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Public Council Teleconference: Application Rationalization — Hidden Costs and Smart Decisions

November 17 at 11:00 am US/Eastern (GMT-5)

Join Honorio Padrón, of The Hackett Group, who will share the drivers for companies to tackle application rationalization and the results of research that define the hidden cost of complexity. Additionally, we will discuss key decision milestones—to start or not, holding the course steady and fulfilling expectations.

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Book Excerpt: The Adventures of an IT Leader, Part 2

A new CIO grapples with how to sell the value of IT investments and confronts a past failure. Read the second installment of our exclusive series.

 

January 14, 2009CIO

The story so far: Jim Barton, the head of loan operations for financial services company IVK, has been tapped as the CIO by the company's new CEO, Carl Williams. The previous CIO, named Davies, has been fired. When Barton runs into Davies on a local running path a few days later, he finds out that Davies already has a new job—and thinks Barton is doomed. Barton must restore Williams's confidence in IT while he learns on the job. Read the first installment

Friday, April 6, 4:20 p.m....

Barton's musings about IT value finally sent him down the hall to consult with Bernie Ruben, director of the IT department's Technical Services Group.

Barton gave him an overview. "Carl is going to want to hear our ideas about how to measure IT value."

Ruben nodded. "You can distinguish, not just in IT but in other areas too, between investments that are merely "qualifiers" that keep you in business and investments that help you compete. It'd be interesting to know how much of the IT budget we spend to qualify versus how much we spend to compete."

"And we could try to affect the distribution of expenditures across those categories over time," said Barton. "If we can reduce costs for running qualifiers, then even if their numbers increase, we might be able to reduce our total spend on them. I like the idea of taking a run through our portfolio with these categories in mind. Any chance you'd be willing to take the lead on this? I'll get Gary Geisler to help." Geisler was the IT department's financial guru.

"I'll do that and get with Geisler to prepare for the value discussion. First thing Monday morning."

Barton returned to his office, encouraged by Bernie's [ideas], but still feeling unsettled. Maybe from a different vantage-point he could see a way forward.

If IVK is the forest, thought Barton, perhaps I should start with the value of IVK? Then at least I can establish an upper bound of the value of IT.

Although he knew it to be a controversial measure, one estimate of a company's value is the price at which investors are willing to buy its common stock. How much did IT contribute to this value?

The flip side of this question was also important: How much did IT diminish this market value? Barton remembered celebrating when IVK's stock price passed $75, giving IVK a market value of almost $4.8 billion. Just one-and-a-half years later, after a disappointing financial result, IVK had lost more than half of its market value. What role did IT play in that loss?

 
 
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How Data Mining Can Rock Your Career

Recently, U.S. News & World Report listed "data miner" as one of only a handful of careers core to today's digital enterprises. The University of Illinois at Chicago takes a look.
 

Upgrading to VMware vSphere with vWire

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Explore the Common Barriers to Virtualization

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Practical Approaches for Securing Web Applications

Enterprises understand the importance of securing web applications to protect critical corporate and customer data. What many don't understand, is how to implement a robust process for integrating security and risk management throughout the web application software development lifecycle.
 

An Executive's Guide to Web Application Security

Since so many Web sites contain vulnerabilities, hackers can leverage a relatively simple exploit to gain access to a wealth of sensitive information, such as credit card data, social security numbers and health records. It's more important than ever to examine your Web application security, assess your vulnerability and take action to protect your business.
 

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Smart techniques for application security: whitebox + blackbox security testing.

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Lower the Cost and Complexity of a Mobile Workforce through Automation

Lower the Cost and Complexity of a Mobile Workforce
 

Extending Client Refresh - 11 Steps to Maximize Savings

11 Steps to Maximize Savings
 

Consolidate Your Servers and Storage to Lower Costs with Oracle Database 11g

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Oracle Database 11g and Oracle Real A...
 

The Last Software You'll Ever Buy? The Platform Approach to Development

Torn between "buy" and "build"? There is a third option that can give you the custom fit of an in-house build and t...
 

Profit from Power Savings

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