IT

Cloud Migration Strategy For Enterprises

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Most of us use the cloud services without even knowing it. If you are using any internet service like Facebook or a smartphone app where you give out your information or upload your pictures and other information you are most probably using a cloud service. So, what is a cloud service? .Services offered by companies who store the information of various business organizations and even the information of an individual who uses the services of internet based companies like job websites, social networking websites and other services using data center, which is a centralized location for the storage, management and circulating data and information for a particular business.

Benefits of Cloud Computingfor Enterprises

Cloud computing provides enterprises with services in the form of software,platform and infrastructure. Cloud computing service providers make sure that your data is secure and is accessible to the authorized persons. One of the best benefit of cloud computing is that it provides scalability, so if you plan to grow your business you dont need to worry about the infrastructure to accommodate the workload. The employees of the enterprises can work from any location using the internet with their security access credentials. This makes enterprises to work more efficiently without worrying about the data loss due to power fluctuation or natural calamities. One of the biggest advantages of using cloud computing is that it is cost efficient. It lowers the company IT expenses and you dont need to worry about upgrading and maintaining the IT expenses on your own. It provides enterprises with unlimited storage space for their data

Drawbacks of Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is dependent on the internet connection. You need to have a fast internet connection to access the services. If you have intermittent internet connection or slow internet speed issues, you might want to fix them before switching to cloud services. One of the major concerns with the cloud services is the security. Storing the valuable company data using a third party cloud service provider puts the information at a great risk. Also the enterprise data is vulnerable to threats and attacks from hackers which hesitate some of the enterprises to switch to the cloud based services.

Effective ways to use Cloud Computing

Using Cloud service has both advantages and disadvantages based on the strategies implemented by the enterprises. An enterprise requires a Cloud service provider which ensures the security and scalability of the data. More importantly if the data can be migrated in the future, if the company decided to use the service from other cloud service providers. Enterprises need to choose a service provider that takes the security of the data seriously and updates their security sensors regularly to protect the information from the latest threats and hacks. All the data must be classified according to the importance of each section. All the data must be stored in correlating manner to prevent the data from being manipulated and avoid redundancy. But with more and more improvements in the cloud services, many Enterprises and mostly the startups are switching to cloud based services.

Incorporating CRM to your business strategy

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In order to become successful, a business should invest in service and before and after sale engagement, not only in promotion. Aiming to satisfy customers is the most efficient business strategy, because a one-time customer can instantly become a lifetime customer and refer your business to others, if you manage to gain his trust. Attracting new customers and keeping old ones interested is a challenge, but without a proper customer relationship management, you risk not only to lose your loyal customers, but also for them to spread the word about their disappointment. If a business is fast in responding to your requests when you show yourself interested in buying something, but fails to write back to your e-mail in which you request help with a product you recently purchased, you will probably be disappointed in the happy to sell, unhappy to help attitude and stop collaborating with that business. Taking into consideration the importance of customer care to a business, implementing innovative applications such as the MS CRM Dynamics to your company should help you reinforce your relationship with your customers. The Microsoft CRM Dynamics software is a useful application IIS-based like MS SharePoint that is easily integrated with other applications. Implementing CRM to a company requires following several guidelines to ensure its success.

From the first strategic meeting when you need to discuss the changes that need to be brought and the expectations that should be met by the CRM strategy to the selection of the CRM software that will support it, you should pay great attention to the specific needs of your company. Setting goals before starting to implement the CRM to the business strategy is priority. If you know exactly what problems need to be addressed and what improvements to be made, you can easily adopt a strategy that will suit these requirements. Another rule is choosing a reliable project manager that has experience with customer service and business marketing. Usually, CRM is implemented by the IT department, but leaving customer service in the hands of someone inexperienced in this domain can bring bad results.

Selecting a partner capable of implementing MS CRM Dynamics and MS SharePoint applications is another important step. While these applications are created with ease of access in mind, it is also true that most companies need optimization to use them to their full potential. This is why contacting an expert in Microsoft Dynamics applications is often necessary. The MS CRM Dynamics software integrates very well with other systems and has a user friendly interface, enabling your CRM team members utilize it without encountering serious problems. Any good CRM software has multiple tools and features the Microsoft Dynamics included, so you should carefully check the list and ensure they are a complete set. All in all, customer relationship management should take an important place in your business strategy. Gaining and keeping customers’ trust is a challenge; in fact, it is easier to lose that faith than it was to gain it, because disappointment is not easily cured.

If you are interested in MS SharePoint and MS CRM Dynamics, please visit this website.

Key Areas To Aligning Performance To Corporate Strategy And Goals

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It used to be that performance management was managed in one department. Today, performance management has spread throughout the entire organization, where almost every division must focus on performance management to some degree in order to be successful. Despite this wider range of performance management, enterprise-wide performance initiatives are not widely practiced. And without an enterprise approach, it is extremely difficult to align your performance to organizational goals and objectives.

