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Chief Technology Officer
The Chief Technology Officer (CTO) is responsible
for overall direction of all technology functions associated within the
enterprise. This includes Information Technology applications, communications
(voice, data, and wireless), and computing services within the enterprise that
impact the both the enterprise, its products and its customers. As the top
technical architect of the enterprise he or she provides a vision of how
technology can be applied. These areas include product design, customer
interactions with the enterprise, IT operating systems, communications (voice,
data, and wireless), transaction processing and database administration,
compliance with all mandated requirements, the information center, personal
computers, electronic and optical storage, and multimedia applications.
This site is dedicated to supporting the goals of
the Chief Technology Officer and includes links to tools and toolkits that meet
those needs.
Toolkits
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Latest News
Backup makes disaster recovery business continuity daunting
02/19/2012
 BC-DR is daunting, it requires offsite duplicate data,
infrastructure, storage, systems, networks, floor space, rack space, cables,
power, cooling, etc. Far too many organizations take a look at the cost and
decide they just canÂ’t afford it. Per the Information Week Business
Continuity Disaster Recovery published survey of the Global 2000 (681
respondents), 37% said they had no current BC-DR plan of which 68% of those said
it was because it is too expensive and too complicated. The better question is
whether they can afford not to have it. It has been proven that 95% of those
organizations that failed to recover their data and systems within two weeks of
a disaster were out of business within two years. This is not a pretty picture.
Regrettably, the consequences of poor BC-DR preparedness will only come to light
when there is a disaster. Up until then, it is a hypothetical risk. Unless an IT
organization has experienced a disaster, they are far more likely to tolerate
the incredible risk.
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more information
IT Hiring Up
02/15/2012
Janco continues to monitor the IT employment picture and sees a mixed view of
the IT job market. Janco has found that short term hiring for IT staff and
consultants is up, however long term CIOs do not feel that hiring will improve
significantly for until early in 2013. The CEO of Janco, Mr. Victor
Janulaitis said, "In interviews of 110 in late January and early February of US
based CIOs we found that most have a number of short term needs that need to be
filled for additional staffing of a 'temporary' nature. CIOs are
striving to keep the overall FTE (full time equivalent) headcounts level and do
not project an increase within the next several months."
One of the bright spots during the past few years has been government
employment. That seems to be coming to an end with the proposed 2013 federal
budget. The current administration proposed a decrease in federal IT spending in
2013, the budget calls for spending $78.8 billion, a 1.2 percent decrease from
2012.
Janco's findings are validated by the latest BLS data which shows there was a
net increase of IT jobs in January. All sectors of the IT job market showed an
improvement - computer system design and related services accounted for 34,200
jobs, telecommunications 10,200 jobs, data processing hosting 2,200 jobs and
other information services 900 jobs.
Janco is an international consulting firm that follows issues that concerns
CIOs and CFOs and publishes a series of IT and business infrastructure
HandiGuides® and Templates including a Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity
Template, Security Template and IT Salary Survey.
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more information
Records Management Best Practices
02/12/2012
Best practices for a good records management
program include the following:
 Creation and
ongoing upkeep of a complete data map with a full accounting of all
repositories, media and systems owned and controlled by the company.
- Retention of data subject to any legal or contractual obligations for the
appropriate length of time in the appropriate manner.
- Retention of data with legitimate business value. Failure to retain and
maintain access to useful data incurs litigation risk. On the other hand,
retaining data that is not subject to any legal or contractual retention
requirements can also be a liability, from both a monetary and litigation risk
perspective.
- Authenticated access to data by people and systems. People or systems
access to data needs to include proper authentication measures to ensure all
data access is predictable, controlled and auditable.
- Tested and validated litigation hold procedures to ensure that any
potentially responsive information is not deleted, overwritten or otherwise
modified when a litigation or investigation occurs or is anticipated.
- Tested and validated procedures for the ongoing disposal of remaining data
that is not subject to any of the preceding statements.
