Business Technology Roundtable

Governments everywhere are struggling with unprecedented challenges. They're expected to reignite a global economy in free-fall, while grappling with crumbling infrastructure, aging populations, declining quality in education and healthcare -- plus a heightened social concern about preserving the environment. All in a budgetary environment of declining tax revenues. Like the private sector, governments are now turning to technology to help them to improve both the delivery of government services and to promote overall economic growth. Building 21st Century Economies Like the waterways and highways of previous centuries, government leaders recognize they must create essential tech infrastructure to fuel innovation-led growth and prosperity. High-speed broadband is seen as a catalyst for encouraging economic development. However, meaningful services are required to stimulate demand. For example, Germany has committed €4.6 Billion to install Telepresence capabilities throughout its ...

Non-profit organizations share many of the same communication challenges as other businesses. Their budgetary pressures can also create some unique situations, especially when you consider the scale of their ongoing outreach. The Greater Illinois Chapter is one of over seventy Alzheimer's Association chapters serving communities across the United States. Currently, the Illinois chapter serves over half a million residents affected by the disease. They're active in more than 60 counties in Illinois. Since 1980, the non-profit organization has provided information and support, as well as family services, for those affected by the disease. Staying connected to their numerous constituents, and the overall community, is essential. Streamlining Communication Processes As the chapter grew, they needed big business telecom functionality -- only on a non-profit budget. In the preparation to move into a new facility, the decision was made to replace their phone system. Managing six offi...

Business Technology related market research used to be targeted primarily at the CIO or IT manager roles within an organization. How times have changed. Research and Markets has added the "Business Technology Trends & Impacts Advisory Service" subscription to their market study offerings. The service is designed to help all savvy business decision makers develop and implement an effective IT strategy , plus take advantage of the opportunities -- and face the many challenges -- today's rapidly evolving business technology changes will bring. Developing a Plan of Attack Clients will receive the usual forecasts and predictions, as well as the strategic implications of those predictions. Subscribers receive advice on practices they can employ now to help organizations succeed within the turbulent economic environment. The Cutter Business Technology Council is the source of this insight, which includes a team of IT authorities who use a collaborative forecasting approach ...

The process of researching, reviewing and selecting a managed or hosted service provider can be a daunting task for those business and technology decision makers that have never performed this task before. Like any other process, there are some best practices. The following candid questions will help you determine if a provider of managed services can meet and exceed your expectations. Also included are examples of specific details that you should seek. How do you select a best-fit service provider? Ask all the right questions. Where do you start the selection process? Focus primarily on how the service offered will help to solve problems or create new opportunities -- not merely what it does (its features and functions). 1. Are you prepared to offer only the features and functions that my business needs, instead of the ones that you include in your one-size-fits-all service bundle? Ask for a list of all the "standard" items included in the base bundle. Request details of all...

Healthcare is constantly in the spotlight as aging populations, technological advances and high-costs threaten the very fabric of the current system. Healthcare providers and insurers are under constant social, political and shareholder pressure to both improve quality of delivery and lower operational costs. To proactively evolve, forward-looking insurers and providers need to focus on: Access -- ensuring that patients are properly insured and the facilities are available to treat them; Affordability -- driving down costs across all parts of the system; Quality -- ensuring quality and successful treatment outcome; Sustainability -- focus on managing labor force resources and green issues. New Approaches to Technology Driven Transformation Despite being an industry heavily dependant on the use of the latest in medical technologies, healthcare has traditionally been slow to use information technology and services to improve their business processes. Healthcare has some of the most ...

While most business leaders globally are planning on keeping their IT budgets flat and there will be no growth in 2009, a recent market study by analyst firm Datamonitor reveals that in some countries, people are much more confident about their future outlook -- with planned IT budget increases exceeding the decreases. “It is clear there has been a noticeable decline in enterprise confidence. However, the findings are not as negative as might have been expected”, says Daniel Okubo, technology analyst with Datamonitor. “Despite the rise in the proportion of IT budgets which are remaining flat, there are still a sizable proportion of enterprises which are planning to increase IT expenditure. Technology vendors should be keenly aware that the economic conditions of a country directly impacts enterprise IT budgets.” Reacting to the Downside Datamonitor surveyed 520 IT decision makers towards the end of 2008 to gain a better understanding of how business and IT decision makers are reacting...

In today's changing volatile economy, companies find the predictable monthly service charges of a managed service provider (MSP) highly attractive. They can deploy technology, confident that they're not pouring money down a black hole. The problem is, scads of technology providers are now trying to recast themselves as MSPs. How can you tell which ones are qualified? That's Charles Weaver’s job. He's CEO of the 8,000-member International Association of Managed Service Providers . His nine-year-old group offers an accreditation program for managed service providers, and it's closer to a bar exam than a pro forma blessing. No MSP has ever received a perfect score, and it can take as many as three tries before a company passes. (For more on MSP accreditation, see When Selecting Qualified MSPs, Assume Nothing .) Part Technology, All Business The Managed Services Accreditation Program (MSAP) has two parts: a written exam and a physical inspection. The written exam is onl...

