IT Strategy - Building a Unique Competitive Position
by charles.rattray@tideway.com | 14 Aug 2008 | Permalink | IT Management
The desire to be different in strategy is what creates sustainable competitive advantage.
Borrowing Michael Porter’s thinking from ‘What is Strategy’, (1996), successful IT departments will be those that can capture a unique competitive position. Porter goes on to say that “A period of imitation may be inevitable in emerging…
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IT Strategy - Where to Start
by charles.rattray@tideway.com | 11 Aug 2008 | Permalink |
“Good company situation analysis, like good industry and competitive analysis, is a valuable precondition for good strategy making” (Thompson A. A, Strickland A. J, Gamble J. E. (2007). Crafting and Executing Strategy, McGraw-Hill Irwin., p.127), but like all things in life – ‘rubbish in, rubbish out’. Possibly the first thing…
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IT Strategy - Time to think
by charles.rattray@tideway.com | 04 Aug 2008 | Permalink | IT Management
In the world of IT management, strategy is important. Constantly changing circumstances requires iterative thinking to address the vision, objectives, capabilities and culture of the organisation. An emphasis on process and feedback mechanism, often dictates that the ‘doing’ of IT strategy is a mechanical process, procedural and quite possibly driven…
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Lost In The Chasm Part 3: Press The Button
by Richard Muirhead | 03 Aug 2008 | Permalink |
In my last two blogs we explored some hot trends and challenges facing us as we work to build a new market, as well as today’s Technology Adoption Lifecycle (TALC) and the ever growing importance of customer intimacy. Let’s now tie it together by using some totally fictitious and random…
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Start Your Engines!
by Peter Grant | 18 Jul 2008 | Permalink |
I’m often asked to explain the benefits of automated vs. manual discovery, and what Tideway does compared to other players in this space. A good way to explain it is to think of how motor racing has evolved over the last 50 years.
If you think of a racing…
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Still LOST In The Chasm? Part 2: Find The Button!
by Richard Muirhead | 14 Jul 2008 | Permalink |
In my first post in this series, I wrote a bit about the trends challenging the widespread adoption of BSM, CMDB, ADM and others, and where Tideway and other companies are today in the Technology Adoption Life Cycle (TALC). Let’s expand on this a bit, starting by listing the constellation…
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UK Worst in Europe for Green IT
by Richard Muirhead | 09 Jul 2008 | Permalink |
A recent survey of 8,000 executive released by Brocade revealed 60 per cent of UK IT directors and board-level managers gave the thumbs down to their firm’s environmental credentials. But only 37 per cent of them said they were personally concerned about their company’s energy use and carbon footprint,…
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Lost In The Category Chasm? Part 1: Deal With It!
by Richard Muirhead | 26 Jun 2008 | Permalink | CMDB, IT Management, Software, Software Business Models, Web 2.0
A couple of months ago I became the proud owner of an Apple Macbook Air. The little geezer immediately transformed my relationship with a laptop in a whole slew of ways. One way that it particularly seduced me was the delightful combination of my Macbook Air with TV Shows downloaded…
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Data Center Survival!
by Richard Muirhead | 13 Jun 2008 | Permalink |
Day three at the SIFMA conference, and several key themes have emerged – this year’s most urgent issues for financial services IT can be grouped under the following umbrellas:
Extreme Agility
If we now look at the rising expectations of the Facebook and GrandTheftAuto generation – and the…
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Grand Theft Auto and Zero Tolerance
by Richard Muirhead | 12 Jun 2008 | Permalink |
SIFMA, day two. What have I learned? The Grand Theft Auto network incorporates the Cisco Nexus 7000. Operational features preventing human error-like blinking port lights to guide cable swaps are key.
What does this have to do with SIFMA? We all know how incredibly intense the world of banking has…
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