Business Transformation Requires Transformational Leaders

Backsourcing -- that's what we'll examine here in this Executive Update, the third in a four-part series on the "New Outsourcing." 1 Backsourcing is the general term used to describe the "repatriation" of IT or other outsourced services. The term first gained prominence about five years ago with two much-publicized failures. Frequently quoted is the decision by Sears to back out of its megadeal in 2005, a year after it had signed.

Risk management is a formal process owned by senior executives responsible for keeping everyone safe and sound day and night. They report to internal and external audit committees or, actually, prefer to avoid any and all interaction with audit folks since even a casual discussion with auditors can result in a boatload of work for entire teams of already overworked professionals. So the game is simple.

This week, we're taking a look back at five of the most intriguing articles published in Cutter's Enterprise Risk Management & Governance practice over this past year. As you might imagine, it was no small task to cull the list and pare it down to just five articles.

"Nobody should ever see sausage or laws being made."

-- Mark Twain

As one year ends and another begins, many organizations focus on the annual end-of-year bonuses for their personnel. It's a time when managers may find themselves doing more harm than good as they dip into the well of opportunity and come up dry. What constitutes the best rewards for our staff and team members?

This week, we're taking a look back at five of the most intriguing articles published in Cutter's Sourcing & Vendor Relationships practice over this past year. As you might imagine, it was no small task to cull the list and pare it down to just five articles. Look for these lists from each of our nine practice areas for a compilation of Cutter's 45 most intriguing articles of the year.

As the New Year approaches, I thought I'd offer some predictions and recommendations on the key BI and data warehousing developments and practices organizations should focus on. In general, 2011 looks to be a great year for BI and data warehousing.

In the late 1990s, every newcomer in the search-engine space seemed to have every feature of its predecessor and more. Each was trying to win the home-page war in an arms race of feature one-upmanship. The more complicated search engines became, the less they seemed to be solving the real problem.1

Then, in 1998, a new upstart from Stanford University came along. It was focused on solving the original problem; quickly finding the most relevant information in the growing ocean of Web content. As we all know, Google changed the game forever.