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!

Except it doesn’t have to be like that. Businesses have to cut their cloth accordingly but constrained economic conditions shouldn’t mean you have to turn down every opportunity to invest. In fact, smart business leaders are already thinking about new spending priorities.

Technology will play a crucial role in helping the business to find a competitive advantage in trying circumstances. IT leaders must show c-suite leaders that they are right to think that technology now, more than ever before, is a sensible investment.

After all, research from Warwick Business School suggests that two-thirds of chief executives still believe IT will make a greater contribution to their industry in the next 10 years than in any prior decade (see further reading, below). The boss, then, should be receptive to your IT investment ideas.

Analyst, Gartner, reports that companies will spend $2.7bn on IT products and services in 2012, which represents a 3.9% increase on the current year (see further reading). Look for projects that can automate processes, promote efficient ways of working and demonstrate a quick return on investment.

Your priorities should include budgeting and forecasting systems and business analytics solutions. Modern businesses are drowning in structured and unstructured data. Analytical tools are the key to unlocking smarter business decisions, with analyst Ovum suggesting that 50% of IT leaders plan to spend on big data analytics in the coming years (see further reading).

CIOs should also use 2012 to investigate opportunities for outsourcing IT to managed services or cloud computing providers. External and on-demand provision can create significant cost and efficiency savings, with researcher IDC expecting about 80% of new software offerings to be available as cloud services by 2014 (see further reading).

Spending big on new areas might seem risky at a time on economic uncertainty. However the senior IT executive that fails to spot smart investment opportunities will be left out in the cold.

Further reading:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6ce0a9e0-1c79-11e1-af09-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1gbG4qfeh

http://searchbusinessintelligence.techtarget.in/news/2240106993/IT-spending-on-big-data-analytics-to-get-a-boost-in-2012-13-Report

http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/65727/Cloud+Computing+Rivalry+Heats+Up

Don’t be a Scrooge when it comes to 2012 IT investment is a post from Advanced Business Solutions - Supplier of accounting software, business intelligence and document managment

These developments have paved the way for a huge surge in demand in 2011. The payments arm of eBay is already logging up to $10m in mobile payments a day and projects it will receive $3bn in mobile-payment transactions by the end of the financial year, up from an earlier estimate of $1.5bn.

The number of payments will increase further as more electronic retailers, restaurants, fast food outlets and even supermarkets join in. Payments via mobile devices are forecast to take off over the next three years, with analyst Jupiter Research predicting that global transactions will double in value to $50bn by 2014.

Consumer spending is not the only area that is likely to be transformed by NFC technology. Innovative technology suppliers are investigating how NFC technology can provide an efficiency boost in areas of service delivery.

Take IT specialist – and ABS’s sister company – Advanced Health & Care, which is already experiencing a huge rise in demand for its mobile workforce solution iConnect. The NFC-based system allows remote healthcare workers to better manage service user visits through the provision of real-time communication between care workers and support staff.

On arrival and departure, care workers touch their mobile phone against a small RFID tag in the service user’s home. The secure and unobtrusive approach improves the quality of management information, delivering live schedules to care workers and verifiable arrival departure times to the office.

The efficiency benefits of iConnect are huge, typically creating savings of over 20 per cent through the elimination of paper-based processes. If all 111,700 local authority care workers achieved a similar efficiency gain, an extra 34.4 million visits could be made each year.

With retailers across the UK already preparing to allow consumers to pay via NFC-enabled phones, other organisations in other sectors will have to follow suit as consumers become used to this new form of interaction. Beat your competition and start exploring now.

Further reading

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/Google-PayPal-See-NFC-Mobile-Payment-Boom-574060/

http://www.silicon.com/technology/mobile/2011/06/08/wave-goodbye-to-the-wallet-nfc-payments-to-reach-50bn-by-2014-39747511/

The rebirth of NFC technology is a post from Advanced Business Solutions - Supplier of accounting software, business intelligence and document managment

Far too many companies still process foreign currency payments manually. It is a time consuming and expensive form of data entry. Worse, this unnecessary intervention can be avoided through the implementation of smart technology.

Manual processing relies on individuals using their own brains and brawn to deal with banking currency payments. Such a reliance on human hands can lead to needless errors in data entry that create accounting problems further down the line.

