Advanced program management issues

Should clients revisit their data and information flows periodically ? Often later initiatives totally cross the objectives of earlier ones. Especially in where and how data is stored, the structure in which data is stored, the business process used to store and retrieve the data can all be contradicted many times leading to data collapse.
Anyone been there ?

Rethinking the IT department

What if IT departments, especially ERP ones, started thinking like consumer companies ? After all ERP folks really do not have to sell the product to the users do they ? Top management decided they will implement a ERP system and it was simply thrust on users. So the users will have to consume it, like it or not. What if there were multiple IT departments fighting to serve a company ? How will they differentiate their offerings ? How will they decide the product, price, position and promotion  - these are the last things that IT departments or heads are thinking about today.
Look at how this company has to make and market its product . Would something like this make IT departments come alive ? Will it force them to make better products ? I long for the day when IT products will truly become user-centric than deparment centric...

http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/cheap-razor-made-after-p-g-watches-indians-shave-428389?pfrom=home-topstories

Enterprise Reporting strategy

IT heads seem to be having their heads taken out deciding upon a enterprise reporting strategy. A true enterprise wide solution ( read as database and middle layer agnostic) is an infrastructure behemoth. It demands costs, new technology etc etc. Is it worth what enterprise sized organizations need ?
Part of the problem is that predictive analytics, multiple database layer access etc is required only by to management. Very few people.
Instead of spending millions they may as well as hire a couple of data crunchers and integrate the data using excel.
Many organizations are barely able to cope with changing the information they need which keeps changing very frequently these days what with new way of communicating changing what and where information is being captured. In other words they barely can do operational reporting. Strategic reporting is still aeons away.

And then there is the problem of content. While the technology is available, content is still not on the cards. Its simply not available and is non standardized even across industries. Am looking forward to see how enterprises are developing their reporting strategy. Any comments are most welcome. 

Role of IT as the Cloud comes in

As administrative functionality gets outsourced via the cloud and virtualization cuts down hardware and other costs freeing up IT budgets, the IT department has a chance to become a true business partner for other departments. It will be interesting to see how it goes ! Any thoughts ?

Employee Engagement - who is most engaged ?

Good insight on who is most engaged in a company : http://blog.achievers.com/2013/06/why-are-men-more-engaged-women?mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRojv63KZKXonjHpfsX66%2BwvXKCzlMI%2F0ER3fOvrPUfGjI4DS8RrI%2BSLDwEYGJlv6SgFS7PDMbJo3rgOUhQ%3D

Oracle Fusion - excellent informative site

This site is run by one of Oracle's product executives.

https://sites.google.com/site/fusioncustomercollabsso/

Who is who in Oracle world ?

List of useful 3rd party Oracle products

http://www.oracle.com/us/partnerships/solutions/index.html

Killer HCM analysis

Tony Ashton from SuccessFactors says it like it is.....

http://www.hreonline.com/HRE/view/story.jhtml?id=534355082

OBIEE and Credit Cards - predictive analytics vs operational reporting.

How easily data can be consumed will determine what data is being consumed. This is the same principle that is  behind the explosion of credit cards. How easily money can be spent determines how much will be spent. I see this to be true of information systems too especially when IT managers are struggling to supply relevant data to end users in a timely fashion. The slew of reporting tools and functional applications have yet to catch up on the GUI side which is being driven by consumer software. With mega tools like OBIEE and businessObjects taking 6 months to develop and 6 months to implement , by the time which KPI's will change does it makes sense to even use these multi million $ tools ? Is there a gap here ? Are IT managers using end user operational reporting tools to meet the needs of predictive analytics ?
Will IT managers and architects realize this ? More to come later....