A small number of companies, including Novell Inc. and FedEx Corp., have elevated responsibility for IT governance to their boards of directors in an attempt to ensure that they have high-level oversight of technology investments.
Lazard Freres & Co., a global investment bank with offices around the world, has partnered with Wellesley, Mass.-based Nucleus Research Inc. Monday to provide investors with IT ROI research to help them make better decisions on investing in IT vendors and user companies.
IT managers who help negotiate contracts with vendors often end up with less than they had hoped for, largely due to the process by which contracts are agreed to and delivered upon.
Sarbanes-Oxley, The Patriot Act and a host of other regulatory compliance initiatives are top of mind for many IT executives these days. In a preconference poll of 159 registered attendees of Computerworld's Premier 100 IT Leaders conference conducted in late February, 52 percent of the respondents said their IT organizations are substantially involved in their companies' regulatory compliance efforts, while just 17 percent said they're not involved at all.
Xcel Energy Inc. plans to go live with an automated notification system next week that's expected to help the Minneapolis-based power company alert industrial and commercial customers that they need to cut back on their electricity consumption up to 60 percent faster than traditional methods.
Early adopters of business process outsourcing (BPO) services said they have been able to save money and improve productivity for functions such as human resources and finance.
FRAMINGHAM (03/16/2004) - Niku Corp. Monday introduced a new version of its flagship portfolio management tools with features aimed at helping IT organizations align more effectively with business departments and support their IT governance techniques.
PALM DESERT, CALIFORNIA (03/09/2004) - Just about every IT organization has had a disastrous project. The key to preventing them is to apply gut instincts and a host of hard and soft measurement techniques to catch the bad ones before millions of dollars are poured down the drain.
At its Metamorphosis conference in San Diego, Meta Group analysts preached the need for IT departments to become more agile so they can respond faster and more effectively to changing business demands.
As the economy slowly rebounds and companies become more focused on revenue enhancement, it's becoming increasingly necessary for IT organisations to become more adaptive and sense and respond quickly to business demands, according to analysts at Meta Group, which held its Metamorphosis conference last week.
FRAMINGHAM (02/20/2004) - Companies such as Ameritrade Holdings Corp. and Exel Logistics are overhauling their IT governance models in an effort to better prioritize technology projects and manage their IT staffs more effectively.
FRAMINGHAM (02/17/2004) - The increased financial scrutiny that many IT departments are facing isn't limited to the private sector.
NORWALK, CONNECTICUT (02/02/2004) - Emcor Group Inc. is developing a Notes-based system to track its Sarbanes-Oxley compliance -- a low-cost project that it chose as an alternative to a potential six-figure investment in commercial software and IT consulting services.
FRAMINGHAM (01/30/2004) - The Tennessee Valley Authority is installing a contingent-workforce management system that's expected to pay for itself within a year, partly by enabling electronic bidding by companies that supply IT contractors and other temporary workers.
FRAMINGHAM (01/16/2004) - Ever since the economy began to stumble in mid-2000 and companies began trimming IT spending, industry watchers have wondered how long organizations would stretch the lives of their desktop hardware before beginning wide-scale upgrades.