Spotting such errors, however, can also be complicated. Human processes are not automatically tracked and, without the right types of technical reporting standards, errors can be replicated and can go unreported. The result can be an expensive manual mess.

To eliminate the unnecessary time and cost concerns related to manual processing, organisations should look to integrate payments technology into their financial management systems. Integrating the right type of technology provides a fast, efficient and cost-effective way to make and receive payments.

The main benefit is to break the reliance on brains and brawn. Automated currency processing reduces the need for manual data entry and increases the ability for organisations to automate their payment methods.

The right form of integration will enable straight through processing of payment files. Such processing provides improved control and visibility, allowing key executives to carefully monitor the entire payments process.

Automated systems create a means for multiple payments to be uploaded and sent at the same time. And once payments are complete, accurate files are updated and instantly available for finance staff.

Smooth integration, such as that provided by Advanced Business Solutions’ recently announced partnership with Travelex Global Business Payments, will make automation a painless end point. As Travelex are the only non-bank foreign currency provider they can therefore offer more competitive rates than the high street.

The result is faster processes, less errors and decreased costs.

See for yourself using their online payment health-check  http://www.travelexbusiness.com/uk/payment-health-check/ . Suddenly, good quality currency processing does not seem like such a foreign business objective.

Automate foreign currency payments: and save money? is a post from Advanced Business Solutions - Supplier of accounting software, business intelligence and document managment

Unfortunately, for many businesses, this isn’t the case. A survey carried out by Advanced Business Solutions’ sister company, Version One, highlighted that over half of senior finance professionals in the UK have experienced disruption to their processes as a result of bad weather.

Anyone in business will tell you that the one thing you need to be certain of is cashflow. It doesn’t matter how many invoices you send out if the Royal Mail van carrying them is stuck in snow. Even worse, that same van may be carrying the cheques that customers are sending to you.

Similarly, if you’re not able to pay your suppliers on time this may affect your relationship with them going forward and could eventually lead to you being issued with late payment penalties.

An easy way to avoid all of this unnecessary stress is to remove paper from your processes. For example, utilising document management technology to create, approve and send invoices electronically means that you no longer have to be reliant on the postman, and, as they’re delivered to your customers almost immediately, the order-to-cash process speeds up dramatically.

As paper is so easily lost, damaged and destroyed, this raises important security, compliance and business continuity concerns. Document management systems provide the electronic and secure indexing, storage and retrieval of documents. Really effective ones also allow the electronic creation, automated delivery and electronic authorisation of documents so that the need to print, photocopy, post and file paper is eliminated – along with the considerable costs that accompany these time-consuming manual processes.

Having all of your documents stored electronically also means that they are backed up in a secure archive and can be retrieved in seconds. When you’re sitting in a warm, dry office this doesn’t seem too important. When you’re standing in a waterlogged office, staring at the soggy remains of the last three years’ invoices it’s a completely different matter.

Recent floods have shown how easy it is for adverse weather to ruin businesses and lives. An electronic document management system will not only help avoid disruption to your finance processes, but can play a vital role in preventing your business from becoming a statistic should the weather turn against you.

Could your Christmas dream turn into a New Year nightmare? is a post from Advanced Business Solutions - Supplier of accounting software, business intelligence and document managment

Take this year as a starting point. The projected amount of digital information created in 2010 will be 1.2 million zettabytes which is equivalent to a full-length episode of TV series “24″ running continuously for 125 million years, according to research from IDC and EMC (see further reading, below).

Such figures are amusing but almost impossible to fully comprehend. And without the means to track, trace and interpret information, the results of such an information explosion for your business could be tremendous.

Gartner’s report concludes that, with the proliferation of mobile devices, collaborative technologies and social media, the quantity and variety of digital data will continue to grow. While managing this information is a challenge, it also presents a remarkable opportunity.

By putting the right foundations in place for managing and analysing your data, your organisation will be more able to make data-driven decisions moving forward.

Business intelligence, for example, can pull together an organisation’s data to provide a single version of the truth, allowing executives to make timely decisions based upon a consistent view of data from across the organisation.

Other corporate performance management tools, such as forecasting and planning software, also help organisations to work smarter whilst aiding decision making. With forecasting and planning, for instance, organisations can plan and model scenarios before making data-driven decisions.

