Joe Stangarone – Page 25 – mrc's Cup of Joe Blog

What to look for in a good Business Intelligence solution

By Joe Stangarone / Business Intelligence

Business Intelligence (BI) solutions come in all shapes and sizes. Some emphasize architecture while others tout their flashy interface. Some cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, while others cost hundreds.

With all of these options, how do you separate the good from the bad?

We just released a BI Guide aimed at helping you do just that. It outlines which essential features and capabilities make a good BI solution, and even separates each feature into 4 different categories:

High-level features

Security features

Must-have applications

Advanced features

The guide is free and you can download it right here: Essential features to look for in a good Business Intelligence solution. I hope you find it useful.

Application architecture: Ignore at your own risk

By Joe Stangarone / Application Architecture

I’ve noticed a disturbing trend in the world of business web applications. It seems that emphasis is shifting away from application architecture and shifting towards application design. These days, flashy interfaces beat out well-built web applications.

Why is this happening? I recently read an article over on techrepublic.com that highlights a major factor driving this trend: End user’s expectations are rising. They expect enterprise applications to be as well-designed and easy to use as the apps and tools they use every day. After all, if their enterprise applications don’t meet their expectations, there are plenty of other web services they can use.

Now, I get it. I understand the problems this creates for businesses. But, in the rush to please the end users with well-designed interfaces, let’s not forget about the most important aspect of business applications: Architecture.

For business web applications, architecture is infinitely more important than design. While application architecture might be invisible to the business users, the effects of application architecture are clear as day.

Let me try to highlight a few tangible benefits of good architecture, and help you understand why ignoring it might be the worst mistake your business can make. To help drive this home, I solicited feedback from a few experts in the field of application architecture. You can find their responses below, along with 5 big reasons why application architecture is so important. …

Application architecture: Ignore at your own riskRead More »

Stuck with an outdated application? Here’s a solution.

By Joe Stangarone / enterpri, ERP Systems

Many companies face this issue: They’re stuck to an outdated enterprise system (like an ERP). The reasons vary. It might be the
– cost to upgrade,
– the high degree to which they’ve customized the package, or
– the fact that their application vendor is out of business.

But the problem remains. These companies are locked into their current software.

Meanwhile the world is changing at an ever increasing rate. Their applications are looking and feeling dated, and the company is falling behind their competition.

Is your company facing this problem? If so, here’s a new guide that might help: 21 ways m-Power will improve your enterprise systems. It outlines and explains m-Power’s unique approach to enterprise system integration, what types of modern features it lets you add to your existing system.

Building an executive dashboard over an aging ERP system

By Joe Stangarone / Business Dashboards, ERP Systems

If your company runs on an aging ERP system or has difficulty connecting disparate data sources, here’s a great success story you’ll want to read. A manufacturing company needed a centralized place to access reports on the web. The challenge: It needed to integrate with their aging ERP system and pull data from 9 separate plants. The additional challenge: No one on their IT staff had any experience building web applications.

The result: They built a custom, web-based executive dashboard that pulled data from their 9 separate plants and integrated with their ERP system…in just 12 weeks. To find out how they did it, you can read the whole story right here.

Weekly recap: 10 things to improve application development, HTML5 tutorials, and more…

By Joe Stangarone / Application Development, HTML5, Mobile

Every week, I share the most interesting and useful tech articles that I’ve found over the past week. This week’s top articles focus on how to improve application development, HTML5 tutorials, and more. I hope you find them useful:

Mobile developers look to cross platform development tools
A recent report highlights the current trends in mobile application development. As it turns out, developers are turning to tools that let them build one application for all platforms, rather than building separate applications for each platform. …

Weekly recap: 10 things to improve application development, HTML5 tutorials, and more…Read More »

5 uncommon reporting features that will impress your boss

By Joe Stangarone / web reporting

When your boss (or any other executive in your company) asks for a web report, what do you create? Do you create a standard web report that displays the necessary data, includes some interactive charts and graphs, and lets the user drill down to more details?