According to software vendor SAS, a recent survey of 1100 businesses revealed that performance alignment was the PRIMARY benefit companies hoped to receive from their performance management efforts. Aligning performance to your organization’s goals and objectives is critical to your organization’s success. On the other side, lack of alignment increases inefficiencies and risks and prevents optimal execution of the organizational strategy.

Think of this scenario as a model for linking corporate strategy to business objectives:

The executive board collaborates high-level strategic planning and identifies goals for the CEO and organization. The CEO then meets with his/her senior executives who in turn develop objectives derived from the CEOs goals and integrates those goals into the strategic plan. In turn, those executives meet with their managers who develop objectives derived from the strategic plan, and so on. Then, each subordinate goal is tied to one or more goals of their manager. Ideally, the final result is that every tracked goal in the entire company can map back to a corporate objective developed by the board.

Chances of organizational success are greatly increased by translating each high-level objective into a cascading series of focused performance measures. Using our previous example, the CEO may focus on net cash flow while the CFO looks at debt-to-equity ratio. The controller may focus on liquidity ratio, while the accounts receivable manager looks at days sales outstanding, and the accounts receivable clerk worries about percent of collections over 30/60/90 days.

This article discusses aligning corporate strategy to four key areas: departments/ divisions, workforce, finance, and systems.

Departmental Performance Alignment

Departmental performance alignment can be difficult when business processes within an organization span across multiple business units and functional support groups. To avoid bottlenecks, finger-pointing, and redundancy of work, shared performance measures that align people across organizational boundaries must be identified and responsibilities accounted for. For instance, a performance measure that includes percent of collections over 30/60/90 days might be applied both to accounts receivables clerks and sales representatives, thus sharing and integrating performance measures, encouraging collaboration and boosting overall performance.

Workforce Performance Alignment

When workforce performance is aligned with corporate objectives individuals in an organization develop a stake in that organization’s performance. Employees at every level are measured by something they understand and control, and that same measure is clearly linked to the goals of their direct supervisor and the organization as a whole.

Financial Performance Alignment

In an economy where results need to be achieved fast and investor confidence is low, CFOs and finance organizations are implementing integrated performance management to improve information quality and visibility. One challenge organizations face aligning performance is finding financial measures that are meaningful to those responsible for carrying out the work. Using the previous example net cash flow is a critical performance measure for executives, but it probably means very little to the accounts receivable clerk who has no idea of how their contribution improves net cash flow performance. Stick with simple financial metrics that employees can understand and control.

System Performance Alignment

The IT/IS department’s role is to provide technical support for the entire organization. While we know that this alone is a complex task, today’s business model requires systems to not only support users, but to align technology to meet the business needs of the organization. Understanding business unit objectives and translating them quickly and accurately into IT priorities is essential today. So how does an organization measure how well their systems are aligned to organizational objectives? By implementing vehicles for aligning and measuring IT performance, such as service level agreements, performance-based contracts, and products and services catalogs to generate reports that illustrate how well they are measuring up to business objectives.

If you can move closer to aligning performance in these areas your organization will be well on it’s way to surpassing all of it’s goals and objectives. While the goal of a performance initiative is to align performance to organizational strategy, it is most important to maintain flexibility and adapt to organizational changes quickly.

About Victor Holman

Victor Holman is a business performance and growth strategy coach, consultant, international speaker, entrepreneur and creator of the Business Performance Portal. He has provided his expertise to over 50 government agencies worldwide and hundreds of corporations of all sizes. His goal is to help small businesses outperform their competition by applying business growth strategies and assessment tools that work for large, successful businesses.

He provides business consulting for small and large size organizations, business coaching, team performance workshops, and in-depth on-site business assessments for business owners trying to take their business to the next level. His highly acclaimed Insider’s Secrets Club delivers fast, simple, easy to implement strategies for growing your business fast!

You can access his FREE business assessment tools, business management kits, business training programs, videos, templates, and more at http://www.lifecycle-performance-pros.com

