Archive - May 2012

This week’s Economist includes an interesting article on the US army’s new Agile process. According to the Magazine the army technology acquisitions are “often hampered by long budgeting cycles and byzantine contracting procedures”, which result in military communications systems that lag behind those in the commercial world. This, of course, may sound familiar to anyone involved in government procurement in the UK.

Much of the approach to business strategy and IT to date has been driven by Finance and Operations' desire for cost savings and efficiencies, from business process optimisation and ERP, to financial consolidation and reporting.

There is growing evidence, however, that there is a shift from cost savings to growth and the customer. And customer obsession is becoming the driving force for business agility. I’ll explain.

21

MAY

Cookie Legislation and your Website

21 MAY 2012 | Posted in internet, website | Author Alex McLachlan | 1 Comment

We have recently changed our website privacy policy to comply with the EU Directive that will be in force in the UK from 26th May.

However, a significant proportion of organisations haven't made the necessary updates including many Government websites according to the BBC.

Today's highly competitive and rapidly changing markets that see the rise and fall of the likes of Nokia and MySpace places business imperatives on companies. In particular, companies need to be innovative, introducing new products, updating others to react to changes in the market (or predicting or even creating these market changes).

Much has been written on innovation, from the incremental improvements of Toyota and others through the use of Lean methods, to the disruptive innovation exemplified by Steve Jobs and Apple. What is often neglected, however, is that to deliver innovation, it is essential to have an underlying capability of business agility.