IT STRATEGY ISSUE THREE The Official Publication of ELITE, the British Computer Society's Forum for IT Directors Edited by John Lamb

Contents of January Issue of IT STRATEGY

Editorial

• How do you cope with stress? John Lamb, Editor of I T STRATEGY

Agenda

• The latest trends. Ron Coates, I T STRATEGY's News Editor

Elite News

• Elite and the sweet smell of success. David Rippon, Chairman of Elite

E-Society

• Learning about -e-business. Eric Marcus, President, Concours Group
• A report about eBusinesss Centre, a risk-free environment in which clients, gurus and staff work interactively to explore the strategic impacts of emerging technologies, incorporating new methodologies such as strategy hacking and the eBusiness Playbook.
• Leaders in new roles: the need for executive coaching. John Drysdale, Director of Hay McBer's Executive Coaching Practice.
• A senior IT executive, more than any other, is expected to hit the ground running and contribute to the success of the company from day one. Recent research from Hay Management suggests that for this to take place it is necessary to provide new executives with strategic support as they rise to the challenge of their new role.

E-commerce

• Who is using e-commerce? Paul Stobart, Chief Operating Officer of Sage Software
• Results of an international e-commerce survey comparing business attitudes towards e-commerce in France, Germany, USA and the UK.
• Shelf-stacking in the New Economy Supermarket. Adam Jacobs, CEO & Cofounder of Cataloga
• Why suppliers struggle to produce electronic catalogues leaving the shelves of the new net market places and e-procurement hubs empty.
• How to cushion customers from clicker shock. David Roots, European MD of ClearCross
• Many companies are finding their current practices and systems unprepared for the demands of global procurement and fulfilment. Often customers end up paying more than the Internet price. This article explains how to avoid 'clicker shock'.
• Search technology and the Internet. Stephanie Himoff, Managing Director, Alta Vista UK
• Search is now the second most popular internet activity, but why is this, and how can advanced search technology help both businesses and consumers use the internet more efficiently?

Security

• Does your company take IT Security Seriously? Peter Cox, Vice President, BorderWare Technologies Inc.
• The good news is that it is possible to establish a connection to the Internet, to deploy a corporate extranet and to set up and e-business site without becoming next week's headline. The bad news is that many organisations are heading off in the wrong direction and will end up suffering the consequences of a poorly implemented and insecure solution.
• The country's biggest ever free giveaway. Philip Ryan, Head of Information Security consulting for the Peapod Group and Chairman of the Security Forum.
• Numerous surveys have shown that the biggest obstacle hampering the uptake of e-commerce is a lack of consumer confidence. Yet, how can consumers gain confidence when they see regular evidence that such confidence would be misplaced? In order to move forward we must understand why the problems are occurring.
• How to defeat virus attacks. Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos
• This article examines the best way to create an effective safe computing policy to minimise the danger from virus attacks.

Emerging Technologies

• Document management in the Internet age. Mark Lewis, vice president, EMEA operations, for ActionPoint
• Four out of five European companies believe it will take at least another 10 years before they are equipped for paperless operation . This article looks at how some companies have succeeded in removing paper from the equation altogether and conducting their business with suppliers and customers via the web.

Mobile Computing

• Getting to grips with handheld devices. Sarah Berg, Product Manager, Mobile Solutions Division, Extended Systems.
• When mobile phone and service provider One 2 One set out to review how to make the most of handheld computing devices, its decisions resulted in significant time and cost savings.

Application Development Tools

• Back end integration. Mike Winch, CEO, Crimsonwing
• There are a growing number of Internet commerce building tools available but a limited number of vendors which can implement and integrate them. While the creation of the front end is relatively simple and a host of user-facing functions are available, the back end integration challenges have barely been addressed.
• Software migration. Neal Rabin, CEO, Miramar Systems Inc.
• Corporations are faced with challenges in deploying systems and migrating software. Fortunately, for today's IT professionals the emergence of system migration tools used in conjunction with deployment and cloning solutions, is shifting the paradigm for how enterprises keep pace with technological change.

Recruitment

• Staff Retention, by Sid Fox, Director, Sun Professional Services
• Staff retention is one of the key issues in the modern IT arena. Demand is high and skilled staff levels are low. The new wave of dotcoms is luring talent away from corporate giants with the promise of more freedom and a greater stake in their company's future.

Training

• e-learning through the corporate portal. Chris Gomersall, Managing Director, Hyperwave
• The need to gain the competitive advantage wherever possible has placed an even greater emphasis on training as a means of improving quality standards throughout the organisation. However, the pace of competition has meant that the time and cost associated with traditional methods of training are no longer suitable, particularly in companies with locations world-wide.

Services

• Analysis of the current issues affecting ASP. David Mills, FutureLink Europe's VP Commercial.
  • The market drivers - focussing on customers' needs
  • Choosing the right ASP - what to think about...
  • The customer's perspective - the benefits, pricing and SLAs
  • Is ASP simply outsourcing?
  • Implementing ASP - the technical factors to consider
  • The future of ASP - where the industry's heading
• Buying IT Online. ByHelga StBlaize co-founder Acequote
• What kind of facilities do online IT sales sites offer purchasers? We look at the pitfalls to watch out for, the number of sites that are now available to choose from, the differences between suppliers' sites and channel sites, the sort of news and information that sites deliver and the role of auctions.

Data Storage

• Storage Area Network v Network Attached Storage. By Stewart Vane-Tempest, product director, Plasmon
• The need for storage is growing everyday and to manage this increased amount of data efficiently companies need to learn how to store information intelligently. Statistics show that, as much as 85% of data held within a company is inactive or redundant. This takes up valuable space on the server and therefore increases the need for secondary storage solutions that remove the data from the server and store it in a suitable back-up device.
• The Financial implications of a storage area networks. Erik Ottem, Director of Product Solutions, Gadzoox Networks Inc.
• This feature focuses on:
  • The areas where installations have experienced savings and where further savings may be anticipated.
  • Which areas are appropriate for return on investment analysis
  • The operational benefits of a SAN and how these go hand in hand with the financial benefits.
  • SAN return on investment in three key areas: capital, personnel and availability.
    Network storage standards. Suresh Panikar, Director of Product Marketing, Mylex

Telecommunications

• Local loop is path to high speed access. Richard Benwell, European Marketing Director for Riverstone Networks.

Management

• Concept to cashflow. Marc Demarest, chairman and CEO of DecisionPoint Application
• Every firm in every industry has a concept-to-cash-flow (C2CF) cycle: the process of turning a good idea into a product or service, creating demand for that product or service, and repeatedly fulfilling that demand. The desire to understand the concept-to-cash-flow cycle time is frequently the business driver for a data warehouse project.