Sovereign debt markets have demonstrated incredible resil- ience despite a century of dramatic political and economic up- heaval. Among the most remarkable aspects of the contemporary debt regime is the degree to which expectations of borrowers remain rela- tively uniform even in the face of such major shifts. These basic expecta- tions resolve into one background rule: sovereign borrowers mus…
How do you define success? For some, success is a high-paying job, promotions, and financial security. For others, success is finding a rewarding balance between work and personal time. Regardless of how you define success or what your personal goals are, we wrote this text with one purpose: To help you succeed not only in today’s competitive business world, but also in your personal life. A…
Clean energy is the flavor of the times. With a view to bringing the phrase closer to reality, I would prefer to refer to it in relative terms as Cleaner Energy. Investors have had divergent views of the sector: from being a genuine business opportunity, especially when attractive preferential tariffs are on offer, to a peripheral activity that helped “green wash” other business operations.…
This book has been created to serve the needs of many SAP Business One users. If you have a chance to browse the SAP business One website between mid-2008 and mid-2011, you will find that my name is always on the top contributor's list. I have solved many SQL Query related problems faced by many users, and some such users have asked me to write a blog or wiki page on the topic. However, the su…
Activiti is a lightweight, open source workflow and a Business Process Management (BPM) platform distributed under the Apache license. It can also be clustered and managed on a Cloud environment. It is the best platform to build BPM for people-to-people communication. It can be used very easily in every Java environment. It supports all aspects of BPM in the full context of software development…
The demand for mobile apps by business enterprises has never been greater. While meeting this demand is becoming increasingly business critical, the complexities of development are amplified by the explosion in devices and platforms. Mobile JavaScript frameworks have been available since the start of the smartphone revolution and is the perfect platform to meet these challenges. Recognizing the…
The ability to send and retrieve information over the Web using traditional and ubiquitous computing methods has changed the way we work and live. Web portals, as content aggregates, act as gateways to pertinent and up- to-date information. Social networking portals are a recent development, allow- ing a user to create and maintain a network of close friends or business associ- ates for social …
"When it comes to looking for a job, it's not what you know, it's who you know." Well, there are a couple of major problems with that nugget of wisdom: If you know a lot of people, but they are not aware of (a) the collection of skills, experience and talent you offer or (b) the types of employment you are seeking, they can’t help you. If you know a lot of people, but you don’t h…
Blogging has been a part of the web landscape for over a decade now. From personal journals to big corporate marketing, the medium has matured to become a ubiquitous mode of live communication. The power of blogging has been recognized by the business community, and canny marketers view it as a powerful weapon in their digital arsenal. If blogging is done well, it can bring myriad benefits to b…
When local area networks (LANs) first appeared in the business world, their primary functions were to share files and printers. These are still critical ap- plications for most business networks, but networks are able to provide many other functions as well. Virtually all business owners want to provide their users with access to the Internet and email, but they must be able to do so securely. …
In today’s data-driven business environment, it’s become achingly clear that no company will thrive without agility, speed and, perhaps most of all, innovation. Agility allows a company to change direction in response to shifting market conditions. Speed lets it change quickly. And innovation gives enterprises the ability to disrupt the industry by bringing new processes, products and servi…
The term telematics combines the words telecommunications and informatics. Telematics is an integration of wireless communications, vehicle monitoring systems and location tracking devices. At a simple level, telematics may involve using GPS to track vehicles in a fleet. But today, the most sophisticated telematics systems can be used to intervene when a truck driver is going too fast, followin…
There may have been a time when a collection of stand-alone endpoint management and security products and solutions made sense. But as IT environments grow more complex and diverse, IT service requirements rise, and users become more mobile and demanding, businesses are embracing more unified and complete solutions that can help them take back control of their unmanageable environments.
Owning and operating a small business is a continuous uphill battle. You’re fighting the big guys to keep your business alive, tackling new obstacles each day, and staying busy trying to make your business successful. Knowing this, many people tend to focus on the percentage of small businesses that close shop each year, but it’s actually more valuable as a business owner to look at the oth…
I’ve been focused on Business Intelligence for nearly a quarter of a century and I’ve never been more excited about the industry than today. However, opportunities come with new challenges and this research is designed to help navigate those challenges. Back in 1993, I first used the term information Democracy to envision a time when every user would have access to timely, relevant and ac…
The expression “better, faster, cheaper” is commonly associated with supply chain initiatives, where companies have developed an edge by getting products to market faster and more efficiently than their competitors. However, in the new world of cloud computing, more companies are looking at their IT department as a competitive differentiator by enabling them to quickly deploy hosted appli…
Small and midsized businesses experience business issues and challenges that are inherently different from those of larger enterprises. They generally have smaller workforces, lower budgets, and less complex IT environments than enterprise organizations. And yet, small and midsized businesses must meet the same types of demands as enterprise organizations, and optimize service levels to sup…
IT organizations are under increasing pressure to meet the business goals of their companies. This challenge can be particularly daunting because it involves complying with regulations, such as the Sarbanes- Oxley Act (Sarbox) and Basel II. Compliance requires strong corporate governance capabilities that are demonstrable to outside auditors. Because IT plays such a major role in business proce…
For most companies, changing accounting software is a daunting challenge. Not only is transitioning the accounting function to a new software package tricky in itself, but it is usually catalyzed by one or more business challenges that are (hopefully) solved by the new system. As a result, most companies wait until problems have become (or are obviously becoming) insurmountable before initiatin…
Are you expanding your reach into international markets without knowing how you will provide cost-effective, quality support? If you are, you’re not alone. According to the Small Business Administration, the number of American businesses sending their goods and services overseas has tripled since 1990. About two-thirds of that boom comes from companies with fewer than 20 employees. No longe…
The rate of change and the amount of competition in the business world is escalating. Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) need to ensure that the technology solutions they buy meet today’s business needs and are flexible enough to grow with this rapidly evolving business environment. The Cisco® Smart Business Roadmap provides a structured, planned evolution path to help organizations ta…
Client Management is the IT discipline of managing the lifecycle of end user systems (including desktops, lap- tops, and handhelds) from initial deployment, through provisioning, upgrade, and patch, to deprovisioning and decommissioning. This entails conflicting requirements from IT – which requires tight control and detailed planning – and the business – which requires flexibility and fa…
This work is intended for the enjoyment and education of individuals that are just entering the world of Information Technology. It is intended to give a brief, high-level overview of the technologies in use today, their history, and their use in the world of business. As a result of trying to cover a very large and diverse topic in under two hundred pages, as well as the author’s attempt t…
Ibegan working on the first edition of this book in the year 2000.As a former developer and current IT business analyst,I could see an approaching technological wave affecting my colleagues. Thanks in large part to client-server applications and the Internet, object-oriented (OO) languages like C++ and Java were taking over the development world. This had already changed the way the technical m…