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Five Reasons Why Your Data is a Mess
Access
to data is not a problem CEOs are facing these days. Getting
better data is. According to a new survey conducted by consulting
firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, more than 70% of CEOs say they aren't
getting the data they need to make good choices. Seventy four
percent of those asked in the CEO Report said they lack the information
necessary to anticipate customer needs.
The problem says Arkady Kleyner, co-founder of Intricity LLC, a
business intelligence and data warehousing firm, arises from five
inherent flaws:
1. There is one crucial spreadsheet on your computer that,
if lost, is irreplaceable: Aside from the issue of accessibility,
these spreadsheets can become outdated quickly, and are too time
consuming to update manually.
2. You hope your auditor never asks you how you calculated
the numbers in your financial reports: When data has been
annually aggregated and consolidated from disparate sources, tracing
reported numbers back to their origins can be virtually impossible.
3. You have a company listed in your customer database
multiple times: When data is entered in different ways through
different systems by different
people, the task of consolidating information into a single picture can be overwhelming.
4. The only role whose level of performance is quantified in
an organization is sales: In trying to calculate ROI, it's
difficult to assign a dollar value to functions that don't plug
directly into revenue. Good performance management practices supported
by near real-time data that can help quantify every department's impact
on the bottom line.
5. Information from IT reports is irrelevant by the time you
get it: Too many company executives underestimate the effort
required across the organization to produce accurate reporting.
It's not uncommon for the monthly reports to actually take 30 days to
produce. Better information management affords everyone across
the business information that is timely and relevant.
News & Experts Syndicate/Industryweek.com
We
are always looking for ways our clients can help themselves with their
technology. PC performance is one area where you can do some
things for yourself that may avoid a service call. Give these 5
things a try. Of course, we are always there to help if you
want! Details on the following suggestions can be found in this article.
1. Free up disk space
2. 'Rearrange' your disk space to be more efficient (disk fragmentation)
3. Detect and repare disk errors
4. Protect agains spyware (Careful! Some spyware prevention software can actually slow you down!)
5. Add Memory (one of my personal favorites) - in the article
mentioned above, they discuss a feature called ready-boost, which is
available in Vista and Windows7.
Seven Ways to Organize Your Email
With meetings and the general chaos
of a normal work day, your e-mail Inbox can quickly get cluttered. An
unorganized mailbox can make it difficult to find the e-mail you need
and know where to get started. This messy situation can be remedied.
Microsoft Office Outlook offers great tools that help you organize your
messages in meaningful, easy-to-control ways. Whether you're already
using Outlook 2007 or still using Outlook 2003, you'll be able to stay
on top of your mail. Take advantage of these tips/tools:
1. Group similar messages in folders
2. Create Search Folders to find messages fast
3. Sort messages quickly
4. Route mail efficiently using mailbox rules
5. Reduce unwanted e-mail with junk filters
6. Lay on the color
7. Flag for follow up
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