6 strategies for avoiding cloud vendor lock-in
A credible threat of defection can help you leverage competitive pricing opportunities and escape long-term relationships gone bad. natasaadzic / Getty Images In an ideal business world, enterprises would forge strategic partnerships with their cloud services providers that lead to prosperity for all involved. It doesn’t always work out that way, however. Things change over time, and in many cases the relationship between the customer and its cloud provider does not evolve to account for that change. Or maybe costs…
Strategic partnership: A magic bullet for enterprise innovation
Strategic partnerships have emerged as an opportunity to help enterprise businesses scale. Make sure your organization doesn’t get stuck on the sidelines! Charles Deluvio (CC0) Consumer demand is becoming increasingly more complex, and businesses must scale while remaining nimble. But companies can’t “be everything” to their customers. In an effort to cover customer needs, enterprises employ creative innovation strategies, new product development, imaginative digital marketing and even costly qualitative acquisitions. As the need to provide a greater array of services becomes…
Dropbox launches Spaces, its ‘smart’ collaboration workspace
Dropbox hopes to become a central tool for employee productivity and collaboration with Dropbox Spaces, which launched alongside several other updates. Thinkstock Dropbox this week launched a collaboration hub designed to let users work together around a variety of documents, another step in the company’s evolution beyond cloud file-sharing into something more focused on productivity. The San Francisco-based company initially revealed plans for its revamped application – now called Dropbox Spaces – in June, along with a new desktop app. Spaces acts…
20 great uses for an old Android device
We all love getting new gadgets, but what to do with the old ones? Here are 20 clever ways to put your old Android phone or tablet to good use. freestocks.org (CC0) Got extra smartphones sitting around your office? How about tablets? As we move multiple generations into mobile technology, more and more of us are building up collections of old, dated devices from both our work and our personal lives. And more often than not, those devices do little more…
Meet Intercom – the company behind those pop-up chats at the bottom of websites
The SaaS company has quickly carved out a leadership position in the business messaging space, with a valuation of $1.3 billion and a quickly growing number of customers, here’s what you need to know Intercom The business messaging service Intercom is expanding quickly thanks to the sort of venture capital funding that puts it into the enterprise software big leagues alongside the likes of Slack and Zoom. Founded in San Francisco in 2011 by four Irishmen, Intercom provides business messaging…
CIO succession planning in the digital age
The tech talent squeeze means CIOs must build deep leadership benches. Here, CIOs and analysts reveal how to groom high potentials for top roles. blacked / Getty Images Hiring and retaining talent is an integral part of a CIO’s job. Equally important is grooming successors, or IT leaders with the tech chops and management skills to keep the business humming in the event the CIO departs. As a matter of sound practice, CIOs groom one or two high potentials who…
How to roll out the right tech for frontline workers
Corporate spending on hardware for non-office workers is on the rise as companies look to boost productivity and reduce errors. With that in mind, Gartner analyst Rob Smith offered advice at this month’s Digital Workplace Summit on how to successfully deploy frontline worker technology. Max-Kegfire / Getty Images LONDON – The benefits of getting digital tools into the hands of frontline workers are becoming clear to more companies – and they’re spending more money to help those workers be successful.…
What is a data analyst? A key role for data-driven business decisions
Data analysts help organizations understand the current state of the business by interpreting a wide range of data. Thinkstock What is a data analyst? Data analysts work with data to help their organizations make better business decisions. Using techniques from a range of disciplines, including computer programming, mathematics, and statistics, data analysts draw conclusions from data to describe, predict, and improve business performance. They form the core of any analytics team and tend to be generalists versed in the methods…
