This site contains educational reports on a wide range of technology topics. Reports were written by leading professionals at technology companies nationwide, to provide readers a practical, hands-on perspective. Condensed versions appeared in BusinessWeek magazine. All reports may be viewed or downloaded without charge, however usage of this site is only permitted only in accordance with the stated terms and conditions.
Report Summary:
A major shift is taking place that is causing significant, life-effecting
changes to take place at a hair-raising pace. Major technological advances used to take 100s of years, then a few decades, and now less than 10 years. Here are the brutal facts. You need to rethink everything you do, how you do it, why you do it, and ask important questions. This report will dig into why having the best software and/or features is not enough to distinguish you from the rest of your competition.
Harms Software Inc. is the leader in point-of-sale, management, and scheduling software in the Beauty Industry since 1987. Their flagship product Millennium™ moves beyond features and provides an amazing management, goal attainment, customer loyalty, and integrated wireless/Internet system.
Report Summary:
Technology professionals are daily faced with the decision of how much testing their product needs before it makes it into consumers hands. In fact, time-to-market and cost pressures (both directly influenced by the number of tests to be executed) are just two variables that lead many to the decision to limit or forego testing entirely.
Report Summary:
As telecommunications services have grown beyond traditional voice services to include complex data networks and wireless services, so too has the complexity of managing the related expenses. For example, a typical enterprise spends about 3.6% of revenue on telecom expenses each year, which totals over $240 billion for all enterprises.\
Control Point Solutions is the leading provider of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) for Telecommunications Expense Management (TEM). We provide end-to-end solutions that manage the invoice lifecycle, from procurement to payment, for voice, data, and wireless services.
Report Summary:
As organizations increasingly demand real-time instantaneous results, replatforming is a viable solution. It is a real effort for CIO and CEOs to make an informed decision that takes their enterprise architecture – and their mission-critical data – to the next level. The level where it will be cost-effective and strategically-significant at least for the next 18 months to 5 years before even newer 21st Century architectures are introduced.
COMPUTER CONSULTANTS INTERNATIONAL, INC is a Management Consulting/Technology Services Company committed to delivering innovation with vast industry expertise, global resources and proven experience in consulting and outsourcing. CCI can mobilize the right people, skills, alliances and technologies.
Report Summary:
In early 2003, Protech Associates, Inc. began developing Protech CRM for Members, the first non-proprietary association business solution. This paper will examine how non-proprietary solutions benefit associations, and how Protech’s decision to adopt the Microsoft platform as the foundation of its product offering and its business strategy has benefited the company, its customers, and its partners.
Protech Associates, Inc., a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and ISV, provides Protech CRM for Members. Protech CRM for Members helps improve communication and relations with members; increases internal efficiencies by automating dues billing and workflows; and promotes financial sustainability.
Report Summary:
This paper is intended for management in the use of business technologies. The audience is primarily information technology (IT) managers but includes non-technical management who are committed to the use of Internet technologies for business purposes.The paper addresses the questions “How do I secure my enterprise” and “Can I integrate open source technologies with traditional Internet security software?”
Report Summary:
Until recently Business & IT Process Automation required substantial investments of resources, time & money. As a result the benefits were available to only large enterprises and very complex processes. New emerging trends are helping change the scenario. See how your organization can better manage business and IT processes at all levels of complexity.
Report Summary:
Why all the current fuss over IT Service Management (ITSM) and ITIL (the IT Infrastructure Library)? Spurred by new compliance regulations, the rise of outsourcing options, flattened budgets, and calls by senior management to “run IT more like a business,” CIOs are striving to impose formal processes on IT activities.
Pepperweed was founded in 1996 by IT professionals who recognized a need for quality IT management tools, and specialists peaked in their implementation and use.
Report Summary:
Basically the article talks about 3 things:
1. Global economy and off shore model is a reality
2. To find a job in the next 5 years we need language, cultural and other skills
3. Internalization is a strategy for localization, globalization, (EMEA, LATAM, APAC)
COMPUTER CONSULTANTS INTERNATIONAL, INC is a Management Consulting/Technology Services Company committed to delivering innovation with vast industry expertise, global resources and proven experience in consulting and outsourcing. CCI can mobilize the right people, skills, alliances and technologies.
Report Summary:
Discover the drain on productivity -- and hidden information costs -- for the enterprise and the business workforce created by employees searching for information on the Internet, and why knowledge workers are now turning to their enterprise corporate portals and company intranets for the business information they need. Learn why leading organizations and software portal providers are relying on solutions from technology providers and content aggregators such as YellowBrix.
Better decisions in less time. YellowBrix is a pioneer in real-time information delivery and a leading provider of business intelligence services including targeted industry, company and current awareness news and information.
