Midsize Insider is a valuable repository of expert content tailored for small-to-midsized business owners and IT decision makers. Expert insights and perspectives in the Midsize Insider are gleaned from actionable business experiences and will assist readers in creating efficiencies, cutting costs and delivering results.
IT security for business is no longer a discussion for admins alone. Executives and employees also have a role to play, and they are integral in making sure attackers aren't able to gain access to critical systems or infrastructure. While ...
Businesses have long known their fortunes turn on managing customer expectations: Do well, and consumers will recommend you to their friends and family. Do poorly, and they'll seek out a competitor, even if it's simply out of spite. But the ...
Business process management (BPM) is a combination of software and services that together improve efficiency and provide total visibility. The goal of a BMP deployment is to first identify areas for potential improvement and then create strategies that self-generate results. ...
Security used to be a relatively simple game for IT admins - set up a defensible perimeter, hunker down, and make sure users don't do anything they shouldn't. But both attacks and attackers have increased in sophistication, meaning security measures ...
Business process modeling is an attempt to graphically represent the processes of a business in order to analyze effectiveness and improve value. These models have existed in some form starting in the late 1800s, and include the flow chart, Gantt ...
ERP in the cloud is a reality. Cloud services have become sophisticated enough to deliver whole-business planning capabilities as software-as-a-service, allowing IT admins to sidestep the problem of massive installations and storage limitations. These deployments come with their own issues, ...
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are designed to help a company integrate information and processes across its organization, with the ultimate goal of minimizing transaction and production mishaps. Since the year 2000, ERP software system growth has been substantial, and ...
A new study from CA Technologies reports that for most companies asked, cloud computing has not only met their expectations but exceeded them in areas from speed to return on investment to security. But distributed technology providers can't rest on ...
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software solutions attempt to combine external and internal information management tasks to produce a continually evolving stream of communication across all business departments. Once the province of only massive corporations, the availability of cloud computing services ...
Intelligence in business comes down to two fundamental issues: identifying new opportunities and improving the decision-making process. Doing so requires a combination of theories, methodologies, processes, architectures, and technologies aimed at converting raw data into actionable insights.Business intelligence (BI) software ...
Most midsize companies have likely heard a great deal about cloud computing, both from providers and competitors in their industry. Often, the largest cloud proponents are chief information officers (CIOs) and executives within a midsize business; IT admins, meanwhile, may ...
The cloud and security are often perceived as opponents - sparring partners in a technological boxing match that may put midsize companies at risk. In fact, innovations in both areas have resulted in a new dynamic, one in which distributed ...
IT security doesn't happen in a vacuum. While midsize IT professionals are tasked with making sure the entirety of a company's network is secure, going it alone is a surefire recipe for disaster. Ideally, admins need to create a viable ...
Local servers are often bogged down, chock full of essential data and the information necessary to run desktop applications. Even cloud computing alternatives don't guarantee a streamlined server experience, since it's all too easy for companies to "sprawl," reducing the ...
Customer relationship management (CRM) has become an integral part of any midsize business strategy. Both frontline employees and IT professionals must work in concert for a CRM deployment to succeed, but when it does, it allows companies to effectively communicate ...
Cloud computing, powerful business analysis tools, and customer relationship management (CRM) products are now easy to access, easy to use, and straightforward to implement, giving businesses of any size the ability to compete on a global playing field. As a ...
The local network is an IT professional's home turf. Midsize admins know the system's ins and outs, where they've shored up infrastructure, or where budgetary restrictions have forced them to leave it thin. Moreover, they know exactly which areas have ...
Analytics software is rapidly becoming a must-have for midsize business thanks to the influx of big data, the prominence of social networks, and the need for real-time information, no matter the question asked. But getting the most out of analysis ...
Project management is under greater scrutiny than ever in midsize businesses, especially for IT staff. Not only have admins seen their budget and staff numbers slashed, but they are expected to deliver on every dollar and dime given. As a ...
Midsize businesses run on data. Most of this takes the form of numbers - financial spreadsheets, sales targets, and customer histories. But that's only half the picture; non-numercial, qualitative data is just as crucial for a company's success, and IT ...