Analysis Of A Software Developer

Read the job advertisements in the newspaper or employment agency websites and you’ll see adverts for “software developer”, or sometimes “computer programmer”. So what is one? The simplistic view is someone who creates software programs, and in the case of a small business which has only one or a few developers that probably holds true - but it fails to communicate what a developer must be in order to create good software, which in turn leads to poorly specified job adverts and unsatisfactory appointments.

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Outsourcing Software Development

Many organisations consider outsourcing to reduce IT costs. For smaller organisations which cannot afford or justify a dedicated in-house IT resource outsourcing may be the only option to gain access to IT skills. Despite outsourcing IT being apparently quite common there are many misperceptions and pitfalls that should be taken into account.

There are effectively two types of outsourcing, Onshore / Nearshore, and Offshore.  The type most commonly heard about is Offshore, where work is transferred to another, distant, continent with much cheaper labour rates.

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What Should IT Cost?

Speak to almost any Head of IT and they will claim they’re under pressure to reduce IT costs. Many Finance Directors think that IT costs too much, as evidenced by the common Finance-led drive to outsource IT to exploit lower labour costs.

As an aside, the majority of attempts to outsource IT don’t work well in practice, studies show that around two-thirds of IT outsourcing attempts fail, usually because the customer has failed to grasp the complexity of outsourcing something so integral to the business.

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Why hire an Interim CIO?

Graeme Burton, senior reporter at Computing Magazine, interviewed three of the UK's top Interim CIOs and IT Troubleshooters to find out why companies choose to hire an Interim CIO, including Steve Burrows of SBA. 

Read the IT Troubleshooters article in Computing.

Systematic Reduction of IT Support Cost

If you owned 10,000 assets used, and depended upon, by other people, and were responsible for maintaining them, and the cost of maintaining them, how would you go about it?

This is the problem facing most IT leaders, and most seem to come up with the wrong answer.

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When did you last have an IT Audit?

Probably never, most organisations have never had an independent assessment of the state of their IT. Given that most organisations rely on IT for their ability to operate this might seem surprising, but many organisations simply don't know what to expect or ask for.

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