Management

Strategy Matters: How To Gather Facts For Tough Decisions

November 13, 2008 | In bad times, it's tempting to slash costs and cut head count. But acting blindly on those impulses can damage your company more than any economic downturn. Business owners should use their company strategy as the foundation for tough decisions, and making good choices means gathering hard data.
By Nilofer Merchant, CEO of Rubicon Consulting

How To Boost Operating Efficiency With TCO

November 6, 2008 | Too often, business owners don't grasp the full power of assessing total cost of ownership. If they calculate the TCO, they can measure, understand, and manage IT costs more effectively and boost the overall efficiency of the business.
By George Goodall, Courtesy of Info-Tech Research Group

On-Demand Staffing: Online Labor Exchanges Come Of Age

November 3, 2008 | From Elance to eBay, Lime Exchange to Craigslist, today's online labor exchanges offer resource-strapped businesses easy, on-demand access to workers with specialized skill sets -- and you pay only for what you use.
By Rusty Weston

5 Strategies For Cutting Cellular Costs

October 8, 2008 | IT departments should take an active role in managing cellular phone policies and practices across the business. By implementing a comprehensive management plan, IT managers and business owners can cut monthly costs and see significant savings.
By Jayanth Angl & Candice Low, Courtesy of Info-Tech Research Group

Q&A With David Allen: How Growing Businesses Can Get Things Done

September 22, 2008 | Renowned productivity guru David Allen shares his insights about working smarter and tips to help managers promote a culture of productivity and accountability within a department or across an entire company.
By Naomi Grossman

Q&A With Scott Berkun: Good Managers Vs. Bad Managers

August 18, 2008 | Scratch the surface of any successful company and you'll find a good manager who knows how to inspire employees to reach their full potential. Management guru Scott Berkun explains how self-awareness and treating employees like people separates good managers from bad.
By Naomi Grossman

Q&A With Philips Architecture's Ryan Suydam: Talking to Management about Technology

August 8, 2008 | IT can help influence technology investments, if only they would speak the same language as management. IT director Ryan Suydam explains why the communication gap exists and how IT can close it and effectively communicate to management how technology can benefit them.
By James A. Martin

Q&A With Hank Marquis: Defining IT Services to Ensure Business Success

July 7, 2008 | Business success is no longer just about what tech tools you have; now success is all about how your business uses those tech tools -- and a business' IT department holds that key. Enterprise Management Associates' Hank Marquis explains to bMighty how a smaller business can unlock the potential buried within IT by learning how to work effectively with the IT department.
By Naomi Grossman

Strategy Matters: 9 Ways to Develop Team Motivation

June 19, 2008 | When the ancient Greeks invaded, they burned their ships so there was no choice but to move forward. By "burning the boat" on your next initiative, you can motivate your employees to contribute to the objective and help your business succeed.
By Nilofer Merchant, CEO of Rubicon Consulting

Time Management: 5 Rules for Managing the Monkeys on Your Back

June 17, 2008 | Leaders and managers in smaller businesses struggle to make do with scarce resources. It's a condition of being smaller, but the one resource that smaller businesses have in exactly the same amount as large enterprises is time. Having the same quantity doesn't make it any easier to manage.
By Mike Bohlmann

Strategy Matters: Smaller Businesses Move Quickly to Strategic Alignment

June 5, 2008 | Even seasoned business leaders struggle to put strategy into action, focusing on the "what" at the expense of the "how." Because smaller businesses have more visibility into the interdependencies, conflicts, resources, and deliverables that often hobble larger organizations, they can move more nimbly to put strategy into action.
By Nilofer Merchant, CEO of Rubicon Consulting

Unsecured Wireless Networks: Bad For Both Sides Of Smaller Businesses

June 3, 2008 | Those open-access and unsecured wireless networks we and our employees encounter in our travels are convenient -- and may be risky to use. Far more risky is the number of those networks that belong to small and midsize businesses, exposing themselves and their data not just to bandwidth freeloaders, but also to intruders.
By Keith Ferrell

SLIDESHOW: bMighty Q&A Gallery: Leaders Talk IT for Smaller Business

May 21, 2008 | Leading executives, managers, and experts share their insights and perspectives with bMighty on a host of issues, challenges, and opportunities important to smaller businesses
By Benjamin Tomkins

Calculating ROI for Green IT

April 21, 2008 | Eventually, CO₂ emissions may be become a tangible company asset, like desks and computers. As IT companies look beyond Web conferencing and energy efficient products for ways to burn less fossil fuel, many are beginning to factor traditional ROI metrics into their green strategy
By Paul Korzeniowski

The World's Biggest Security Risk: Management

April 11, 2008 | Your management needs to understand the very real security issues facing your company's network. But how does an IT guy explain these very serious, but frequently very intangible, security threats? Jimmy Ray shows you how
By Jimmy Ray Purser

Think Big: Focus on the Data

January 3, 2008 | To get ahead of the game, small and mid-sized companies should start thinking like a big business early, and build a solid foundation around what may be their single most valuable asset -- data
By Thomas Lesica

Healthcare Strategies for Smaller Businesses

December 26, 2007  | A healthcare economist and a business advocate discuss the impact of rising health care costs on smaller businesses
Courtesy of Cisco Systems

Q&A With Shadan Malik of iDashboards

December 13, 2007 | bMighty talked with dashboard expert and iDashboards executive Shadan Malik on how and why small and midsize business need dashboards now to take rich data extracted by data mining and present it in a coherent, accessible fashion
By Naomi Grossman

Troubled Times Ahead For IT?

December 5, 2007 | IT staffers vent about disturbing employment trends.
By Naomi Grossman

3 Steps to Better Business Pitches

November 12, 2007 | There's a more effective way to pitch your ideas to business and technology decision makers at your small or midsize business, says this IT entrepreneur. It all begins with casting your presentation as a conversation, with the pitch as the midpoint rather than the end game
By Dustin Walling

Outsourcing Losing Its Luster

November 9, 2007 | Chances are diminishing that your CEO will ship your job overseas or hand it over to one of the big outsourcing suppliers
By Paul Korzeniowski

The Tricky Business of Network Use Policies

November 8, 2007 | In this brave new world of IM, e-mail, and YouTube, how can IT managers protect their networks, ensure productivity, and still have happy employees?
By Naomi Grossman

5 Fundamentals of Superior IT Management

November 6, 2007 | Establishing control and governance over IT critical. Here are five key steps that an IT organization of any size can immediately start implementing to achieve more predictable, reliable IT
By Thomas Lesica

This Job Synchs: The Importance of Aligning Business and IT Goals

October 25, 2007 | When the business side is working off one agenda and the IT department another, count on missed opportunities -- and worse. IT professionals tell how they keep up with their companies' business strategies
By Jennifer Zaino

IT Flexibility Key to Alignment With Business Goals

October 25, 2007 | IT managers at a commercial bakery and a law firm explain how keeping technology strategies and procedures broad gives them the agility to stay in sync with changing business needs
By Jennifer Zaino