to directly address business
challenges, and meeting goals of revenue growth
and increased profitability. |
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Left
Hand-Right Hand Framework
by Ari J. Salonen, PhD
Every day senior executives face a schizophrenic
set of challenges. On one hand, they constantly
struggle to manage current business more efficiently
from day to day and quarter to quarter. At the
same time, they must prepare for the long-term
success of the organization by pushing into
new, unproven business areas. In the following,
we describe a framework to manage these seemingly
contradicting goals. We use the model and our
observations to illustrate how selected organizations
have successfully tackled these operational
and strategic challenges with solutions that
build on their plain vanilla IT and organizational
capabilities. |
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Unlocking
Enterprise Data
by Business Innovation Services
Although most companies maintain vast databases
of customer, supplier and internal information,
very little of this information is ever utilized.
Revenue and market position can be greatly improved
by unlocking enterprise data. Indeed, a major
locomotive company that pursued this endeavor
succeeded in lowering downtime due to repairs,
saving $4000 per hour. Similarly, a large value-added
reseller succeeded in turning widely varying
and often negative margins into consistent profits
at contract-mandated levels. |
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Innovation
and Collaboration
by Business Innovation Services
Innovation and collaboration are essential endeavors
for any organization that seeks to remain competitive
in a progressive marketplace to undertake. As
technological and process-based advancements
are made and adopted by rivals, a static organization
loses its competitive advantage. Indeed, as
new processes, products, and technologies are
introduced over time, the organization faces
the potential of assuming both an aura and reality
of obsolescence. |
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The
Rapid Application Development Process
by Issam J Zeinoun
This paper introduces the Rapid Application
Development process for software development
and summarizes its advantages and limitations.
A description of the goals of the process is
given before presenting the various components
that make up a RAD project. The team structure
is also shown and the roles of each member are
described. The RAD phases are defined by specifying
their deliverables and the deliverables, in-turn,
are detailed with recommendations on their use
and content. Examples are given throughout the
reading and some diagrams are presented as clarification
tools. |
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