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Digital Arrrow Newsletter - May 2007
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In this issue

Editorial
How do you get the most value
from IT?

[photo: Editorial - How do you get the most value from IT?]

There have been many discussions on IT's role in an organisation or if IT actually adds any value. The famous one is the book "Does IT Matter?"

In most organisations, IT is a cost centre. When it comes to cost-cutting, the first ones to go are the "cost-centres" - in some cases, the business can't survive without some cost-centres but not everyone realises this.

Many see IT as an "avoidable cost". They really don't see the value of IT. It is not entirely their fault, given that in most of the businesses, there are a number of incomplete IT projects, the money spent on IT projects/applications don't deliver the results they promise in the business cases.

IT's role in any organisation must be to support the business achieve its goals/objectives. If you accept this as IT's role, then ask yourself truly how IT has helped your organisational goals and objectives.

You know, most of the money spent on IT can be divided into two groups: "Lights on" and "Projects". "Lights on" expenses are to run IT in any organisation. That includes renewing licenses for software, IT maintenance, server maintenance, application maintenance, website maintenance etc. Usually that covers 80 per cent of the IT expenses while the Projects cost the rest. We see people in businesses spending a lot of time discussing, researching on how much should be spent on Projects while very little research or questioning is done, if any, on the "Lights on" expenses.

To remain competitive, to get the most value from the IT, the organisation must continuously review its "Lights on" budget align it properly as the company or the market forces change.

To get value from IT, start by questioning what value you get from the money spent on "Lights on" activities; if they can be done better or differently; can they deliver better productivity and/or lower costs to the organisation etc.

Digital Armour has spent considerable time investigating these issues for SMBs. Contact us if you want to learn more about this service.

Collaboration Tools Can Save
You Money

[photo: Collaboration Tools Can Save Your Money]

The saying, "Two heads are better than one" has been proven many times over in the world of business. Most people work in teams. By definition team work is collaboration. Managing the changes to files that collaboration produces in the modern workplace is a major challenge to any manager and can easily become a logistical nightmare.

» Read more

How Secure Are You?

[photo:How secure are you?]

Malware and viruses are growing at such a great rate that businesses can barely keep up. IT departments must put whatever resources possible into fighting these growing threats, and that means becoming more adept at predicting threats. Making sure your systems are as hacker-proof as possible involves looking carefully inside your organization as well as outside, keeping up to date on new security threats, and hiring the best talent available. Talk to us. We can help with advice, audits, implementing policies and/or necessary systems.

Downtime Reading

[photo: "The world is flat - A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century" by Thomas Friedman]

"The world is flat - A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century" by Thomas Friedman.

"When the world is flat, you can innovate without having to emigrate" says the author. But, how did the world 'become flat'? Friedman suggests the trigger events were the collapse of communism, the dot-com bubble resulting in overinvestment in fiber-optic telecommunications, and the subsequent out-sourcing of engineers enlisted to fix the perceived Y2K problem. The book continues with snapshots from around the world of how globalization is affecting everybody's life both positively or negatively. The amount of traveling that was done to cover these topics is phenomenal. An excellent read!

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