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more information
Disaster recovery is more than data restoration
02/12/2012
 Any
comprehensive disaster
recovery and data
protection strategy involves many considerations and contingencies. There
are many things that can go wrong with your data, and CIOs need to be able
to respond to each:
 
- Accidental or malicious deletion of critical data: CIO need to have a solution
that can quickly and easily restore individual files and folders. Restoring an
entire system when you only need a single file is a waste of resources and
typically is disruptive to operations.
 Data that is lost or corrupted over a period of time: Not all
data loss incidents are noticed immediately, as is often the case with virus
and hacker attacks, or rolling database corruptions. CIOs need to have the
ability to recover data from any previous point in time, and have recovery
points as granular as possible to limit data loss.
- Crashed disk: Recovering a disk volume is different than recovering a
single file, but it should be done just as quickly, and with automation to
help keep operational disruptions to a minimum.
- Server failure: The ability to restore operations when replacing a broken
server may be complicated by the need to install different drivers on the new
system if the hardware is not an exact match. CIOs need to have the capability
to temporarily move the application workload to a standby server(with
different hardware) or to a virtual server while the system is being repaired
or replaced.
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more information
Disaster recovery and business continuity still a struggle for many CIOs
02/02/2012
Organizations of all sizes are struggling with getting some of the basics of
disaster recovery and business continuity right. They still
need support in obtaining executive buy-in, managing resources and implementing
easy to use and reliable technology. To some extent, there is still a lack of
best practices being provided by vendors, and many SMBs rely heavily on their
channel partners to be their best
practices advisors to help them make the right choices.
What has made the world more complex is the fact that organizations are now
presented with three different platforms for their disaster recovery strategies:
physical, virtual and cloud. Each platform has its own unique challenges and
benefits. Some organizations will opt to keep purely physical, others will add
virtualization while many will embrace all three.
Ultimately the success of any company's backup and DR is based on the
availability of its systems and data and the impact that downtime has in terms
of lost revenue and lost customers, regardless of the environment data and
systems are held in. Using multiple different solutions to manage data across
physical, virtual and cloud environments makes this process unnecessarily
complicated and risks wasting valuable time and resources.
For most small to medium size businesses, a service's success is underpinned
by its ability to deliver ease of use, cost effectiveness and flexibility, and
by its ability to implement measures quickly enough to affect a near immediate
positive impact. Both cloud services and virtualization can do this, so the
future is bright. Managed in the right way, from one central, easy to use
solution, they can offer businesses the ultimate backup and disaster recovery
protection, ensuring that business continuity becomes easier to manage.
For IT managers, Janco
encourages them to compare their backup and DR practices
against their counterparts.
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more information
Mobile devices are the bane of many CIOs concerns
01/27/2012
 As
more companies embrace the broad usage of individually-owned mobile devices for
access to corporate applications and data, CIO are asked for guidance on the
establishment of an associated device usage policy.
Every organization needs to identify and develop mobile security policies to
be deployed which will provide adequate protection. The level of protection has
to be aligned with the level of risk that your organization is willing to
accept. These policies should ensure that the many regulatory or compliance
concerns that might be applicable are addressed.
 
Only by a partnership of information technology (IT), human resource (HR),
finance, and legal teams - working closely with your executive team and business
unit managers - can determine the exact corporate liable and/or individual
liable policy that best fits your company, meets its financial goals and
objectives, and takes into account security, legal, regulatory, tax, or other
requirements and considerations that may uniquely apply to your company and its
operations.
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more information
Will IT spending increase in 2012
01/14/2012
IT spending is expected to increase in 2012. After years of budgets crimped
by the economy, there is significant pent-up demand at companies around the
globe to drop some extra cash for the products and services theyÂ’ve been waiting
for to drive business forward. But weÂ’ve heard this song before. One research
fiorm that was bullish on IT spending last year, said that it could rise
somewhat significantly in 2012, yet in its latest report the research firm
acknowledges that its estimates might have been too optimistic. Global spending
on IT spending will still be up, the company says, but donÂ’t expect it to rise
too quickly.
Janco has found that consultants and contractors are starting to be hired
again.