Report Summary:
Managing a company’s documents to ensure preparedness for legal discovery or regulatory review has become more burdensome and complicated than ever. Litigants expect huge pools of data, and courts expect it to be delivered without delay.
Report Summary:
Banks, hedge funds and other institutions buy and sell risk through the trading of complex derivative financial securities. Traditional risk technology used for valuing and trading these securities is challenged to keep pace with the innovation and complexity in this market. Quadrus has created a new breed of risk technology, with the speed to quickly and accurately value these complex securities and the flexibility to keep up with pace of evolution in this complex and lucrative industry.
Quadrus Financial Technologies Inc. sets a new standard for performance in risk management and financial analytics with software that delivers an unparalleled combination of speed, flexibility, scalability and interoperability with in-house and partner systems.
Report Summary:
Network devices have become intelligent decision making platforms able to inspect, log, route, monitor, or reject traffic on a request by request basis. These same appliances can now monitor application response data and intercept that response for additional inspection and action. Imagine being able to mask application and infrastructure outages in front of your customer!
Milestone Systems Inc. headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota is a specialized systems integration company focused on application and network high availability and security.
Report Summary:
Using Enterprise Feedback Management (EFM) can close the loop on customer satisfaction, enabling the ability to deliver unparalleled customers service and product improvements. EFM systems can collect and analyze customer data and employee feedback while seamlessly turning it into actionable insights and policies.
Prezza Technologies builds innovative web-based and mobile survey tools with an emphasis on quality, performance, and usability. Prezza's customers are able to easily deploy even the most complex surveys & data collection applications in a fraction of the time required by the competing products.
Report Summary:
Through automated kiosks, retailers can dramatically increase their sales volume, offer extended hours of operation, expand service offerings as, while greatly reducing labor.
Innovative Control Systems has transformed many industries by creating a completely new business model incorporating automated point-of-purchase terminals. Innovative Control Systems builds custom kiosk solutions and specializes in outdoor drive-up applications.
Report Summary:
This report identifies and details the key areas of improvement that an organization can realize as a result of implementing a service lifecycle management solution. It also provides valuable guidelines for obtaining project approval and management “buy-in”.
Astea is a global provider of customer-centric service lifecycle management software that addresses the unique needs of companies that manage capital equipment, mission-critical assets, and human capital. Astea has licensed applications to more than 400 companies in a wide range of verticals.
Report Summary:
In the new era of digital communications, consumers are taking charge of their online experience. That's why RSS has caught on with a vengeance. Spurred by the growth of RSS and its potential as a marketing tool, pioneering companies are avidly exploring this promising new channel. Silverpop's "RSS: What Marketers Need to Know" handbook provides answers on how to utilize this growing technology to cultivate online business relationships, drive response and increase return on investment.
Silverpop helps marketers cultivate and maintain strategic relationships with customers by maximizing the potential of email and RSS as relationship tools. Silverpop's new RSSDirectTM product is the first commercial-grade solution for individualized RSS content creation and distribution.
Report Summary:
Today’s cyber-threat environment is increasingly severe, compounded by the growing number of vulnerabilities that are discovered weekly, the emergence of new types of attacks, the shrinking time between vulnerability discovery and attack development, the propagation speeds of automated attacks.
TippingPoint, a division of 3Com, is the leading provider of network-based intrusion prevention systems for enterprises, government agencies, service providers and academic institutions.
Report Summary:
Many businesses today view their customer service operations purely as a cost center. Offshore outsourcing is therefore merely a way to reduce costs. Other businesses, however, are creating ways to generate revenue from every phone call. These businesses utilize offshore outsourcing as a strategic weapon to increase revenues, with lower costs as an added benefit.
PeopleSupport, Inc. (Nasdaq: PSPT), is a leading offshore business process outsourcing (BPO) provider that offers customer management, accounts receivable management, and back office management services for U.S.-based clients from its facilities in the Philippines.
Report Summary:
Real-Time Application Performance Monitoring is a requirement today for enterprises that want to manage their networking infrastructures in alignment with their business objectives. While there are numerous approaches to monitoring the delivery of networked applications to users, a Best-of-Breed approach is warranted.
Report Summary:
In 2003 when Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) was identified in the province of Ontario, Canada, quick, innovative responses were critical to contain the disease. An IT solution played a significant role in the Province’s effective response to manage the SARS outbreak. This solution has now become a permanent fixture in Ontario's 'new normal' for infectious disease containment.
DapaSoft Inc. is a leading edge Canadian-based software development and IT consulting firm. It delivers custom software solutions to international clientele in a variety of business sectors including: healthcare, travel, banking, investments, insurance, retail, steel manufacturing, etc.
