core competency

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Ten Best Practices for Successful Competency Management

As the foundation of a talent development strategy, your competency model guides the end-to-end management of your organization's talent base - from performance assessments & goal achievement, to training & development, workforce planning, and recruiting. However, as our economy shifts focus to delivering knowledge and services, core competencies become harder...

Tags: Core Competency, Talent, SumTotal Systems, Performance, Best Practice, Competency, Workforce Management, Performance Management, Strategy, Human Resources, Management

White papers 2008-12-09

CAD/CIM and the SAB software selection

This is a guest column by frequent contributor Erik Engbrecht. It's part of the SAB software discussion and represents exactly what I'd hoped to spawn with this whole imaginary company business: an interesting dialogue. That said, here's Erik: Innovative information technology can be a critical means for...

Tags: Software, Core Competency, Information Technology, Competitive Advantage, Product, Manufacturing, SAB, Paul Murphy

Blog posts 2007-09-06

Would you make this big a bet on SaaS?

Would you make this big a bet on SaaS?It's the People, not the SystemI don't think they outsourced their core competency. The core competency is recruiting, which is still very much a people-business. All they outsourced was the supporting IT infrastructure. It's their recruiters that make or brake...

Tags: Software as a Service (SaaS), Strategy, Outsourcing, Nothing, core competency, Vedior NA, Bullhorn, software-as-a-service

Discussion threads 2006-06-05

Out-Sourcing and Competence

Out-Sourcing and CompetenceDefining "Competence"I think part of the problem is defining competence. An IT person can be extremely technically adept, responsible, and have a desire to meet his customers' needs and still fail miserably to meet them, because he doesn't understand them. He can't understand them, because he...

Tags: Capital structures, Strategy, outsourcing, information technology, leasing, core competency, competence

Discussion threads 2006-02-28

AMR Research Alert: Rethinking Core Competencies

In this thought-provoking article from AMR Research, author Bruce Richardson discusses recent trends in the Research and Development (R&D) arena and explains why "everyday low prices," which are great for consumers, make it hard for manufacturers and vendors to create a sustainable competitive advantage. Richardson goes on to outline the...

Tags: Core Competency, R&D, AMR Research, Bruce Richardson, Research & Development, Outsourcing, Strategy, Business Operations, It Operations, Outsourcing & Subcontracting, Management

White papers 2005-03-17

Additional Resources

The burnout risks for E2.0 community managers

Dion Hinchcliffe's piece on community management surprised me. There is a sense that Dion is trying to lay down some ground rules in an area that is too new for anyone to draw anything other than tentative and early stage conclusions. That's not to say that conclusions are incorrect. There...

Tags: Dennis Howlett

Blog posts 2009-09-29

Microsoft makes Web development tools available for free

right...'free tools' that cost you arm and leg when you realized you just missed a small component not included in the 'stack'...kind of like getting a free car with no wheels.RE: Microsoft makes Web development tools available for freeFor example? What would one of those components be?Give an ExampleWhat...

Tags: Channel management, OPEN SOURCE, UNIX, Microsoft Visual Studio, Web development, Web Development Tools, Microsoft Corp., Web, proc, Linux

Discussion threads 2009-09-24

Is Bing worth all the money Microsoft is throwing at it? [video]

Is Bing worth all the money Microsoft is throwing at it? [video]Who says they can't do all three?Last Time I looked, Apple is advertising Macs, iPod, and iPhones, while dumping money into Safari, AppleTV, MobileMe, ect.Right now, Windows 7 isn't released yet, is it worth starting the ad campain today?From...

Tags: Corporate communications, Servers, Microsoft Corp., Bing, video

Discussion threads 2009-08-04

Health reform must focus on incentives to cut costs

Health reform must focus on incentives to cut costsChanging who pays for health careis precisely what is needed to cut costs. The only problem is, who pays for health care needs to be you, and not someone else. As long as we simply shift who the "someone else" is, the...

Tags: Vertical industries, Benefits, HEALTHCARE, Financial Planning, Right Now IT, health care, insurance, cut cost, incentive

Discussion threads 2009-07-10

Is an IBM purchase of Red Hat inevitable?

Is an IBM purchase of Red Hat inevitable?Jboss would complement Websphere?Really? Is that like how MySQL is going to complement Oracle's flagship product? Doesn't make sense to me, these products are in direct competition with eachother.I think the biggest threat to RedHat's business model is CentOS. Smart...