The salary survey is updated twice a year; once in January and then again in
July. You can get a free copy of the full survey if you provide 10 valid data
points and use a corporate email address. Free email accounts like gmail or
yahoo do not qualify as we have no way to verify the accuracy of the data
provided.
The report is updated twice a year, once in January and second time in July.
The unemployment data on this page is updated at least once a month and is based
on the Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
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more information
New Facts of Life For the CIO and IT Management
01/08/2012
The world has changed and the CIO and IT managers need to face the new
realities. They include:
- iPhone and Tablet are here to stay
- CIO and IT department no longer are in control of how technology is used
by you enterprise
- There will always be some downtime
- Systems will not be 100% compliant all of the time
- The cloud will not be the solution for all problems and will case new
ones
- There will never be enough capital and staff to get what needs to be
completed done
- The network has already been compromised
- Social networking use risks all of your company's secrets
- Users will always need your support even for technology that you have not
implemented
- IT will continue to be viewed as a service
organization
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more information
Compliance Best Practices
01/04/2012
Security compliance best practices include:
- Combine written content, usage, and retention policies with a Hosted
Managed Email Archiving Service to ensure an organization's ability to
preserve, locate, and produce legally valid email evidence. Unmanaged email
and other record management solutiond can trigger financial, productivity, and
legal issues for your organization when it a finds itself in a workplace
lawsuit. The cost and time required to produce subpoenaed email, retain legal
counsel, secure expert witnesses, mount a legal battle, and cover jury awards
and settlements is ver costly. Best practices call for a proactive approach to
email and business records management.
- Utilize a proven archiving technology to ensure forensic compliance. For
example, by encrypting and archiving a copy of every business record and
internal and external email sent or received and across the organization, a
Hosted Managed Email Archiving Service solution guarantees that your email is
secure and tamperproof. Nothing in your archive can be deleted or altered.
Everything in your archive is legally compliant.
- Ensure that financial data and related documents are effectively protected
from malware, viruses, and other malicious intruders - and are preserved in a
legally compliant manner in order to maximize SOX, GLBA, SEC, FINRA, and
PCI DSS compliance. This includes having solutions in place to manage
messaging threats and compling with regulatory requirements including Email
Anti-Virus, Email Archiving, Email Continuity, and Email Content Control.
- Meet HIPAA requirements by using formal policies, employee training,
and technology including email
Archiving, Anti-Virus, Continuity, and
Content Control Services to ensure compliant use of email to transmit and
store HIPAA-regulated patient information.
- Safeguard personal or sensitive data whose transmission falls under state
encryption laws or other privacy acts by deploying proven solutions that are
designed to effectively identify personal information in any electronic
transmission and, if necessary, block or encrypt the transmission.
- Reduce business and security risks associated with electronic
communication by implementing a formal electronic communication policy
that combines a written policy with employee training.
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more information
Where not to hide your password and user ids
12/23/2011
 With
dozens of logins and passwords spread out across an equal number of sites and
apps, it's no wonder the average user tends to forget them. Even with a tried
and true system for generating memorable but complex passwords, the formula
could easily fall apart if you just can't remember it.
So rather than continually clicking the "Forget Your Password?" help link,
folks are readily hiding login information around their computer station.
And given that there's little variety in those secret locations, "hiding"
might be a stretch. The most common locations where folks hide their login info
are:
- Under the keyboard
- Under the phone
- Under the mouse pad
- On the monitor
- In the top drawer
- Under the desk
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more information
CIO Mission Defined
12/14/2011
The CIO's mission is to find innovative ways to leverage the technology in
place - or will be in place - to help grow the business and execute better.
That is a fundamental shift because it requires the CIO to be much more of
a business partner. At the same time with tight corporate budgets, the CIO is
expected by the enterprise to make the right calls around acceptable risk and
smart investment while still reducing overall IT costs.
The CIO is expected not only to provide the internal strategic focus in terms
of the needs that exist within the business to support the mission of the
company, but in many cases the CIO is asked to step up and be part of revenue
generation for the company. It is more about understanding the business
and the strategic goals of the business - how technology can be applied in
a cost-effective way that helps move the business forward.