Those are all nice features, but they’re fairly standard. What can you do to make that report really stand out? What can you do to make your boss say, “Wow!”?

I have some ideas that might help you. If you want to create reports that really stand out, they should… …

5 uncommon reporting features that will impress your bossRead More »

Turn procedural character based programs into event driven web apps (in 3 minutes)

By Joe Stangarone / Modernization

Is your company still using those outdated character based programs? If so, here’s a short video you’ll want to watch. It explains the limitations of character based programs, a couple of different approaches to modernizing those programs, and even walks you through the process of turning a character based program into a modern web app. All that in under 3 minutes! I hope you find it useful.

Note: This video is best viewed in 720p(HD) resolution at full screen. Click the “gear” icon below the video to change the resolution.

Weekly recap: 2013 IT priorities, why BI is failing businesses, and more…

By Joe Stangarone / Business Intelligence, Tech trends

Every week, I share the most interesting and useful tech articles that I’ve found over the past week. This week’s top articles focus on why BI is failing business, 2013 IT priorities, and more. I hope you find them useful:

Why business intelligence software is failing business
While the need for business intelligence is growing, many BI solutions don’t adequately meet the company’s needs. Why not? This article highlights a few reasons, like poor usability and a lack of personalized notifications and alerts. BI software should be simple to use and should automatically alert users when certain data thresholds are met. …

Weekly recap: 2013 IT priorities, why BI is failing businesses, and more…Read More »

How to get the most out of a small IT staff

By Joe Stangarone / Productivity tools

According to our 2012 survey of IT professionals and IT management, small IT staffs are one of the biggest barriers to success. In the survey, we asked two questions:
1. What are the biggest problems or challenges that your company deals with?
2. What keeps you from addressing those challenges?

Can you guess some of the most common answers to question #2? Most of them sounded something like this:
– We don’t have enough staff
– No time
– IT staff is too small

While IT department size is a perpetual problem for many companies, it seems to be getting worse. More and more companies point to limited staff as the reason they can’t accomplish what they want to accomplish.

So, if your company is dealing with this problem, what’s the answer? How can you get the most out of your small IT department? To help you out, we posed this question to some people who deal with small IT staffs on a regular basis. I’ve included their advice below, as well as some of my own. I hope you find it useful. …

How to get the most out of a small IT staffRead More »

Weekly recap: Tech upgrades that make your business run faster, the first step on legacy code, and more…

By Joe Stangarone / HTML5, Mobile, Modernization

Every week, I share the most interesting and useful tech articles that I’ve found over the past week. This week’s top articles focus on the first steps of legacy modernization, tech upgrades to improve your business, and more. I hope you find them useful:

First step on legacy code: Classifying
The difficulty with modernizing legacy applications is understanding which code to keep and which to replace. Some code might be essential to your company, while other code must be replaced ASAP. This article outlines the steps for classifying your legacy code before a modernization project. …

Weekly recap: Tech upgrades that make your business run faster, the first step on legacy code, and more…Read More »

7 key security features of business-class development software

By Joe Stangarone / Application Development, Security

Working in the business software industry for over 30 years, I’ve seen my fair share of pretenders–amateur software posing as professional business software.

The problem is, this “amateur software” is often hard to detect. It looks great in the demo. Unfortunately, its limitations become apparent after you’ve already purchased the software…when it’s too late to go back.

Today, I’d like to share some tips that will help you separate business-focused application development software from the “amateur” software. I’m focusing on web application development software because that’s our area of expertise (we’ve been doing this for quite a while), but I’m sure these tips apply to most any business software.

So, what separates the pretenders from the legitimate, built-for-business software? Architecture and security. The cheap amateur software focuses mainly on the look and feel, but skimps on the architecture and security. Application development software that’s truly designed for business will include flexible architecture and business-class security features.

What types of security features should good application development software include? I’ve compiled a list of 7 security features that are absolutely essential in professional business application development software: …

7 key security features of business-class development softwareRead More »

How much does native mobile app development cost?