Report Summary:
To manage their corporate reputation and brand performance, forward-thinking companies combine advanced techniques and new software to dissect the process by which business is won or lost by analyzing the combined efforts of marketing and public relations.
They rely on new analytical tools, proven metrics and methodologies to calculate PR’s ROI and find that positive PR delivers among the best values of any marketing agent and it provides a low-cost lift to other forms of marketing.
Bacon's helps marketing and PR professionals maximize results in media relations. Bacon's provides integrated service solutions designed to give clients the ability to target their messages efficiently, customize distribution of information, monitor media coverage and evaluate results of campaigns.
Report Summary:
The “telecom gold rush” is here. New revenue-generating services include ringtones, music videos, Instant Messaging, video mail, and live broadcasts. Service providers are rushing to transition legacy networks from voice-only wireline to wireless, VoIP, and multimedia-enabled. To succeed, they need to buy equipment such as signaling servers, signaling gateways, and media servers, running on widely-used web and IT standards, including Internet Protocol (IP) and Session Initiation Protocol (SIP).
Cantata Technology, established in 2006 through the combination of Brooktrout Technology and Excel Switching Corporation, provides enabling communications hardware and software that empowers the creation and delivery of anytime, anywhere IP-based communications applications.
Report Summary:
The center of gravity of the trillion-dollar telecom, construction, and consumer industries has now shifted to Asia Pacific, which includes Greater China, India, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, and South Pacific. Fortune 1000 executives know they need a sound Asia strategy and strong US-Asia connections and execution at all levels. This report gives some insights to the art of winning in international and cross-cultural business dealings, highlighting some do’s and don’ts in Asia markets.
Congruent Partners helps Fortune 1000 corporations and private tech companies in global business strategy and execution. The firm is led by Jason Ma, widely recognized as an inspirational spokesman across Asia Pacific and Silicon Valley.
Report Summary:
Wireless machine-to-machine solutions are helping companies streamline operations, save money and even save lives. Read on to learn how three companies M2M technology worked together to help a mother quickly locate a stolen vehicle with her baby on board.
Report Summary:
Technology plays an important role in the development of healthcare banking solutions, particularly the recently-introduced Health Savings Account (HSA). This article details the components necessary to build a technologically sound as well as competitive solution.
The BISYS Group, Inc. provides business process outsourcing solutions that enable investment firms, insurance companies, and banks to capitalize on convergence by entering new segments of the financial services industry.
Report Summary:
IT organizations understand the benefits of migration to new servers that are easier to support, offer better price/performance, consume less power, and take up less space, but porting in-house and commercial software applications is often a huge obstacle that can delay migration projects by years.
Transitive Corporation is a pioneer and leader in providing solutions that allow the transportability of software applications across multiple hardware platforms.
Report Summary:
Adaptable application systems bridge the gap between the cost-effectiveness of packaged solutions and the functionality of custom software. This is accomplished by providing easy-to-use tools to customize a fully-functional, installation-ready application system.
Genesistems, Inc. develops adaptable application system products under the TOM Software® brand and distributes them through its international dealer network. These local dealers have provided customized solutions for businesses using the adaptable application system technology for over 28 years.
Report Summary:
The velocity of business is increasing. To keep pace, enterprises are relying not only on traditional communication vehicles such as email, but also real time communication methods such as instant messaging (IM) and Voice over IP (VoIP). More importantly, it’s not one method or another – it’s all of them. These converged business communications environments integrate customers and suppliers into the value chain, solidifying relationships and streamlining operations.
BorderWare Technologies makes Internet communications safe. The company is the leading provider of content and application security that secures business-critical applications including Email, Instant Messaging, Web and Voice over IP.
Report Summary:
This report addresses the challenges that impact a Leader’s effectiveness. Studies show up to 30% of executive management time is impotent because of inaccurate and inconsistent information. The result is an inefficient use of the Leader’s time and knowledge. Corporations will learn how to optimize their business performance management by employing solutions that provide increased visibility, accountability, and control.
ASIL Inc. provides Leaders with products and services to achieve your business objectives. Areas of focus include: change management, outsourcing, integrated project management, performance score carding and closed loop action resolution.
Report Summary:
Stringent corporate reporting requirements such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act raised the standards of corporate governance, yet compliance entails significant investment. New strategies developed to respond to compliance requirements are substantially empowered by new technology that makes implementation easy and rewarding with substantial ROI.
Report Summary:
Data control and audit technology is essential to securing the proprietary information managed by global enterprises as they work with global suppliers and those responsible for their outsourced operations. This document summarizes the capabilities of the Verdasys Digital Guardian data security solution for securing and protecting information throughout an extended global enterprise, without adversely impacting existing business processes.