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more information
IT Loses 10,000 Jobs
12/07/2011
IT sector lost 3,900 jobs, including 2,900 telecom positions
The struggling U.S. economy had something to cheer about Friday as the U.S.
Labor Department reported a drop in the unemployment rate, but the IT sector
isn't benefitting.
Unemployment in November fell from 9 percent to 8.6 percent, the Labor
Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced, and nonfarm payroll
employment rose by 120,000. That's the lowest unemployment rate in 2 1/2 years
since March 2009, according to The Washington Post.
The government noted improvements in such industries as retail trade, leisure
and hospitality, professional and business services, and health care.
The IT sector wasn't so fortunate: It lost 3,900 jobs, including
2,900 telecom positions, Janco Associates announced, citing BLS statistics. The
IT sector lost 5,100 jobs in October, according to Janco Associates.
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more information
Cost of data based fraud increases
11/10/2011
Fraud cost organizations 2.1 percent of earnings in the past 12 months, which
is equivalent to a week of revenues over the course of a year in a recent survey
that polled more than 1,200 senior executives worldwide.
 The study
found a decline in the frequency of fraud over last year. Of the executives
polled, 75 percent suffered some kind of fraud-related loss in the last 12
months, which is down from 88 percent the year prior.
However, fraud remains predominantly an inside job and insider jobs increased
this year. The 2011 figures show that 60 percent of frauds are committed by
insiders, up from 55 percent last year.
Keep in mind these are only the cases in which the perpetrator is known. And
that translates into more concern among executives. Overall, fraud concerns
among executives around the globe rose approximately 15 percent led by
information theft and corruption and bribery. Half of all companies surveyed
said they are moderately to highly vulnerable to information theft, up from 38
percent in 2010. IT complexity is the leading cause of increasing fraud
exposure, cited by 36 percent of respondents compared with 28 percent last
year.
 Compared to just 10 years ago, more and more the value of a
company is not contained in tangible things, it's contained in the company's
ideas, and those ideas tend to live on information systems in the form of
digital data. "
Indeed, information-based industries reported the highest incidence of theft
of information and electronic data; including financial services (29 percent),
technology, media and telecoms (29 percent), health care, pharmaceuticals and
biotechnology (26 percent), and professional services (23 percent).
Roughly one in four companies were hit by physical theft of cash,
assets and inventory or information theft, both down from 2010. Management
conflict of interest (21 percent), vendor, supplier or procurement fraud (20
percent), and internal financial fraud (19 percent) all saw notable increases.
The incidence of corruption and bribery nearly doubled over the past year from
10 to 19 percent.
The policies that Janco has created are a must have that every enterprise
needs. They can all be accessed by going to the Policy Master
Page or the individual policies can accessed directly by clicking
on the links below.
The policies have just been updated to comply with all mandated requirements
and include electronic forms that can be Emailed, filled out completely on the
computer, routed and stored electronically. A totally solution that uses
technology at its best.
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more information
CIOs are losing the contol battle with SmartPhones
11/09/2011
 Smartphones are now
finally on the CIO agenda and, in fact, one of the most difficult topics: there
are a variety of different platforms; employees are bringing their own phones to
work; applications can compromise security; and the monthly costs are
unpredictable.
With an increasing number of individually acquired smartphones, IT
departments need to be defining their strategy for dealing with these devices. A
process needs to be defined that is cost effective and helps CIOs manage the
challenges of security, cost and IT control while balancing the needs of
employees.
IT is losing control of smartphones and yet retaining all the
accountability.
Other Individual Policies
All of the policies that are provided here are contained within one or more
of the templates that are on this site. These policies have been added as
individual documents in WORD format (WORD 2003 and WORD 2007) for those clients
who just need this particular policy. All policies are Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA,
PCI-DSS, and ISO compliant.
The policies have just been updated to comply with all mandated requirements
and include electronic forms that can be Emailed, filled out completely on the
computer, routed and stored electronically. A totally solution that uses
technology at its best.
