It's been a while since I've made a Peter Griffin-like post in the fashion of his "You know what really grinds my gears..." gag. However today, after watching Paul Pester (great name) on ITV News today, it's highlighted an example of what I see all too often in the world of company-IT. TSB boss insists [...]
I have two strange obsessions that seem to rule my life. Technology, is perhaps the obvious one. I love tech, anything that can do something, solve a problem, make some part of your life or work smarter, faster or more efficient. I'd say this is a healthy obsession and I'm far from being alone on [...]
What does my business have to do for GDPR compliance? This is a question I have been asked a lot over the last 6 months. There is a lot information on this subject and I am sure you are getting sick of hearing about it! However, the truth is, GDPR is happening in just over [...]
There's a reason we love certain technology products, the sleek designs of Apple; the latest Microsoft in-house products such as the Surface Pro 4 and the Surface Book. The consumerisation of IT Well-thought-out design can command a premium and drive people to stand in queues overnight at Apple's flagship stores. In the IT world we [...]
Data protection is high on everyone’s wish list – particularly when we are hearing of the sudden outbreak of data leakages recently. One thing you have to bear in mind is that data security is not the sole responsibility of the IT department; it is a whole business function. You have to marry the value [...]
Age, experience, hindsight – they are all a funny thing. Back in my youth, I’d have laughed quite hard at businesses that would bring in consultants to tell them facts they already know or even facts that should be blatantly obvious. As I’ve become older, more experienced, perhaps a bit jaded to the insanity I [...]
” I have crushing responsibility but inadequate resources and no authority to implement change.” – Trevor Pott I’ve been dwelling on quite a number of things I’ve read of late. As many of you may have read, I’m like the Stig of the IT Management world, the tame IT Manager. It may be that MBA [...]
People have probably heard this a lot from me in recent weeks. It’s a rant that’s really grinding my gears for a while and really my biggest bugbear of what IT has become. When I try and articulate what we do, my thoughts always go back to the good old days of IT. Where the [...]
You’ve come up with a business idea. You may or may not have been following the dream for years. Blood sweat and tears have gone into your company. You’ve struggled, but you got your first, then second member of staff. You have a team. You have people working in an office, at home and even from [...]
As a growing business, you are now more reliant upon IT than at any time before. IT systems change and choice is overwhelming but one thing doesn't change and that is to survive you have to continue to do business and continue to make a profit. IT is an enabler to help you achieve your [...]
It’s a little known fact that I have bragging rights that I conducted some of the UK’s first research into Shared Services. Now if you’re a small or medium business, then that’ll mean nothing to you and also negate any bragging rights I have about it. Indeed, but what I learnt during my time on [...]
I recite this tale to those who listen, quite often. I’ve actually refrained from talking about it publically for some time in the fear that I may offend some potential clients or scare some people off. It’s not until recently until a valued partner of ours pointed out that the people we scare off, probably [...]
Continuing the theme of help from last week's blog where I categorised the type of help that seems to be common at the moment. Whilst like I always say, no business and no person is perfect, being a boutique IT consultancy allows us to give that care and attention to our customers that I think [...]
Those of you that follow my blog have probably realised that I have a lot of peeves, in fact I wouldn’t have a Peter Griffin like blog category called, ‘Grinds my Gears’ if I didn’t. Blogging isn’t necessarily a tool solely to name and shame those who have wronged you either (unless it’s Microsoft). I [...]
The last number of years of recession merde have yielded us some strange phenomena… companies and their employees seem to have become stupider (maybe the ones I deal with) and the average amount of people with a “can’t do” attitude to customer service has gone through the roof. It is my sincere belief that the [...]
Happy New Year, yes it is February… believe it or not I’ve written or semi-written several New Year blog articles, but here at Unleashed we’ve had a crazy beginning to 2015 and for me personally. Finding something to write about and be relatively quick and fluid, isn’t something that often comes naturally (quite usually when [...]
Remote workers So you’ve decided as a business that you’re going to set a policy that allows your workforce to be flexible where and when they work. The policies are written, you’ve communicated to the workforce all the different aspects of the policy. You’ve been clear that remote working is [...]
As an avid Cisco follower and yet another company I have a love-hate relationship with, I am rather excited about their latest SMB product. In Cisco terms this would be called a ‘mid-market’ product. Finally after the mass cull of SMB products they’ve had – most of which were getting to a good level of [...]
In June the Office of National Statistics published data for home working showing that 4.2m people currently are classed as home workers, which is nearly 14% of the workforce. In addition of that 4.2m, 2.7m use their home as a base to then go out from work other locations. Flexible Working is [...]
Last week I blogged about the relationship between IT and the rest of the company getting to the point where in many organisations the IT function refers to the rest of the company as “the business”. Whilst there are myriad reasons for this – I personally blame ‘best practice’, ITIL and outsourcing as key drivers. [...]