The fast pace of IT development means that the number of data sources is only likely to increase and so it’s key to leverage this data for the benefit of the organisation. Ultimately, successful analytics is about creating an effective partnership between IT and the business; make sure you have the right tools in place to make this happen.

Further reading:
http://www.fiercegovernmentit.com/press-releases/gartners-2010-hype-cycle-special-report-evaluates-maturity-1-800-technologies

http://www.securityweek.com/content/emc-digital-universe-data-growth-study-projects-nearly-45-fold-annual-data-growth-2020

Enabling data-driven decisions is a post from Advanced Business Solutions - Supplier of accounting software, business intelligence and document managment

You no doubt recognise the importance of loving your customers and you probably look after your staff, but what about your suppliers? Do you consider your supplier to be a partner and why does the relationship with external providers matter?

The increasing reliance on external service provision means that the bond you establish with your supplier is paramount. The modern business is a multi-sourcer that buys technology and services on-demand to fulfil a fast-changing series of business requirements. Under such circumstances, the IT manager has to work with providers which they know they can trust.

Real success, however, comes from a partnership approach in which technology chiefs use trusted suppliers they can work closely with to deliver ongoing innovation.

Take consumer giant Procter & Gamble (P&G), for example, which has created a global business services division that looks to consolidate and then outsource non-core IT activities. The approach relies on strategic partnerships with key service providers and it is an approach that has cut costs and increased innovation.

The P&G approach has been honed over a number of years and the sheer size of the organisation means that it can benefit from economies of scale. But just because an organisation is large, it does not mean that lessons cannot be leant by smaller firms.

Treat a supplier simply as a source of software and you will undoubtedly come unstuck. Every deal matters and value comes from working with a solid and reliable supplier that understands your business and your challenges. And remember that innovative solutions to such challenges do not have to rely on new, expensive technology. Innovation could mean using existing IT resources in a smarter and more effective manner.

Finally, always remember to communicate your concerns. Work with colleagues, peers and suppliers to identify where improvements can be made.

So, why hold your suppliers at arms length when they can be your partners? You will always reap the rewards of a balanced partner relationship in which both customer and supplier are on a similar footing.

Further reading: 

http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/From_internal_service_provider_to_strategic_partner_An_interview_with_the_head_of_Global_Business_Se

Is your IT supplier a partner? is a post from Advanced Business Solutions - Supplier of accounting software, business intelligence and document managment

Take the public sector, where £2bn a year is spent on employing consultants and agency staff in Whitehall (see further reading, below). A Cabinet Office study showed that it cost an average of £100,000 a year to employ each consultant and at a time of constrained public spending, over-expenditure on non-permanent workers will not be tolerated.

Things are no simpler in the private sector. One recent report suggested that there are now half a million management consultants globally (see further reading). Finding external expertise is never easy, but how do you pick the right needle from the consultancy haystack in such cost-constrained times?

More specifically, what expertise should you look for and what guidelines and services will create consultancy that works for your business? Your selections should be based around four guiding principles: knowledge, partnership, commitment and experience.

First, look for a consultant that understands the technology you are about to implement. Do not simply employ the same consultancy every time. Each job has a different requirement and the non-permanent nature of contractors should give you the option to be choosey.

Then make sure you look for a service team that will be able to work with your existing in-house team. There is no point upsetting trusted permanent staff by contracting ‘know it all’ external experts who actually know very little.

Also pay attention to the breadth of a particular consultancy’s service offering. Big is not necessarily best and you should concentrate on the firm that will be able to provide a long-term commitment across crucial areas, such as design, migration and deployment.

Finally, trust experienced service providers and always select a firm with best practice references. Advanced Business Solutions is able to boast more than 512 man years of experience and over 100 specialists across various consultancy teams, for example. It is this kind of expertise that can mean selecting a consultant does not have to be a painful process.

Further reading:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/7837706/Taxpayers-spend-2bn-a-year-on-consultants-in-Whitehall.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-the-management-consultancy-scam-2057127.html

How do you pick the right technology consultant? is a post from Advanced Business Solutions - Supplier of accounting software, business intelligence and document managment

The majority of people would never consider defrauding the company they work for, however there are always some people, especially at times of economic hardship, who are tempted to commit fraud and if the right fraud prevention tools are not in place, they could well succeed!