Online competition and access to price information has been squeezing already thin retailer profit margins for some time now. Combined with the added pressures of the economic crisis, many retailers are being pushed to the edge. Sadly, familiar names, such as Circuit City, have already been pushed over the edge. To survive this crisis forward-looking retailers need to focus on: Efficiency -- making every part of the business as lean and efficient as possible, especially in the supply chain. Cost Removal -- driving out costs everywhere, especially in labor, their second biggest cost after the goods that they sell. Customer Experience -- seeking ways to differentiate an increasingly homogeneous shopping experience. Salvation in Managed Services Retailers have traditionally been very closed to the idea of managed services provided by third parties. Razor thin margins have made them very risk adverse. There is a general skepticism of service providers, large IT firms, and their unde...

My conversation with Jonathan Nguyen-Duy, Director of Product Management for Verizon, ended up being very thought-provoking. We were supposed to talk about a new security offering, a backbone-based solution aimed at stopping Internet-based attacks even before they hit a company's network. (I'd spoken previously to Nguyen-Duy about Verizon's risk-correlation service .) Nguyen-Duy is a fount of knowledge about the changing landscape of international cybercriminals. Verizon is expanding its denial-of-service (DOS) detection and mitigation capabilities into eight network management centers serving 24 countries with new levels of scalability -- in part because of an increase in international cybercrime, according to Nguyen-Duy. "Our customers are telling us that the frequency and complexity of DOS attacks has grown. We're now seeing cyberattacks based on social and political activism. We're also seeing less sophisticated hackers getting access to attack methodologie...

In the past few months, AT&T has announced increased demand for managed services on new contracts ranging from just under $5 million to more than $200 million, with companies in the private, public, and non-profit sectors. The range of both the deal size and the diverse applications indicates two key facets of managed services: its advantages truly span multiple business sectors, and organizations can deploy it by selectively out-tasking their networks. The $4.9 Million Managed Services Contract For instance, Evansville, Indiana-based Berry Plastics is consolidating a number of legacy networks into a single IP-based platform. You probably have one of the plastic products in your home that Berry Plastics manufactured. The multinational company has 68 manufacturing facilities worldwide and nearly 14,000 employees. Its $4.9 million contract with AT&T includes the creation of an IP-based virtual private network (VPN) for its 76 domestic locations. Alan Letterman, manager of IMS E...

What's motivating you to think about managed network services? Is it cost? If so, you'll be surprised to hear that you're somewhat behind the times. A new report cites six top reasons companies turn to managed services, with cost ranking all the way down the list at number four. According to Warren H. Williams, Vice President and Senior Program Director of IntelliCom Analytics -- a market research firm focusing on managed services, outsourcing, and other technologies -- cost was a big factor several years ago. Today's list of motivations, however, looks like this: ● Improved overall network performance ● Increased network reliability ● Increased network availability ● Reduced operations cost ● Improved network quality of service ● Reduced business risk Cost Superseded by Convergence Cost is still important, certainly, but Williams' research over the last three years reveals a growing shift in priorities. "The corporate network has become a strategic resource; ...

A new report from Forrester Research on the state of IT security at small to midsize businesses (SMB) in North America and Europe predicts ongoing growth in the managed security space. In a result similar to that of enterprise respondents, SMB executives reported that the two top drivers for using managed security services is the demand for a specialized skill set that security requires (cited by 31% of the respondents) and the need to reduce costs (cited by 24%). Other reasons cited for adopting managed security services include: The need to reduce complexity (19%) The need for 24/7 security coverage (19%) The rest of the IT environment is outsourced (5%) Managed Services Tops for Filtering and Monitoring The report also revealed that the top two services SMBs ask from their managed security provider are e-mail or Web content filtering (36%) and network firewall monitoring (33%). Forrester believes that the biggest uptick in the next year, however, will come from increased use of vu...

You never know when an unexpected turn of events is going to keep you out of your office. You may not live in earthquake country, or a hurricane zone, or a tornado corridor, but that doesn't exempt you. Everything from fires to broken water mains to police actions can unexpectedly mean that you're suddenly not able to do business where you thought you would that day. Acquirent, an outsourced sales execution firm based in Evanston, Illinois, knows this all too well. When its eleven employees were told to evacuate the premises unexpectedly one day, they had no choice but to pack up and go. But the disruption was surprisingly minimal. Built-In Business Continuity Because Acquirent offers outsourced sales services, founder and CEO Pete Kadens had a high level of confidence in choosing an outsourced phone system. He had deployed Geckotech's hosted IP phone system , which meant that his telecommunications capabilities weren't even inside the affected location. "We all ju...

