Shared services – whereby common support functions are consolidated into a single, shared service across a number of organisations – requires an underlying shared IT infrastructure.

Shared IT is key for supporting a shared service environment and is a great way to cut IT complexity and increase efficiency in cost-constrained times. Public sector bodies, in particular, can really benefit from a shared services approach to technology.

In our winter of economic discontent, it is far too easy for the green agenda to fall to the bottom of the organisational priority list. It might seem frivolous to concentrate on sustainability projects when basic survival is on the minds of many senior executives. But a failure to recognise the strategic importance of green initiatives is shortsighted.

There are a number of reasons why sustainability matters. First, the obvious demand for corporate social responsibility – continuing concerns over power use and global warming mean firms cannot afford to put profits before principles, especially if they want to create a positive perception of their brand.

It wasn’t so long ago that people used just two key forms of communication to keep in touch – landline phone and posted letters. Fast forward 20 years and a large number of people now use their smart phone to keep in touch – how times change!

Recent public sector strikes across the UK helped demonstrate the clear level of feeling generated by attempts to cut spending in the public sector.

Action concentrated on proposed changes to pension schemes, yet the sentiment associated with the strike seemed to draw on wider themes – the UK economy is struggling, conditions are only going to get tougher and public sector bodies must get a grip on spending.

Executives faced with making spending decisions face a tough job. On the one hand, citizens require a set of services that continue to meet their needs, particularly at a time when economic constraint means demands for support are likely to increase.

Money is tight and so what you probably don’t need is yet another person telling you how your business can buy new technologies to improve process efficiencies.

You’ve heard all about the cloud and how utility-based technology can help you save money through the purchasing of on-demand technology. But that’s a large-scale transformation project which requires much thought and buy-in. What about smaller technology investments that reduce process variability while cutting time-consuming and costly manual processes?

Christmas should be a time of good cheer – but pick up the paper and it seems as if the 2011 holiday season actually marks the beginning of the end for the global economy.

The Eurozone is fighting for survival, capitalism has been forced on to the back foot and some indicators even suggest fast-growing economies, such as China, are starting to see the pace of economic development slow. Merry Christmas, and look forward to more doom and gloom in 2012!

“Nothing is permanent but change”, as Heraclitus once said. This quote often comes to mind, especially in today’s uncertain world and this is a pertinent philosophy to remember if you’re considering embarking on the shared services journey.

The commercial sector embarked on the shared services journey earlier than the public sector, however, in response to budget cutbacks, the government is increasingly urging the public sector to follow suit and they are now catching up. Local authorities have been subject to especially high budget cuts in recent times and are ideally placed for sharing services. In fact, there has never been a more crucial time for them to do so.

Setting off on the shared services journey involves considerable transformation. As with any transformation, there are barriers to overcome but you shouldn’t let this put you off as long-term cost and efficiency savings make it worthwhile. Some of our local government customers that have embraced the shared services opportunity have gone onto save millions of pounds whilst maintaining and improving services.

2011 continues to be a rewarding year for Advanced. Recently, we attended the House of Commons where, for the fourth year running, we were presented with a prestigious Green Apple award in recognition of our environmentally friendly technology.

This year at the Green Apple Awards, we were honoured for our HR Self-Service solution, which enables paper-heavy HR and payroll administration to be replaced with a web-based solution.

Setting up a defendable IT perimeter is one way to deal with the external threat of hackers and crackers, but how do you deal with the errant activities of internal staff?

One of the better-known techniques used to defraud a business is salami slicing, where an individual repeatedly rounds to the nearest penny or unit and deposits the money collected into separate accounts. Salami slicing is a popular mechanism in fiction but it also happens in real life, with a Californian man arrested in 2008 for fraudulently creating 58,000 accounts (see further reading, below).

You can’t have failed to notice that more and more people across business and media are talking about big data. At a time when cash is low, the need for intelligent information to help drive organisational decision-making has never been higher. The rise of big data is being pushed by a confluence of consumer, cloud and social technologies. Individuals can now use mobile technologies to access crucial knowledge on the go and to make the type of quick decisions that equal the difference between success and failure in a tight economy.