Larry Marion

The gap should be narrowing between what your IT bosses think about the value of technology and what users think, given the decades of discussions about the topic. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. In fact, the pressure of the Great Recession and globalization may be making the gap bigger. The Victims of IT (as Dilbert […]

Don’t be fooled by the talk of economic recovery by politicians and some leading business executives. While recent earnings reports and Fed chairman Ben Bernanke’s statements about seeing “green shoots” all purport to indicate an economic upturn, your IT development and operational priorities should remain in recession mode for the next year or so. And […]

Here’s a great way to guarantee your current employment for the next few years: offer to deploy some of your company’s Business Intelligence tools to improve operational efficiencies and cost reductions. We all know the suits are keen to reduce costs, but do they really know where to cut, and by how much? Probably not. […]

Forget for a moment the tainted pet food, contaminated seafood, poison paint on kid’s toys, irate customers frustrated by unintelligible customer service reps, and other problems associated with outsourcing functions across borders. The reality is that most companies – especially small and medium sized organizations – are becoming increasingly reliant on collaboration with third parties […]

Still fighting to control the business intelligence systems in your organization? Analytics, data warehouses and performance management systems, known as BI tools, enhance decision-making, improve customer service, boost revenues and reduce costs. They are considered among the top priorities of senior business and technology executives these days, according to surveys by Gartner, BusinessWeek Research Services […]

All of the ERP vendor promotion about their various customer relationship management (CRM) software reminds me of the old joke about a teenage boy who killed his parents. When he was found guilty and brought before the judge for sentencing, he asked for mercy because he was an orphan. Enterprise resource planning vendors–trying to sell […]

In this article: For more information on… Borden Foods to stick with outsourcing August 18, 1999–IT officials at Borden Foods Corp. of Columbus, Ohio, are scrambling to develop a new infrastructure strategy after its outsourcing partner decided to exit the business with little notice. In a stunning announcement Aug. 2, Litton Industries Inc. wrote off […]

In this article: For more information Footnotes Are you ready for the ultimate remote access challenge? At first they are just curiosities, toys for the tinkerers. Then they start proliferating. Soon after, though, power users start getting frustrated about excessive data entry: They wonder why they can’t connect their new toys to the sales, financial, […]

In this article: ASPs on the Rise Phone company as an SAP ASP? Early adopters of ERP outsourcing services Women wearing capri pants and teens in bell-bottom pants were the first signs I noticed that signaled the return of the 1960s. My daughter wanting a lava lamp for her birthday was another sign. And the […]

Several weeks ago, the controller of a $500-million company told me he couldn’t wait until he was able to upgrade his firm to the Web-enabled version of its Oracle Corp. enterprise resource planning suite (to version 11i from 10.7). The ability to access information easily, from anywhere, was irresistible, he said. Score another victory for […]