IDU NEWS

Entrepreneurs vs monopolists

Outsourcing: Time to get off the production line

Sep 4, 2018
4 min

Outsourcing: Time to get off the production line

Outsourcing is hardly a new concept. It allows us to effectively hive off non-core, yet still important, activities and outcomes to a specialist service provider, freeing up a company’s time, and ideally also budget, to focus on what we specialise in. We gain both time and money: basically oil and gold today. But, like so many things, you can’t keep doing things the way they have always been done and expect to get better or different results. So, I wonder if it isn’t time to

Sailing the digital sea

Jun 26, 2018
3 min

Sailing the digital sea

That the world is a much smaller place thanks to the internet and digital communication technology has probably not escaped anyone’s notice. But are you truly harnessing this to do your business better, and to grow beyond South Africa’s borders? Gone are the merchant vessels of yesteryear circumnavigating the globe by sea to sell your products. Today the internet creates an even more extensive marketplace at the click of a button. To me, this presents three clear benefits for

In Google we trust

Apr 19, 2018
2 min

In Google we trust

There is a Tesla Roadster broadcasting David Bowie on repeat while travelling through space. What a time to be alive! And, I’d argue, the perfect time to rethink what it means to be human. But, we need to do it very carefully. We’re welcoming robots into our homes, cars and workplaces. And they are enabling things that were impossible, or very hard, or very expensive to do. Doesn’t it blow your mind that every day you can use satellites orbiting the planet to find out if ther

Unlocking An Agile Accounting House

Mar 28, 2018
5 min

Unlocking An Agile Accounting House

With technology hurtling headlong into all aspects of life, from our homes, cars and workplaces, to banks, schools and hospitals, it’s no surprise that business looks to the IT world for inspiration on how to adapt and thrive. An example of this is Agile, a method of developing software that is spilling over into all aspects of business, including the finance department Agile, and being an agile organisation, is coming to the attention of the business world as a plausible way

Upsides and pitfalls of financial system migrations

Jun 6, 2017
3 min

Upsides and pitfalls of financial system migrations

The Apple iPad is only seven years old this year. Believe it or not, the first one was launched in April 2010, and if you dig a first generation iPad out of the storage cupboard you’ll find it’s probably more useful as a paperweight than anything else – it doesn’t even have a camera! Frighteningly it, and second and third generation iPads, are also unsupported by Apple. Leaving aside Apple’s rabid upgrade tactics and the notoriously short lifespan of its devices, this is just

Introducing the corporate entrepreneur

Mar 15, 2017
2 min

Introducing the corporate entrepreneur

Picture a typical entrepreneur. What springs to mind? Probably a hybrid of Richard Branson, Steve Jobs and a millennial doing something mysterious with social media in a trendy co-working space. And what link all three of these are innovation and risk: they notice problems in the world and want to fix them, and they commit time, money and skills to something that is essentially an experiment, with no guarantee of a return. Whoever you pictured, I’m fairly sure you didn’t pict

The ICT key to your clients’ hearts and minds

Mar 13, 2017
4 min

The ICT key to your clients’ hearts and minds

Typically information and communication technology (ICT) is one of the largest line items on any company’s income statement. For most organisations, it is second only to salaries. And it’s growing. According to analyst house Gartner, ICT spend in South Africa is forecast to hit R272 billion in 2016, which is 3,8% up from 2015. Software, specifically, is set to reach its highest year-on-year growth at 11,4%, or R25 billion. And, based on predictions around the rise of the mach

Give the machines a leg up!

Dec 8, 2016
3 min

Give the machines a leg up!

The rise of the machines doesn’t sound like science fiction to me anymore. Many of us will remember a time in our career before cell phones and emails. Now we hear of semi-autonomous drones and self-driving cars — technology is advancing at an eye-watering rate. And with these advances come the naysayers and their apocalyptic predictions: if you don’t get run over by a self-driving car, or accidentally bombed by a drone, at the very least you are likely to lose your job to a

The silver lining of cloud computing

Sep 15, 2014
2 min

The silver lining of cloud computing

Many businesses put large amounts of time and money into investing in and managing their hardware and software. This is all fine and well if your business is in IT, but what about if it isn’t? How much money have you invested in technology you don’t understand? How many additional man hours do you expend trying to manage it yourself? How much money are you spending on hiring experts that cost a fortune and are not directly contributing to your business bottom line? The shift

Next Generation Leadership

Jul 28, 2014
2 min

Next Generation Leadership

Leadership is evolving with the next generation. The way things were done in the past, from pyramid corporate structures to top-down budgeting have slowly fallen away as new generations come along with their own views on how things should be and where the generation before has gone wrong. This is nothing new – it is a cycle that happens over and over in life as every generation strives to improve on what has come before. The generations who will come to leadership over the ne

Forecasting in life and business

May 19, 2014
3 min

Forecasting in life and business

Forecasting in all things is a delicate balance between what we know and what we can learn, and it is used to guide us and help us plan in both life and in business. There are some elements that are common to all forms of forecasting and the similarities might surprise you. Let’s begin looking at modern weather forecasting. It uses a combination of technology and computer models with human input in the form of observation and knowledge of trends and patterns. But there are a

Transparency – the solution to business and government corruption

Feb 3, 2014
2 min

Transparency – the solution to business and government corruption

Some days it feels like there is a new story of bribery, corruption or nepotism in our papers every day, but this is the case wherever there is power in the hands of a few and little or no accountability. This is sadly not only rampant in governments everywhere, but in businesses as well. In both cases, the introduction of transparency into their financial transactions, from their budgets and forecasts to their reporting, can make the world of difference. Beyond making any an