The VAR Guy

Regardless of when oil hits the $200 per barrel figure, it is time to start preparing for the realities of the energy crunch. As such, solutions providers and information technology departments must start preparing to support remote workers.

Think of your business — or your customers’ business — as a potted plant. As the plant grows, you’ll need to move it into a bigger pot if you want to sustain healthy growth. Now, let’s apply that example to a typical office accounting system.

Business and technology alignment. Big businesses talk about it all the time. Now, here are some key lessons in alignment — or misalignment — that apply to big business CIOs and small business consultants alike.

Each day, companies die a little when their employees utter these seven fateful words: “We have always done it like that.” We are, it seems, victims of our own inefficient habits. Consider this real-world example of antiquated workflow, and its potential business impact.

CIOs have already been betrayed by the economy. Next, will they face financial mutiny by their own boardrooms? Instead of waiting to find out, now is the time for smart CIOs and their trusted IT partners to reduce costs before the big budget cuts happen. Here are seven ways for CIOs to get started.

Leonardo da Vinci once said: “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” Too bad we haven’t been true to those words with enterprise IT. For some reason we have allowed ourselves to become enamored of these incredibly complex methodologies. We fool ourselves into believing that everything needs to be complicated because we live in a complicated world, or because our business must be complicated. It’s all nonsense.

In his book, “Business @ the Speed of Thought: Using a Digital Nervous System,” Bill Gates presents the concept of the fully integrated business digital dashboard. But is it possible to develop that type of rich dashboard for your customers? Let’s take a look.