Offshore Outsourcing Is an Increasingly Popular Business Strategy

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By: Don E. Sears, eweek With the simultaneous pressures of cost savings and software-centric innovation, CIOs continue to look abroad for development projects and managed services. A global CIO study from 2010 reveals that 90 percent of CIOs will be maintaining or increasing offshore outsourcing projects in 2010 and 2011. According to the UK-based IT staffing and managed services firm Harvey Nash, outsourcing has been greatly used during the recession and CIOs are inclined to continue using outsourced services. In its 2010 Global CIO Survey, Nash surveyed 2,855 IT executives from around the world and found 62 percent outsource software-application development; 53 percent outsource software maintenance; and 53 percent outsource IT infrastructure services. Twenty-two percent outsource systems integration, 8 percent outsource BPO, 8 percent outsource HR BPO, and 6 percent outsource their entire IT department. Thirty-six percent of CIOs are increasing their budgets in 2011 for offshore outsourcing activities. The rising star for offshore outsourcing is Eastern Europe, but India is still a major player. Vietnam, the Philippines and China are also seeing increased IT activity. Says the Harvey Nash report: “The role of India in offshore outsourced programmes remains dominant, but the dominance is waning and the rise of Eastern Europe as a preferred hub, especially for European-based CIOs, is undeniable. More than one in ten global CIOs now undertakes offshore activity in Eastern Europe. That figure is significantly higher within those European countries closest to the region.” Nearly half of CIOs-48 percent-spend 10 percent of their IT budget on outsourcing. Roughly a third of CIOs have their budgets cut for 2011; forty-three percent had declining budgets in 2010. Key issues facing CIOs and the IT department include increasing operational efficiencies, cost savings, and improving business process. All three of these areas weighed heavily on the minds of CIOs, as more than 70 percent of them rated these highly. Other issues revealed by the survey include new-product development, entering new markets, improving price competitiveness, green IT and mobile commerce. CIOs, according to this study, are looking for skills that lean heavily toward business acumen. The top rated skill with the highest percentage of demand-44 percent-is business analysis, followed closely by project management (37 percent) and business relationship management (31 percent). Architecture (35 percent), IT strategy (28 percent), development (23 percent), testing (22 percent) and service management (21 percent) were eclipsed by skills that help the CIO work strategically with the business. The most surprising technology skill to fall in the bottom ring of demand in the study is security, at 16 percent. Despite the cost savings, offshore outsourcing and hybrid models that mix onshore and offshore services come with their own set of issues. As the study points out, business culture and project expectations are not always on the same page. From the Harvey Nash report: “For both CIOs and their outsourcing providers, the key statistic that continues to cause concern is a growing level of dissatisfaction with project management standards, despite the overall popularity of the offshore outsourcing model.” [Source] Software Outsourcing Blog Section: http://www.unisoftchina.com

Russian Market Space Entry Principles Growth

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Russian Market Entry Strategy / Russian Business Development Strategy Implementation Package offered by Independent Consulting Group may include:

1. Supporting the Customer in fulfilling the Action Plan of Russian Market Entry Strategy / Russian Business Development Strategy.

2. Rendering assistance in organizing and implementing ongoing control activities for the top management of the Company including monitoring of the Russian Market Entry Strategy / Russian Business Development Strategy implementation process both at the corporate and at business units levels (with due specifications) basing upon the approved criteria and methods of strategic targets, goals and key performance indicators evaluation.

3. Developing and implementing management reporting system for the Company owners.

4. Identifying potential problems and risks associated with Russian Market Entry Strategy / Russian Business Development Strategy implementation, preparing an appropriate risk management framework.

5. Identifying the Target Clients/Partners need in extra products/services of the Customer.
6. Providing other strategic consulting services as agreed by the Parties.

7. Current business development services including:

Conducting selected Russian market research surveys (oil&gas, energy, IT, banking, insurance, etc.) aimed at identification of potential partners and the Target Clients for the Customer (Target Clients means Russian and/or foreign companies potentially interested in the Customers products/services and regarded by the Customer as existing or prospective clients).

Preparing the List of the Target Clients and agreeing it with the Customer.

Managing the Customers relations with the Target Clients/Partners.

Identifying potential projects and products to be marketed to the Target Clients.

Working-out sales plan of the Customers products/services marketed to the Target Clients and carrying out activities related to its implementation.

Probing into the Target Clients development plans of core businesses and internal business processes aimed at identifying prospective joint projects, including their potential characteristics (scope, terms, expected results, potential risks, etc.).

Organizing and holding meetings and negotiations with the Target Clients on the issues of development of the Customers business in Russia aimed at achieving the Customers strategic goals and objectives

Taking part on behalf of the Customer in marketing events, including conferences, exhibitions, presentations, seminars, etc.

Monitoring perception by the Target Clients of the Customers strategic initiatives and marketing efforts of the Customer.

Power mapping Independent Consulting Group identifies official and behind-the-scenes powers and decision-makers and assists the Customer in establishing and maintaining effective communications with its Russian partners throughout Russia, its regions, certain industrial sectors of interest to the Customer, and in the Target Clients organizations.

Drafting legal documentation within the framework of development of the Customers business with the Target Clients (carrying out linguistic analysis and working out appropriate recommendations).

Preparing reference information, analysis data, and presentation materials on strategic projects implemented under the Entry Market or Business Strategy of the Customer.

Preparing activities aimed at agreement of legal and other business development-related documents at the Target Clients organizations and involvement in these activities.

Screening for potential partners, building up alliances/consortiums with them, working out recommendations on involvement into such partnerships for promoting development of the Customers business with the Target Clients.