Management and Careers

ROI Topic Center

Best practices, tips and techniques for making sure you deliver your IT project on time and within budget

Machine-Based Decision-Making Is Coming

There may be a day when automation takes over human decision-making in business.
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IT tier-level support, chargebacks, called wasteful

With their budgets seeing little increase, IT managers are being urged by Gartner Inc. to re-examine many of their long-followed IT practices and then, quite simply, kill them.

Business paper use remains high

Businesses aren't rushing to create paperless offices; in fact, some are relying on paper documents more than ever, according to a new study by CompTIA.

Drug maker goes social to end supply chain crisis

Generic drug maker Ratiopharm, now part of Teva Canada, turned to social networking tools to solve communication problems that choked the supply chain and made it difficult to respond to fluctuations in customer demand.

Research Recap CFOs Playing Bigger Role in IT Decisions

IT funding decisions are increasingly made by CFOs, a Gartner survey finds.

How eBay's data center benefited from solar

eBay's Global Data Center Services manager explains how the online auction company installed a 100 KW solar array on its data center in Denver.

Office 365 arrives to flat IT spending

Microsoft is pitching its hosted Office 365 as a less costly option for IT departments with flat budgets, assuming there's money in those budgets for a migration to the cloud.

Atlanta hospital looks to cloud for email fix

An Atlanta hospital switches to Microsoft Exchange in the cloud to update an email service that had become a headache for the medical staff and the IT team.

Grocer goes with thin clients

Hard-dollar ROI savings on desktop virtualization haven't yet materialized for The Co-operative Group, but the grocer should realize them by the end of the second year, after full migration.

Banks Can Reap Big Profits From Mobile Services

Banks that invest in sophisticated mobile offerings can achieve a return on investment as high as 300%, a study finds.

Measure the success of your IT-business partnerships

How CIOs are determining if new attempts to partner with the business are making a difference.

Extending the life of your data center

From relocating noncritical data to standardizing servers and storage, IT leaders offer their tips for how to get more out of your data center.

Preparing for the real costs of cloud computing

Moving and storing data and integrating and testing applications are all costs you need to plan for.

Replacing legacy applications: Four problems solved

Cost-justifying the replacement of legacy software isn't easy. Here's how four shops approached the issue. One common theme: identifying business challenges and opportunities.

Opinion: What you need to know about vSphere 5's new pricing model

It's complicated, and some customers are complaining. VMware says the new pooled pricing is fair and is a more usage-based model.

Grow your data center with colocation

Colo, as it's known, is becoming a popular option for quickly adding capacity to an aging data center. But it's not as simple as throwing servers at a new site; be prepared to spend at least three months searching for a vendor and planning.

Get Into the M&A Game

Don't get left out of corporate merger-and-acquisition discussions. CIOs can play a big role in making sure the deals produce the intended benefits.

Open Source Unchecked

More than two-thirds of respondents to Computerworld's recent open-source survey reported that they don't have a written open-source governance plan. Yet experts say that, without one, hidden costs can multiply.

Data centers: Make mine modular

Modular data centers shed their chintzy image to win adopters looking for fast deployment and lower costs. But there are some potential gotchas, too.

When the CIO is also the CFO

Some would argue the relationship between IT and finance is naturally combative. So what happens when one person holds two titles -- CIO and CFO -- in the same company?