In a global economy, professional services firms must differentiate themselves from their competition in increasingly creative ways. Rockwell Technology Group, a Grand Rapids, Mich.-based software development firm, serves customers across the U.S. Midwest and Canada, including manufacturers, insurance companies, and management services. Because its customers are widespread, it needed to come up with a way to quickly and securely deliver software updates and patches for systems it had developed. As a way to save both time and money, it uses WebEx Workspace , a hosted extranet service, to post the results of its work for download by customers. The alternative would be to burn the software onto a CD or DVD and either have it delivered by hand or shipped overnight. But by using WebEx Workspace, Rockwell garners several advantages. Saving Time, Increasing Security One advantage is that the software updates, which may be necessary to make a business process more efficient, are immediately av...

In the online network connected business environment, security is more critical -- and also more complex. Today, network security requires constant monitoring and management. All businesses now experience vulnerability on an infrastructure that often extends to many locations. Managed service providers can create a comprehensive security offering that enables you to maintain the level of protection and control you require. They can manage some or all of your network security functions -- giving you access to their dedicated manpower, 24-hour safeguarding, as well as routine maintenance and management of disaster recovery. Finding the right security solution for your organization begins with establishing your priorities and becoming informed about alternatives. The following describes typical managed security service offerings, and how you can apply them. Managed Firewall Firewalls protect internal and external networks by restricting the types of network protocols and traffic allowed ...

Managed services provider Verizon Business has added an interesting twist to its security toolbox. Traditionally, managed security services are tactical: they monitor a network for potential attacks, using virus signatures and other definitions. Earlier this month, Verizon upgraded its customers' security capabilities with what it calls its " Risk-Correlation Service ," designed to add strategic insight to security. The RCS works with vulnerability scans -- either those it does for customers or those from vendors such as McAfee, Qualys, and others -- to determine where potential vulnerabilities exist. The service also documents your system to create a map of devices and the business processes that run on them. "It marries threat information with vulnerability information," says Jonathan Nguyen-Duy, Director of Product Management for Verizon. Calculating Risks The result is a Web-based scorecard that shows Verizon customers not only where potential problems exist...

Many traditional businesses maintain separate networks for data and voice communication. With a converged voice-and-data network, companies can often reduce costs and gain significant productivity benefits. However, the cost of implementing and managing the solution internally can be prohibitive. A more affordable option is to out-task IP communications to a managed services provider . This arrangement avoids initial CapEx and provides economies of scale -- because the service provider already owns the required infrastructure. You can choose from several options for managed IP communications services. The following describes typical managed IP communications service offerings, and how you can apply them. Business IP Telephony Services This includes both subscriber and group calling services. Companies that need sophisticated PBX features can use a managed IP telephony service. Many small businesses can also receive the functionality that they require with a managed IP telephony soluti...

Turmoil and struggles in the financial services sector are splashed daily on the front page of newspapers around the world. The industry faces a number of monumental challenges that are threatening and shaping its future. To remain competitive, forward-looking firms need to: Reduce costs Improve cross-sell and up-sell results from existing customers Shift capital expenditures to operational expenditures through variable costing and on-demand capabilities Progressive companies in the financial services sector are aggressively using managed services technology to address some of these current challenges. Serving Market Growth The financial services sector currently spends more than 2.5 times more on technology than other industries. The way they can attack challenge number one is to shift the management of desktops, data centers, and call centers to a managed services model. Companies are using this option not just to reduce costs, but as a way to reallocate investment into growth initia...

Service providers offer a variety of options for managed services. The following describes the first of the top three most popular managed services, and the associated options, to help you determine which services would be most useful for your company. Businesses gain both tactical and strategic advantages when adopting IP Virtual Private Networks (VPN). In the short term, they benefit from cost-effective, secure network connectivity to branch offices and secure access to remote workers, teleworkers, and global partners. In the long term, they position themselves to take advantage of new value-added, IP-based applications and to support more users and applications at a lower cost. Choosing a Best-Fit IP VPN Solution Cisco commissioned the Yankee Group to describe the decision-making process that enterprises used to select one of three broad types of IP VPN managed services (click on image to enlarge). You can use the decision tree to determine which of the three options for managed I...

Companies with extended supply chains frequently need to collaborate with multiple partners -- simultaneously and visually. Yesterday at the National Retail Federation Conference in New York, AT&T and Cisco reminded attendees that they have added multipoint capabilities to their telepresence offering, which AT&T delivers as a managed service . Attendees visiting AT&T's booth participated in videoconferencing discussions with Cisco employees in San Jose, and expressed confidence that they could apply the teleconferencing capabilities in their business immediately. Collin Cupid of high-end handbags and accessories manufacturer Coach said, "It made you feel like everybody's in the same room." Sally Curtis of Planet Retail, a market research firm, said, "We can use this in our own context for communicating with customers. It's absolutely real." A couple of executives from United Rentals wanted an installation "yesterday," but were wi...

