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Indicates a new White Paper
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An Approach to Attaining Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance |
| by Mark Schlueter, Hewlett-Packard |
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With the clock ticking on Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, many
companies are scrambling to get it done. And for most of
those, the main issue with hitting the June 15, 2004
deadline is the fact that the accuracy and timeliness of
financial reporting relies heavily on a well controlled IT
environment. In other words, IT management has suddenly
shifted from being an eventual goal or "one of those pesky
IT problems" to being a business requirement. The trouble
is, many organizations simply don’t have the processes in
place to hold IT accountable for important business
functions. The purpose of this white paper is to explain how
HP OpenView ITSM combined with the structural frameworks of
COSO and COBIT, can assist companies both in attaining
Sarbanes-Oxley compliance and achieving key business
objectives. |
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Better, Cheaper, Lasts Forever |
| by
T. Scott Gross |
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In the barn there is a Sears Craftsman scroll saw. It was an
expensive gift in 1972. Amortized over three decades you’d
have to admit it was a pretty good investment. My guess is
that it will still be sawing long after I have turned to
dust. |
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One Brand - One Rule |
| by
T. Scott Gross |
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You’ve got a great brand. Plenty of equity. Why not spend a
little? Why not? Well, go ahead and spend but only so long
as you don’t violate the first and only rule of brand
extension—honor the values. |
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Three Reasons |
| by
T. Scott Gross |
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Service stinks. Service is sorry. Service has gone straight
down the drain. And I know why. Three reasons: miscast
employees, uncertain management, and antagonistic systems
have come together in a perfect storm of incompetence that
has left consumers thinking three thoughts of their
own─price, price, and price. |
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Driving IT Value |
| by Samantha Howland |
| According to recent research, mid-sized
companies will get IT value not from the technology they
possess, but rather the people they employ and the business
processes they practice. In an emerging organization,
sustainable growth will depend on this. This competitive
requirement represents the essential nature for a strong
connection between technology know-how and the people
building and running the business. |
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Managing IT Evolution in the Mid-Size Business |
| by Samantha Howland |
| The rapid evolution of business and
technology means that companies often fall behind in the
race to maintain and upgrade infrastructure - the physical
support network of hardware and software. While IT leaders
are highly sensitized to shortfalls and gaps in the physical
infrastructure, it is also critical to tend to the people
involved in implementing technology. |
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| Aligning Training with Business Unit
Strategy |
| by Joanne L. Smikle |
| Training budgets have gotten tighter and
tighter and this fact makes it incumbent upon the HR
department to deliver training that is tightly aligned
with the strategic goals of the business units. This also
means that standard classroom training may not cut the
mustard. |
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| Call Centers: Simply a Cost? |
| by J.P. Pawliw-Fry |
| In one decade, 46% of companies identified
as Fortune 500 firms dropped from the prestigious list - nearly
half of these top-producers - because they didn't change with
the times. Many are now on the endangered list. Also heading
to extinction are call centers that cling to an archaic business
model that sees customer service as a cost, and not as a key
sales driver. The constant pressure to do more with less, to
answer more calls with fewer people, and to decrease cost at
any cost is hurting businesses big time. |
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| Creating the Service Mindset: Where Does
it Start? |
| by Joanne L. Smikle |
| As I impatiently waited for the gate agent
to finish her personal call so that I could be checked in
for my flight, I remembered why I seldom fly this airline
(which shall remain nameless) and so often fly Southwest
instead. While I may hate Southwest’s cattle call boarding
system, I sure love the company’s commitment (in word and
deed) to service. No, no, no, this is not a commercial for
Southwest Airlines. It is, however, an examination of the
Service Mindset. |
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| The Customer’s Perspective |
| by Joanne L. Smikle |
| Delivering consistently high levels of
service requires you, the service provider, to get in to the
head of the customer. Since we aren’t mind readers, getting
into the customer’s gray matter takes a little work, a
little time, a little skill and a lot of persistence. So,
how do you do it? |
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Designing Categories for Business
Benefit |
| by Jennifer Streitwieser |
| How you categorize your service events
drives virtually every downstream action you take to resolve
your customers’ requests. Escalations, standard operating
procedures, reporting, knowledge creation, service level
management—they all (ought to) tie back to the issues you
support and the actions you take to resolve them. Yet,
categories are the bane of many service organizations.
Categories are often outdated, irrelevant, and unused, and
no one can seem to untangle them or take responsibility for
them. Organizations that try to tackle their category
structure often get overwhelmed by the process, tangled in
political battles, or just plain frustrated. |
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| Get Over It, Techs … You’ve Gotta Sell! |
| by Joanne L. Smikle |
| Editor’s Note: This is part one of a
two-part series. Who says that techs can’t sell? Granted,
many techs don’t want to sell, but desire and ability are
two distinctly different things. Let’s face it — in these
trying economic times, boosting revenues requires commitment
from everyone in the company. That means that everyone, from
techs to administrative staff, is responsible for
continually developing new opportunities and cultivating
additional business with existing customers. |
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| Learning Matters |
| by Carl A. Hammerschlag, MD |
| Success in today's marketplace has nothing
to do with having access to information or being able to
transmit it rapidly - it's about creating environments which
generate new ideas, and value relationships. To generate new
ideas, you have to accelerate the unlearning of old ones. |
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| MAKING SELF-SERVICE WORK: How to Write
FAQs that Help Customers Help Themselves |
| by Leslie O’Flahavan and Marilynne Rudick |
| The dream goes something like this: “Now
that we offer our customers web self-service, they answer
their own questions. The phones are quiet and the e-mail
flow has dwindled to a trickle.” This self-service dream
includes images of a 24/7, personalized, customer-enabling,
transaction-completing, purchase-facilitating automated
wonder. |
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| Putting the A in the FAQs: How to Write
Excellent FAQs that Answer User Questions |
| by Leslie O’Flahavan and Marilynne Rudick |
| You've hunted and clicked your way through
the Web site, but you can't find the information you need.
So you go to the FAQs. But the FAQ section is like a vast
junk drawer, filled with a jumble of information.
Thirty-nine questions organized alphabetically by the first
word in the question, not the topic?! Questions arranged
chronologically…in the order they were asked?! Maybe the
answer to your question is in there somewhere, but you’ll
never find it. |
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