The findings of an Advanced Business Solutions survey earlier this year highlighted that 41% of UK managers and finance professionals believe that it would be possible for them to commit fraud within their organisations. A survey by Ernst & Young 11th Global Fraud Survey released at the same time revealed that fraud appears to be increasing (from 13% to 14% in the UK within the past two years).  The spending cuts announced today, which will undoubtedly lead to considerable public sector redundancies are likely to further increase levels of fraud within the UK.

To avoid being a victim of fraud, ensure your organisation invests in added security solutions, such as spend analytics software, which provide another layer of fraud detection and prevention.  As well as providing spend visibility to help inform spending cuts, by delivering a comprehensive and single view of an organisation’s expenditure, spend analytics enables the quick detection of any spending anomalies. Without added security systems like this in place, organisations will remain vulnerable to fraud, especially when public sector redundancies are at their highest.

So learn from the private sector and protect your public sector organisation against fraud – you can’t afford not to!

Learn from the private sector and protect your organisation from staff fraud is a post from Advanced Business Solutions - Supplier of accounting software, business intelligence and document managment

If you don’t know how much you are spending, how can you possibly deliver significant spending cuts? It may sound common sense but it is vital to know accurately and in real-time how much you are spending, when and what you are spending it on in order to effectively cut spend. It may seem surprising but there are local governments and other public sector bodies that cannot readily access this type of information because they do not have the appropriate financial, procurement and analytical software systems in place. As the saying goes, “Information is king” and with the public sector having to make such deep cuts, this has never been more poignant.

So if you are being forced to cut spending over the next few years, make sure that you have the right ICT infrastructure in place to enable you to do this. Without the correct ICT framework, you will be making cuts blindly that are likely to be ill-informed and potentially damaging to your overall cost-cutting strategy.

Blind cost cutting is a recipe for disaster is a post from Advanced Business Solutions - Supplier of accounting software, business intelligence and document managment

The public sector is being forced to cut costs and cloud computing, with its focus on on-demand computing and flexibility, can achieve increased efficiency at a much lower cost to managing IT in-house. A survey by Vanson Bourne has identified that cloud use can decrease IT spend by an average of 15% with some enthusiasts expecting savings of more than 40% (see further reading, below).

Furthermore, industry experts do not expect the push to the cloud to stop any time soon. Analyst Gartner predicts that, with the continued growth of cloud, various forms of outsourcing will represent more than 30% of the IT services market by 2015 (see further reading, below).

The hype has become so loud that analyst Neil Ward-Dutton has suggested that some people in the industry are already referring to the term ‘cloud 2.0’ (see further reading). Such excitement, however, is far from the end of the story.

Technical constraints and legal complications can mean that the path to on-demand computing is not always straightforward. So, when is it right to consider cloud computing for your organisation?

The simple answer is that it depends on your ability to absorb risk. IT leaders pushing applications and information to the cloud will need to present a strong case to the board. If something goes wrong, the CIO – despite the wider clamour for cost savings – is likely to find their head on the line.

Key questions that need answering before considering a move to cloud computing include: Do you have the necessary resources to manage IT internally or is IT outsourcing your most viable option? How safe and secure is the information held on the cloud? Is the cloud supplier reliable and experienced? Can the supplier provide your organisation with the necessary service-level required e.g. 24/7 online access? Is your organisation practically and culturally ready to use online services on-demand?

All these questions will need to be considered and answered satisfactorily before you consider a move to the cloud. On-demand cloud computing is now a realistic and cost-effective proposition for all types of organisation including government departments and public sector organisations, but it is important to consider the move to cloud very carefully and to work with specialist cloud partners that can manage their services in line with your organisation’s requirements.

Further reading:

http://www.publictechnology.net/sector/central-gov/cloud-computing-takes-over-outsourcing-default-cost-cutting-option

http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/inside-outsourcing/2010/09/gartner-says-30-of-it-services-to-be-industrialised-by-2015.html

http://twitter.com/neilwd

www.csr10.com

The cloud – a viable cost-cutting option for the public sector? is a post from Advanced Business Solutions - Supplier of accounting software, business intelligence and document managment