News

Best Companies for Minorities
Fortune has released its annual list of diversity leaders among American companies. At the average top-50 corporation on the list this year, ethnic minorities constitute 24% of the officials and managers, up from 23% in 2001 and 17% in 1998. Minorities also make up 19% of the board members, up from 11% last year. Mortgage giant Fannie Mae tops the list this year, thanks to its many powerful minority executives. Rounding out the top five are Sempra Energy, fast-food company Advantica (Denny's parent and last year's No. 1), Baby Bell SBC Communications, and McDonald's. http://www.fortune.com/diversity/

The Revolution is Over, Long Live the Revolution
A short article from e-business Strategies Advisor provides a helpful translation of a recent Meta Group report on the state of e-business. Although vendors are not trumpeting e-business - are any e-business vendors trumpeting these days? - the way they did 18 months ago, many companies are continuing the e-business revolution on a quieter (but still committed) note through their use of extranets and business-to- business portals that serve as key infrastructure in supply and demand chain (or "value chain," if you will) projects. The article identifies lists five ways in which e-business efforts have evolved in the past several quarters. These bullets might come in handy for evaluating systems upgrades that include collaborative functionality and other, more subdued forms of e-business offerings. http://e-businessstrategiesadvisor.com/Articles.nsf/aid/HARTP131

The State of BI for the Masses
According to Intelligent Enterprise author Philip Russom, immature support for evolving Web environments is the leading technology barrier to business intelligence. He identifies the "BI for the masses" trend as beginning in 1996 with the proliferation of Internet browsers on corporate desktops. Russom's take is that Web standards need to evolve to a certain point before BI applications will be simple enough for the average user, while able to deliver BI content over a long list of Web media, including intranets, extranets, portals, e-mail, and eventually Web services and wireless media. Read more at http://www.intelligententerprise.com/online_only/analyst/020807.shtml

Extending ERP's Reach
When enterprise resource planning emerged in the 1990s, many organizations immediately recognized that integrating applications across various departments could pay huge dividends. Through a single software package, a company could manage manufacturing, order entry, A/P, A/R, general ledger, purchasing, warehousing, logistics, human resources and payroll far more effectively. Over the past couple of years, access to ERP information has begun to extend even further. Gartner has dubbed this transition "ERP II." AMR Research calls it "enterprise commerce management" (ECM). The one thing everyone agrees on is that to reap the full benefits of e-business, companies must extend the reach of ERP systems to share data with employees, customers and supply-chain partners. Read the full article at http://www.businessfinancemag.com/archives/appfiles/Article.cfm?IssueID=366&ArticleID=13900

PracticeMaster Now Integrates With Microsoft Outlook
Time and billing software vendor Software Technology Inc. (STI) has announced that its PracticeMaster solution now integrates with Microsoft Outlook's calendar and e-mail functions. This integration allows for the automatic transfer of PracticeMaster calendar entries into Outlook. In addition, a synchronization process pulls Outlook calendar entries into PracticeMaster. This combination creates additional calendar and schedule tracking options for accountants wishing to automate with PracticeMaster, yet still use Outlook for their calendar interface. Get the details at http://www.softwaretechnology.biz/prlgl-outlook.html

Corporate Responsibility Pays
How can a company save $700,000 a year, one million gallons of water, one hundred thousand pounds of solid waste and 180 tons of wood (or about 3,000 trees)? If that company is Citigroup, by having employees use two-sided paper to save one piece of paper per week. Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) magazine sat down for a Q&A with several Citigroup senior vice presidents and VPs of global community relations and environmental affairs to flesh out the thinking and strategy behind some of the company's corporate responsibility efforts. One of the most useful aspects of BSR's approach to its mission is its focus on identifying the business impact of social responsibility efforts. http://www.bsr.org/BSRResources/Magazine/leadership.cfm?DocumentID=854&DocumentTypeID=8

Data Visualization Can Succeed Where Spreadsheets Fail
Data visualization techniques are nothing new, but they have a long way to go. And the good news is that software vendors are stepping up to the challenge. Companies frequently complain that they collect more data than they can analyze, explains Scott Leibs in CFO Magazine. Data visualization can make sense of patterns in volumes of information where numbers alone would be overwhelming to even the most spreadsheet-addicted analyst. According to Leibs, the most elaborate uses of data visualization are typically found in life sciences and engineering environments, but similar applications to financial data are not far behind. Read the article "Now You See It" at http://www.cfo.com/Article?article=7377

Aberdeen Releases PSA Report
Even as the Internet has streamlined communication and collaboration, managing project teams has actually become more difficult in that teams are now dispersed across multiple continents, speaking different languages, charging different amounts in different currencies, and working different hours. Aberdeen has released a report on how Professional Services Automation (PSA) vendors have addressed this problem over the past four years by developing solutions that automate and manage the core processes of billable or chargeable professionals. Aberdeen's research report outlines, identifies and categorizes key findings in the PSA market, and describes PSA business drivers and market trends. Get a summary or order the report online here: http://www.aberdeen.com/ab_company/hottopics/psa2002/default.htm Report author R. David Hofferberth, research director of Aberdeen's Processional Services Automation practice, discusses key findings of his research in this worthwhile interview: http://www.aberdeen.com/ab_company/hottopics/interview/07-26Hofferberth.htm