Steve Andriole

It’s primary season. February 5 was “super Tuesday” where tons of states selected candidates among a shrinking set of mediocre prospects (please, do you really believe that the most qualified Americans are running for president?). But what are they saying about technology? Who plans to spend the most and how do they plan to spend […]

How far will industry consolidation go? Will there be one ERP vendor? Two PC manufacturers? Three data base vendors? Will there be any independent BI vendors? What happens when the dust settles? What will the industry look like when the M&A music stops? Let me make some predictions. First, vendors will continue to gobble each […]

It seems that after 30 years in this business, I still don’t know how to listen when someone asks for something really simple, like actionable data. I’m not sure if it’s a failing in me or my clients, but it seems that after all this time I still sometimes just don’t get it. But I’m […]

Consulting training programs are everywhere. But there’s a gap between generic consulting programs and programs that focus on consulting knowledge and skills leverageable within companies, on internal consulting. I realize that “consulting” has a checkered image – and that’s probably being kind. Many of us who hire the usual suspects – Accenture, PWC, IBM, Deloite, […]

When I was at CIGNA (the giant healthcare company you may love or hate, depending on whether or not you’ve seen Michael Moore’s Sicko) I experienced a mutant corporate culture: it had a senior management team with its own biases and predispositions, and a set of policies and procedures that were the result of a […]

Last month I wrote about Ten Things the IT Department Should Tell Management. I got a lot of mail about the list (though not as many as I got from the 10 new rules for IT piece I published in July – which nearly got me killed). After the August article, I received several challenges […]

The Wall Street Journal recently published Ten Things Your IT Department Won’t Tell You, which lists some things you might do to get around your CIO’s policies and procedures. For example, how to download forbidden software or get your email from lots of places when your corporate messaging server doesn’t want to cooperate. I thought […]

For those of you familiar with Bill Maher’s “New Rules” on his HBO series “Real Time,” you might appreciate some new business technology rules. (For those who don’t know the show you might still appreciate the perspective represented by the following rules – which should be followed at all times.) Here we go: 1. CIOs […]

Companies often talk a good game about innovation. Usually they talk better than they act. Has anyone ever heard anyone say that innovation was bad? Of course not, but the same people that pay lip service to the creative process are often the same ones who create financial and organizational disincentives to the process. It’s […]

I’m angry about our inability to police ourselves against self-inflicted wounds. I’ve been at this for a lot of years and I cannot believe how often the same problems repeat themselves and how otherwise impressive companies find it impossible to get the most basics things right. Why is the business technology learning curve so damn […]