Baseline articles from July 2004

Baseline archives from July 2004

Chico's Hired Gun.
July 1, 2004... Wanted: Technology executive for company with annual sales topping $1 billion and growing 40% a year. Job: Fine-tune wide range of systems implemented in 2003 that were to improve everything from hiring to the way goods were presented in...

RBC's Account Imbalance.
July 1, 2004... A foul-up at RBC Financial Group, Canada's largest bank, stifled payroll deposits and left as many as 10 million customers uncertain of their bank account balances last month. That has prompted an internal review of the bank's technology and...

Wal-Mart's Texas Two-Step.
July 1, 2004... At a Wal-Mart Supercenter in Denton, Texas, a hallway leading to the retail floor has two pairs of gray and black, 6-foot-high silhouettes with yellow eye-like lights within 10 feet of each other. The mission: Detect and record goods that...

Quiz: Identifying Critical Systems.(Brief Article)
July 29, 2004... This questionnaire helps you gauge which IT systems are most critical to your business, and therefore require the most comprehensive recovery plan. The questions and weighting system here are meant only to identify some of the key areas to...

Outsourcing: Slow and Steady.
July 29, 2004... Procter & Gamble chose a simple strategy for the first year of its $3 billion technology services outsourcing pact with Hewlett-Packard: Don't screw it up. No major restructuring of services or staff out of the gate. No high-cost...

Calculator: Videoconferencing Solutions.(Brief Article)
July 29, 2004... Our example company sends 10 executives from one coast to the other for a quarterly two-day meeting. The yearly cost--$92,000--is nearly three times as much as the videoconferencing solution with the highest first-year investment (an in-house,...