Tags: OPEN SOURCE, UNIX, Operating systems, Servers, Storage, IBM Corp., Red Hat Inc., Sun Microsystems Inc., X64, Linux, Sun T2, server

Discussion threads 2009-05-15

Get Me To The Parts Store On Time

Sigurd Rinde has written an interesting take on the status quo in large enterprises and the need to quietly infiltrate enterprise 2.0 value rather than confront the powers that be, citing Sun Tzu the master military strategist. I thought of this today as...

Tags: Google Inc., Valeo S.A., Sigurd Rinde, Sigurde, Cloud Computing, Oliver Marks

Blog posts 2009-05-14

From Command & Control to Collaboration & Teamwork

Cisco's John Chambers explains their approach I think this is a wonderfully succinct interview with Cisco CEO John Chambers by Harvard Business School Publishing, which is well worth 6.5 minutes of your life if you're interested in modern 'lead from the middle or...

Tags: Cisco Systems Inc., Collaboration, John Chambers, Leader, Leadership, Linda, Management, Oliver Marks

Blog posts 2009-02-09

The great certification debate

Last year at SAP TechEd, Vinnie Mirchandani, Mike Krigsman and  I spent an entertaining 15 minutes verbally abusing challenging Zia Yusef, who runs SAP's ecosystem of developers, SIs and partners. The thrust of our argument was that SAP's inability to control its ecosystem means that projects often run over time...

Tags: Certification, SAP AG, Vinnie Mirchandani, Quality, Training And Certification, Business Operations, Dennis Howlett

Blog posts 2009-01-23

ROI of Outsourcing Information Technology

In today's economic environment, companies of all sizes need to re-evaluate how they do business, with acumen for finding cost-cutting savings and productivity increases. Most areas outside a "Core" competency of the business are evaluated for outsourcing. These outsourced functions are enablers for the business, but not directly related to...

Tags: Outsource, ROI, Competency, Outsourcing, Managed Hosting, It Operations, Business Operations, Outsourcing & Subcontracting

White papers 2008-12-05

CRM 2009 Forecast - Part 2 - Sticking My Hands Out To Be Slapped

Last week at this time I was throwing my neck out there forecasting some of CRM's moves in 2009 - and no one chopped it off, thank goodness. So, now, in the same spirit, I'm going to do part 2 of three and stick my hands out to be slapped...

Tags: Salesforce.com Inc., Software-as-a-service, PaaS, CRM, Advertising & Promotion, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Software As A Service (SaaS), Cloud Computing, Enterprise Software, Marketing, Software, Emerging Technologies, Paul Greenberg

Blog posts 2008-12-04

The Data Dilemma: The Value of Secure Transaction Solutions

The challenges associated with the protection of data will increase proportionally to the ingenuity of the data thieves committed to stealing that data. For most companies, this represents an obstacle that is increasingly difficult to overcome. Companies are less able to divert scarce resources from their core competency to the...

Tags: Protection, Data, Secure Transaction, Strategy, Management

White papers 2008-11-21

The Case Against Free ISP DNS

ISPs provide pipe services, Internet connectivity. They have set up their business to ensure they can carry packets across their network. That's what they lead with when they are out making a sale. Sometimes they happen to offer other ancillary services that they cannot bill, but these services, like DNS,...

Tags: Network, DNS, Dynamic Network Services, Domain Names, Networking, Internet Service Providers (ISPs), Internet

White papers 2008-11-18

Building an 'Agile' Response to Change

Agility is the ability of an organisation in whole, or in part as required, to transform itself competently in order to manage or exploit a new situation. Systemic agility is achieved by preparing people culturally for change and structuring flexibility for change into the processes, systems and infrastructure that they...

Tags: Hitachi Ltd., Agility, Business Strategy, Storage, Hardware

White papers 2008-10-28

Symantec Goes Into The Cloud With Email Filtering

Symantec today announced its acquisition of MessageLabs, a 520-person UK-based email filtering and security vendor. Given the cost and hassles that information & knowledge management professionls IKM Pros have keeping email spam down to a dull roar and keeping viruses outside the firewall, this is a great move for Symantec....

Tags: Symantec Corp., MessageLabs Ltd., E-mail, Online Communications, Ted Schadler

Blog posts 2008-10-08

Analyst: Intel will weather the storm

Intel got an upgrade Tuesday on the theory that the chip giant's third and fourth quarter results will be decent amid a weak global economy. Piper Jaffray analyst Auguste Richard upgraded Intel to buy from neutral based on the theory that the chip giant can top low...

Tags: Intel Corp., Semiconductors, Network Technology, Hardware, Networking, Larry Dignan

Blog posts 2008-09-30