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more information
Remote sites put data at risk - Security Management top priority
11/09/2011
As more employees telecommute and companies expand operations into new
markets, the percentage of total corporate data in remote locations is
increasing. Many companies may not be adequately protecting these assets.
 Work-at-home
offices, remote sites, and branch offices are increasingly at the front lines of
business – they have the closest contact with customers and business partners
and therefore can have a dramatic impact on the success of the business.
Analysts estimate that there are more than four million remote offices in the
United States alone. Many of these offices run autonomously from headquarters
and are responsible for managing their own operations – including protecting and
retaining the electronic information that they generate. Ignoring the protection
and recovery needs of this remotely stored data is simply not an option.
Risks to data that need to be managed include:
- User Error
- Virus Attacks
- Disk/Server Failure
- Localized Disaster Events
- Regional Power and Network Outages
What is required is a set of robust procedures to manage these issues
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more information
IT job market soft
11/08/2011
The recruiting environment for tech professionals is not as good as it was
earlier in the year according to Janco Associates, Inc.
Taking a look into recruiting priorities, hiring managers' top requests are
for a Java/J2EE or Java developer, .NET or .NET developer, business analysis,
Sharepoint or Sharepoint developers and project managers.
New York topped the list of metro areas with the greatest number of IT
jobs. The Washington DC/Baltimore metro area placed second with Silicon
Valley, Chicago and Los Angeles rounding out the top five.
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more information
Infrsructure gets more complex
11/05/2011
 It
is not new news that information technology is evolving faster than CIOs
can keep up. Over the last few years, the Internet has matured, infrastructure
has advanced and a tangle of new challenges has emerged. Mobile technology --
including smartphones and tablets -- has changed everything, and the cloud is
about to change everything even more. It is an exciting period, but one
that is fraught with risks.
The opportunity to tap into technology and use it to achieve a competitive
advantage has never been greater. The new physics of IT offers a wormhole to a
place -- and a performance level -- that couldn't have been imagined only a few
years ago. However, laggards increasingly find themselves staring into a black
hole of Industrial-Age thinking and a hopelessly outdated network
infrastructure. They can easily become shackled by inflexible systems that limit
their ability to innovate.
The situation isn't going to get any easier in the months and years ahead.
Employees and customers increasingly dictate which technologies will be used and
how they will be applied in the workplace. Social media streams and advanced
analytics continue to transform the way data, information and knowledge are
collected, stored and put to use. Meanwhile, unified communications,
virtualization and cloud computing are upending legacy business and IT models.
And, if all this isnÂ’t enough to cause severe motion sickness, security and
governance, risk management and compliance challenges continue to increase.
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more information
Failure of business continuity plan results in customer lawsuits
10/28/2011
RIM is facing muliple lawsuits internationally over the BlackBerry services
outage that hit users across the globe.
- In a lawsuit filed with the Quebec Superior Court, a petitioner is looking
to institute a class action on behalf of BlackBerry users affected by the
outage. Petitioner contends that, despite the fact that the Respondent is
responsible for BlackBerry users' loss of email, BBM, and/or Internet service
for approximately one (1) and a half (1/2) days, it has not compensated
consumers on a prorated basis for such loss of use," and, "...while knowing
full well that BlackBerry users pay a monthly fee to their wireless service
providers for data services and that they were deprived thereof." The lawsuit
demands compensation for economic damages. Additionally, it claims that RIM's
offer of free apps does not properly compensate BlackBerry users who have paid
for services that they were unable to use.
- A man in California has filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of all
BlackBerry owners in the United States, arguing that the loss of BlackBerry
service translated directly into lost revenue.
As RIM wrestled to contain the original outage, RIM co-CEOs insisted on a
conference call with reporters that the company would work to regain customers'
trust following the incident.
RIM began offering free BlackBerry apps to ease customer pain. The initial
apps included games such as Sims 3 and N.O.V.A., along with Photo Editor
Ultimate, iSpeech Translator Pro and Shazam Encore. The company promised more to
come; in addition, enterprise customers were apparently eligible to receive a
month of free technical support, and "current customers" a complimentary
"one-month extension of their existing Technical Support contract."