By Joe Stangarone / Mobile apps

Cost is one of the reasons we advise businesses against building native mobile apps. Of course, there are many more reasons we advise against native apps, but I won’t get into them in this article. You can always read this white paper if you’d like to learn more.

Today, I’m focusing on native app cost. Simply put, native apps are significantly more expensive to both develop and maintain than hybrid or mobile web apps.

So, how much do they cost? I did a little digging and found a wide range of cost estimates, some of which may surprise you. I’ve listed four of these cost estimates below: …

How much does native mobile app development cost?Read More »

Weekly recap: 7 HTML5 predictions, why banks will face more software glitches, and more…

By Joe Stangarone / BYOD, HTML5, Modernization

Every week, I share the most interesting and useful tech articles that I’ve found over the past week. This week’s top articles focus on HTML5 predictions, why banks will see more software glitches this year, and more. I hope you find them useful:

More bank software glitches in 2013?
As companies keep building more and more modern features into their outdated systems, software glitches will become more common. With every new enhancement or alteration, an outdated system only becomes more complex and difficult to understand. Companies looking for ways around this issue can address it in a couple of ways: Modernize, or build apps over the top of their system (without altering it at all). …

Weekly recap: 7 HTML5 predictions, why banks will face more software glitches, and more…Read More »

4 common productivity bottlenecks (and how you can fix them)

By Joe Stangarone / web reporting

How would you like to walk into your boss’s office today and say, “I know a way to improve productivity by 50%.” Of course you would! Who wouldn’t?

Of course, that only works if you actually know a way to improve productivity by 50%. Sound impossible? It’s not that hard…you just have to know where to look.

So, where do you look? For starters, let me share one prime area that’s ripe for productivity improvements: In many businesses, productivity bottlenecks revolve around data. Even in the year 2013, we’re just not that efficient with our data. Every day, businesses waste time entering, collecting, sorting, filtering, combining, and manipulating data. The fact is, many businesses could vastly improve productivity if they only addressed some of these data inefficiencies.

If you want to dramatically improve productivity in your company, here’s a good place to start: I’ve listed 4 of the most common productivity bottlenecks caused by data. How many of these do you see in your company? …

4 common productivity bottlenecks (and how you can fix them)Read More »

How to control BYOD without going insane

By Joe Stangarone / BYOD

The shift from company-controlled devices to employee-controlled devices is one of the biggest IT trends in recent history. According to a study from Logicalis, 57.1% of employees already use their own devices for work-related tasks in some form or another. Another survey puts that number at 80%.

Can IT ignore BYOD?

What are IT departments doing about this Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend? The study listed above answers that question with some interesting statistics: 46.1% of employees who use their devices for work claim their IT departments are either unaware of or ignore BYOD. Is this a viable approach? Not at all. Let me give you two reasons why your IT department needs a BYOD strategy: …

How to control BYOD without going insaneRead More »

Native apps: The wrong choice for business?

By Joe Stangarone / Mobile, Mobile apps

Native mobile applications are popular among consumers, but how do their advantages translate to the business world? Not as well as you might think.

If you’re considering mobile apps for your business, here’s a new white paper that you’ll want to read. It explores each mobile app option, and explains why businesses should think twice before taking the native approach. You can access the white paper right here.

Weekly recap: Digital technologies a top CIO priority, do you need a custom app, and more…

By Joe Stangarone / BYOD, Mobile, Tech trends

Every week, I share the most interesting and useful tech articles that I’ve found over the past week. This week’s top articles focus on a recent CIO survey, the need for custom mobile apps, and more. I hope you find them useful:

5 new smartphone OS’s bet on HTML5 and improved UIs
Did you know that 5 new smartphone operating systems are scheduled for release this year? Will any of them become the next iOS or Android? Perhaps a better question: If your business is building native mobile apps, how many of these new operating systems do you plan to support? …

Weekly recap: Digital technologies a top CIO priority, do you need a custom app, and more…Read More »

mrc's Cup of Joe Blog

Author name: Joe Stangarone