Designing A Thorough Franchise Business Computer System
1. Designing A Thorough Franchise Business Computer System
You've got to get the proper sorts or systems. Did George Sodini write in his site about going into a
specific health club and shooting the place up? Here are the 10 things you must understand prior to
making an IT change.
There was an interesting article in an issue of CIO Insight that talked about the changing role of
CIOs. The basic point of the story was that since today's CIOs are spending so much time (and $$$)
on keeping their firms systems up and running, that they are losing their position at the strategy
table. The thinking is that if a CIO doesn't have the time to spend on thinking about where the
company needs to go and how it's going to get there, then he/she doesn't need to take up space at
the table where the firm's long term direction is being decided.
Training again is an often overlooked cost. When companies roll out new technology they normally
have a "train the trainer" session to reduce costs. This is better than paying the third party to train
everybody but will still involve considerable expense.
Who's Who? It would be surprising if you knew all your IT service providers; navigating a change is
not when you want to be surprised. That's why you need a contact list of all your providers:
telephone, data access, security, web site and email hosts, and any managed services. Be sure that
you also have copies of all your current service agreements, as well as a clear understanding of what
level of service they provide--for example, how long should it take for a response after you call.
As the CIO you need to make sure that you fully understand what assets you need protect. You can't
protect everything, so make sure that what you do protect is the most important. Take the time to
learn from past attacks. If you don't, you'll be forced to repeat the learning over and over again.
Finally, realize that your vendors may open a door to your IT Systems that could end up costing you
a great deal.
Do not use personal information it is far application delivery controllers too easy for a hacker to
guess your password when its is or contains personal information so never use it.
If you are like most people you ignored the first set of feedback and listened to the second. Why?
You can only have an effective review and expect some true action when you have a relationship of
trust with the people you are giving feedback to.
One of the servers failed. This is an event that the TSE had anticipated. When this happens, a
switching of servers is supposed to occur so quickly that traders using the system won't even know
that a failure has occurred.
As you add more and more technology to your business, support becomes more and more complex.
Not only do your IT guys have more and more "stuff" to look after, they need a wider and wider skill
set to manage it. This inevitably leads to the hiring of more specialised IT staff to manage all of this
complexity.
This is a key point. If you show apathy towards your IT systems whilst in discussions with your
potential supplier they will hardly take the issues seriously and potentially provide a second rate
2. service. If however you show that IT is important to your business and you value it then a decent IT
supplier will recognize this and ensure that you receive the service that you need. Lay your cards on
the table when it comes to your expectations, make it clear what you want and you should be able to
build a fruitful long term partnership.
And it is the emotion and indignation that opportunists use to forward their own agendas. There we
receive and post XML interface and job opening announcements via restarts the same way. Lastly,
do not ignore the social aspect of your work.