The outages smacked RIM at a turbulent moment, with the company undergoing
what its executives refer to as a transition period. In the face of declining
revenues, RIM is betting big on an upcoming generation of QNX-based superphones
that will apparently offer hardware and software parity with the company's
higher-end competitors. Until those devices hit store shelves, RIM hopes that a
new line of BlackBerry smartphones running BlackBerry 7 OS will help it retain
market share, even as Google Android and Apple's iOS poise an increasing
challenge to RIM's traditional user base.
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more information
Increased CIO responsibilities with cloud processing
10/18/2011
 CIOs need to
review cloud provider contracts to understand the risk these contracts put their
enterprise in. In a review of dozen contacts Janco Associates found that none of them
satisfy all of the reasonable expectations of users. As is the case in
most outsourcing relationships (which the public cloud most certainly is), the
majority of contracts favor the provider and not the user, so be aware of what
you sign up for in the public cloud, especially if it involves the provisioning
or support of a critical business function. Janco strongly advises CIOs to fully vet the
wording, structure, and jurisdiction in each contract. After all,
once compnaies have outsourced their data or applications or
infrastructure in a public cloud, the contract is all they have.
 The CIO has a responsibility to be a leader when it comes to cloud
computing in the organization, so they need to make sure they
are aware of, and actively involved in, all key cloud discussions and
decisions. If not, the CIO may be the one asked to pick up the pieces
if the business goes off the rails due to factors about which they
were not clear. These are critical decisions that can generate both great
risks and great rewards.
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more information
Administrative accounts are a security risk
10/16/2011
In all systems
and networks privileged accounts are necessary from an administrative
perspective. Administrators need easy access to certain areas, and sometimes the
only way to conveniently gain that access is to have privileged accounts - that
is simply how some operating systems work. While operating systems have become
significantly more powerful in recent years, privileged access has not evolved
as quickly, so a single, all-powerful level of access still exists in many
enterprises. For instance, many network administrative tasks can't be carried
out without root access, and many of those tasks are quite routine. While a
small business may have only a single trusted person with privileged access,
most midsize to large businesses have multiple privileged administrators.
The problem is that operating systems do not natively offer a way to
discriminate more granular privileged access: it's an all-or-nothing
proposition. Therefore, a surprisingly large number of people can often wield
incredible power within the native OS - much of which is unnecessary for each
individual to fulfill his or her role. Privileged accounts can be used to bypass
standard controls and authorization levels. A person with a privileged account
often has unlimited access and may be able to inflict significant damage to
networks, servers, applications and data.
 
To make matters worse, not only can too many administrators inflict damage,
they may be able to work outside the network's identity management system and
hide their actions. Most organizations face serious challenges in analysis and
discovery of security breaches, both in real time and after the fact. They have
problems finding out what went wrong, who did what and when they did it. This
opens up a level of risk that has no place in a secure IT
environment.
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more information
Apple shoots itself in the foot
10/13/2011
iOS5 iPhone upgrade fails for many as they try to upgrade to the
new OS
 Reports of problems with the iOS 5 upgrade flooded Apple's
support forum today. It's unclear why users are not able to upgrade, but the
snafu may be due to swamped servers on Apple's end.
Users said they encountered installation errors near the tail end of the
installation process, after iTunes downloaded the update and backed up the
device.
iPhone and iPad owners reported a variety of error messages, and many said
they had tried to upgrade to iOS 5 multiple times, from different computers
running iTunes and to numerous devices, all without success.
Suggestions abounded on Apple's support forum about how to sidestep the
errors and complete the upgrade, ranging from switching off the Mac's or Windows
PC's firewall to deleting the existing backup.
In some cases, users said such suggestions had worked for them, but just as
many -- if not more -- reported that they had not. A few people claimed that
their attempts to upgrade to iOS 5 had "bricked" their iPhones, making them
unusable.
