Opinion

Opinion

IT consultancy

• Challenging times and transformational opportunities for the outsourcing industry

  Every area of the technology sector has been affected by the uncertainty of the coronavirus pandemic, but the outsourcing industry could be well-placed to take advantage of the opportunities it presents  Continue Reading

• The Covid-19 crisis: Reinventing digital transformation

  Digital transformation projects are returning as organisations realise that improvements in productivity and customer engagement are now even more important – providing that the work can be done remotely and there’s still cash to pay for it  Continue Reading

• Coronavirus: What does the ‘new normal’ mean for how we work?

  Examining the long-term impact of the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic on the world of work, security, privacy and networks  Continue Reading

• Life under the loan charge: An IT contractor’s story

  Thousands of IT contractors are being pursued by HMRC for “life-changing” tax bills for work they did up to 20 years ago, as part of a disguised remuneration clampdown known as the loan charge policy. One of those affected anonymously shares his ...  Continue Reading

• Security in the supply chain – a post-GDPR approach

  A year and a half after the introduction of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, Fieldfisher's James Walsh reviews the fundamentals of supply chain security  Continue Reading

• What Belarus offers the tech sector

  Belarus might not be as well known for its IT as some of its neighbours, but it is pushing its head above the parapet  Continue Reading

• An IR35 survival guide for employers and contractors

  Forthcoming changes to IR35 regulations will affect most private sector companies using IT contractors – so what do you need to do to prepare?  Continue Reading

• Your IT provider is being acquired – what does this mean for you and your business?

  Merger and acquisition activity is widespread in the IT sector, but what does it mean for you when one of your key tech suppliers is bought up by another firm?  Continue Reading

• Outsourcing is not dead or dying – it just needs to be done properly

  The collapse of Carillion and the profit warning at Capita have created a false sense of fear about the stability of the outsourcing sector  Continue Reading

• How to make the right technology choice

  Organisations need digital technology, but how do you decide which is the best technology for you? The answer is not to make one big decision, but many small ones. Thinking about technology, behaviour and data will help you find the right answers  Continue Reading

• How creative and innovative can technology made in China be?

  China's IT industry is becoming more Silicon Valley-like and, as a result, more attractive to the CIOs of western enterprises  Continue Reading

• In an age of uncertainty, now is the time to rethink your outsourcing strategy

  Brexit and Trump are not only creating challenges but also opportunities in the outsourcing sector, and outsourcing deals will need to be flexible to exploit them  Continue Reading

• What the IR35 reforms, coupled with a hard Brexit, could mean for the UK tech sector

  Colin Morley, professional services director at recruitment firm Harvey Nash, spells out the possible consequences of the forthcoming IR35 tax reforms and the prospect of a “hard Brexit”  Continue Reading

• A new nearshoring game is emerging

  Countries selling themselves as nearshore business services locations need to change their sales pitches to avoid becoming like all the other countries doing the same  Continue Reading

• Brexit – does it matter for IT?

  Brexit will have both short-term and long-term implications for businesses and their relationships with IT suppliers  Continue Reading

• Brexit debate: Why IT pros should vote to leave

  IT consultant Peter Chadha gives five reasons why the UK would be better off leaving the European Union  Continue Reading

• Demystifying service delivery automation

  What is service delivery automation and what can it do for your organisation?  Continue Reading

• Life on the edge: The benefits of using micro datacentres

  Enterprises are demanding faster access to applications and ever more processing power. Could edge datacentres fill the gap?  Continue Reading

• Security Think Tank: Get business value from security testing services by insourcing

  How can an organisation ensure it gets value from penetration and security testing services?  Continue Reading

• Security Think Tank: Clarity of scope is key to getting value from pen testing

  How can an organisation ensure they get value from penetration and security testing services?  Continue Reading

• Rise of the super-contractors as IT skills gap widens

  More IT professionals are becoming contractors in order to charge a premium for their much-in-demand services  Continue Reading

• Supercharging cyber security protection: Questions to ask when hiring a managed services provider

  With information security concerns and challenges at an all-time high, and a global shortage of security professionals to address them, some enterprises are turning to managed security services for help. To ease the selection process, Dragana Vranic...  Continue Reading

• Reinventing outsourcing through agile principles

  Organisations are starting to use agile principles to reinvent the outsourcing selection process, with some excellent results  Continue Reading

• Sale, spin-off or stay put? What should EMC do next?

  With reports suggesting some major changes may be afoot at EMC, Clive Longbottom looks at the reasons why  Continue Reading

• When DevOps isn't enough, try NoOps

  Letting developers loose to create, test and deploy new code without operations might streamline processes, but it's not without its risks  Continue Reading

• The Matrix is here – leveraging digital ecosystem strategies

  You don't have to take a red pill to discover the modern-day matrix, but executives need to understand the digital economic ecosystem  Continue Reading

• Government as a platform, or a platform for government? Which are we getting?

  Government as a platform is the latest buzzword in Whitehall - but is that really what they are going to deliver?  Continue Reading

• Watermelon SLAs – making sense of green and red alerts

  Often IT SLAs don’t reflect the real service and service experience of users. They also aren’t focused enough on the business results  Continue Reading

• Tools for CIOs leading M&A projects

  IT mergers and acquisitions are reaching a peak and are becoming more complex. This poses a distinct set of challenges for CIOs  Continue Reading

• Why Universal Credit IT concerns mean the project needs to be paused

  The Universal Credit Rescue Committee advised Labour to pause the controversial programme – its IT expert explains why  Continue Reading

• Is the government right to focus on buying IT from SMEs?

  Should the government be putting all its energy into encouraging departments to buy from SMEs? Alice Watson from Porge isn’t so sure  Continue Reading

• Why 2014 is a good year for IT consultants

  In a survey of consulting buyers, almost all said they are planning technology improvements this year, and most are bringing in consultants to help  Continue Reading

• IT contractors: why it pays to be careful about tax

  Well-publicised HMRC crackdowns and new legislation mean that old assumptions about what is legal and what isn’t might not hold true  Continue Reading

• Avoiding the mistakes of NPfIT in new NHS IT contracts

  What are the contracting experiences of NHS Trusts who have started their own IT procurement, and how can mistakes of the past be avoided?  Continue Reading

• An evidence-based approach must underpin digital transformation

  The government IT profession needs to question failings in IT delivery and consider a different approach to business analysis  Continue Reading

• The Great Deverticalisation - part 3: New skills and structures in the public sector

  Why do we persist in running vertically integrated organisations when standardising many of these processes would free us up to do things so much better, and more cheaply?  Continue Reading

• Outsourcing reference data management

  Andy Efstathiou assesses the case for outsourcing reference data management  Continue Reading

• IT's growth / austerity paradox

  As the political world argues about economics, one of the intriguing things about IT is its ability to drive both growth and austerity  Continue Reading

• Business consulting – the next battleground in IT services

  Buying habits are shifting, with profound implications for the IT services and management consulting industries  Continue Reading

• Why IT leaders should adopt a venture capitalist approach

  When it comes to risky ventures, CIOs should take inspiration from their high-flying cousins in the world of venture capitalism  Continue Reading

• Six steps to plan and prioritise IT investments

  IT service management can play an important part in identifying the right IT investments to make.  Continue Reading

• The problem of legacy humans in technology projects

  Humans have an annoying habit of resisting change and refusing to conform to the often rigid requirements of a database ontology or software application.  Continue Reading

• IT service management: The only way is ethics

  It is now very common for professional bodies and membership organisations to have codes of ethics and standards of conduct.  Continue Reading