AT&T demonstrated its telepresence capabilities at this week's National Retail Federation conference in New York City. Retailers and other attendees are already talking about how the global industry could use Business Video technology to improve supplier and customer relationships, reduce travel expenses, and make supply chains more efficient. Using Cisco's TelePresence technology for videoconferencing , AT&T offered attendees the chance to participate in sessions with Cisco employees in San Jose. Chris Eubanks of athletic equipment retailer Sports Authority said, "It was one of the most real things I'd ever seen. It was like being in the same room as the people in San Jose." Carlo Pochinesta of clothing manufacturer Gucci said, "It was as close to meeting in person as you can get and yet not be in the same room together." As a salesperson, Erik Kostelnik of employment Web site careerbuilder.com found it helpful in his work. "I started readi...

As noted in Part I , global sensor manufacturer Measurement Specialties Inc. (MSI) faced multiple challenges with its managed network services provider. It suffered from excessive downtime, and the team of IS/IT director Bob Andreini spent too much time solving problems that were the responsibilities of their provider. Andreini brought in Virtela , a Greenwood Village, Colo.-based managed network services provider that works with multiple vendors of networking equipment, including Cisco. It devised a mesh network using Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) technology that eliminated the point-to-point problems that plagued MSI previously. He describes it as a seamless network with multiple subnetworks, "almost like a black box. Someone in Fremont, Calif., can send something to our site in Shenzen, China via the most logical route over the network." Automatic Backup At the same time, MSI's downtime has disappeared. Virtela set up a back-up DSL circuit at each of MSI's...

By any measure, Bob Andreini's network was a nightmare. Even though he had outsourced the management of the network, downtime was measured in days. His team regularly mediated finger-pointing between international telecom providers. Even the configuration of his infrastructure left a lot to be desired. Andreini, the global director of IS and IT at Measurement Specialties Inc., a $200 million manufacturer of sensors with 12 locations around the world, knew something had to change. His company had grown through acquisition, adding sites in locations in Galway, Ireland; Versailles, France; Dortmund, Germany; and Bevaix, Switzerland, a village of 3,500 outside of Neuchatel. But this growth also meant an increasing patchwork of network connections. Reliability was a challenge, especially with an IT staff of 35 and only ten of those people devoted to the infrastructure -- able to work only part-time on this key task. Downtime Here Meant Downtime There A hub-and-spoke infrastructure meant...

In a global economy, professional services firms must differentiate themselves from their competition in increasingly creative ways. Rockwell Technology Group, a Grand Rapids, Mich.-based software development firm, serves customers across the U.S. Midwest and Canada, including manufacturers, insurance companies, and management services. Because its customers are widespread, it needed to come up with a way to quickly and securely deliver software updates and patches for systems it had developed. As a way to save both time and money, it uses WebEx Workspace , a hosted extranet service, to post the results of its work for download by customers. The alternative would be to burn the software onto a CD or DVD and either have it delivered by hand or shipped overnight. But by using WebEx Workspace, Rockwell garners several advantages. Saving Time, Increasing Security One advantage is that the software updates, which may be necessary to make a business process more efficient , are immediately a...

A professional education trains someone to be a lawyer, doctor, or accountant, but it rarely teaches them how to run a business practice – that's typically learned from experience. Ken Wolfe is a worker's compensation lawyer in Chicago with 25 years experience. When he hung out his own shingle, he realized that in addition to being a lawyer, he was now managing his own business operations. Among other things, that meant making decisions about choosing the best telephone system for his business needs. Wolfe thought he was playing it safe by setting up his operation with phone and Internet service from a leading telecommunications provider, using traditional technology. But before long, he realized he missed many of the services that had been available at his previous firm, which had used Geckotech's hosted IP-based phone system . Lesson learned, he switched providers after a year. Hosted System Brings Voice and Data Together Because the replacement phone system was hosted, W...

Hiring a managed services provider shouldn't be a leap-of-faith decision-making process. Perhaps you have staff that could fulfill their responsibilities, but instead you entrust a key component of your IT infrastructure to another company. You believe they can do the job better and more efficiently. However, is that belief proven to be justified? This begs another question: who licenses or certifies a managed service provider? The topic came onto our radar thanks to a handful of companies claiming SAS 70 certification. The SAS 70 standard was developed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) to govern service organizations. (SAS stands for statement of auditing standards; see the AICPA page relating to auditing standards for more information.) Certification's Real Meaning You may assume that a managed service provider claiming SAS 70 certification has submitted itself to rigorous tests relating to its internal processes. However, according to Judith ...