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more information
Flexible schedules and work hours have a mixed acceptance
10/07/2011
Most companies offer some form of flexible schedules, which are touted as
productivity boosters. However research shows that workers who take advantage of
such arrangements see considerable career fallout, including negative
performance reviews and limited career advancement.
Employees suffer a variety of job repercussions for participating
in work-life programs, even when their leaders insist they support the business
value. The good news is that most employers around the globe avow support for
family-friendly workplaces. The bad news is they are simultaneously penalizing
those who actively strive to integrate work with their lives.
Findings include:
- Most employers feel that the ideal employee is available 24/7
- Most employers feel the most productive employees are those with limited
personal commitments
- 93% of employers do not have metrics in place to measure the ROI of
flexible work schedules
- 80% of employers offer some form of flexible scheduling and telecommuting
to all staffers
- 79% of organizations that offer flexible work hours require core work
hours when all employees should be working
- 56% of all companies have included fexible work schedules in thier
disaster and business continuity plans
- 54% of employees on flexible schedules do not like their work
assignments
- 53% of all organizations offer flexible work hours to all employees
- 52% of all organizations have compressed the work week to less than 5 day
for some employees
- 42% of employees on flexible schedules have gotten negative performance
reviews
- 40% of employees on flexible schedules feel they have been denied a
promotion because of their work schedules
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more information
Businesses are failing to meet mandated compliance requirements
10/01/2011
Businesses are failing to maintain their compliance with the security
standard.
- The impact of new regulatory bodies and new regulations in North America
and Europe will be the largest business driver of many business' strategy,
operations, and technology.
- High credit losses and sovereign debt crises continue to slow job growth
and consumer lending.
- Businesses need to invest in data, analytics, segmentation, and reporting
to support both demand-generation strategies and risk management goals that
will foster long-term, profitable growth.
- Businesses need to improve customer retention and relationship-pricing
strategies for existing consumers.
- Businesses need more IT initiatives that support strategic cost takeout
and revenue generation; these initiatives include online self-service,
servicing, and collections; business process outsourcing, and platform-based
lending.
- Future technologies requiring increased research (and some development)
include mobile device-based business applications, social media marketing, and
peer-to-peer lending.
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more information
Security policies and procedures need to be constantly updated
09/22/2011
No matter who is behind security attack, the reality is that conventional IT
security defences - when deployed alongside well - planned and executed
security strategies - may no longer be considered sufficient to stop a
determined and targeted attack. This leads us into the interesting supposition
that the majority organizations may be operating on a rationale that is a little
out-of-date, and, as such, may not be adding value.
This does not account for the root causes of the problems caused by
determined and targeted attacks. These causes center on everyday working
practices and security configurations, which are not always included in the
standard security mission in a typical IT systems environment. There may also be
further issues in the areas of security skill sets and a hands-on understanding,
appreciation and anticipation of the potential for insecurity that may arise
from adhering solely to the standard security mission of a given
organization.
It is for this reason that security policies and procedures must be
constantly reviewed and updated.
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more information
Social Network Acceptable Use Policy
09/16/2011
Social networking is the curretn new hot thing. With Facebook, Twitter, Bebo,
YouTube, Google, Yahoo, Flickr, LinkedIn, WordPress, and more, there are over a
billion socially active people today - a number that continues to grow at
an astounding rate. And it is not just a teen or consumer fad anymore. The
social Web has emerged as a valuable business tool for the modern enterprise
touting rich applications with real-time interaction and user-generated
content.
As quickly as social networking has stormed personal lives, it has
infiltrated the workplace, too. Enterprises have discovered that the consumer
phenomenon is also a valuable tool for business and theyÂ’re already using it to
modernize business processes, corporate communications, and employee
collaboration. Perhaps more important, it's proving instrumental to customer
service, sales, and marketing programs and even partner communications.
Nearly every enterprise is using it in one way or another. But along with its
enormous popularity come enterprise-size risks. So in the race to maximize its
potential, enterprises must take due care to completely protect the business.
Unfortunately, most are not yet prepared to do that, lacking the proper
controls to effectively enforce acceptable use policy, prevent new forms of
malware, and protect sensitive data.
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