Recent Posts by Minda Zetlin

Planning today for your IT workforce of the future By Minda Zetlin Fall 2019 Of all the trends affecting IT leaders, the one affecting them most is unquestionably the fight to hire and retain the talent they need. Nowhere is long-term thinking more vital than when it comes to planning today for the technology team you’ll need a few years from now. “I’ve learned to build a strategic plan around the concept of a farm system in combination with experienced hires,” says Eric Johnson,...

How IT leaders can plan for the long term in a rapidly changing world By Minda Zetlin Fall 2019 “The only constant is change.” That quote, attributed to the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, seems like it was written for today’s technology professionals. Formerly mature industries are being disrupted by high-tech upstarts. Enterprise leaders understand digital transformation as a permanent condition rather than as a process with a beginning and an end. Technology leaders are faced...

How to recruit top talent when the pool is small By Minda Zetlin Winter 2019 Would new construction on Alaska’s tundra affect the migration of caribou and polar bears? Stantec, an engineering and architecture firm based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, with projects all around the globe, had to answer that question—otherwise, a planned project could be halted. The company desperately needed a wildlife biologist with expertise in Arctic species. It was a straightforward problem but...

Factors to consider in deciding who makes contact By Minda Zetlin Winter 2019 Posting a job on a job board or a company’s website is no longer a good enough way to bring in top talent. You need to reach out to the people you want to hire and get them excited about working for your company. But who’s the best person to make that first contact: an HR professional or a manager the new hire will actually work for? Experts disagree on the right answer. “This has to be a top leadership...

Cloud-based ERP can help navigate compliance. By Minda Zetlin Fall 2018 Does your organization need to demonstrate compliance with new—or newly rewritten—regulations or contractual obligations? Have you been asked to submit to a risk assessment or security audit by a business partner or potential investor? If so, a cloud-based ERP deployment can vastly reduce your workload. “A lot of organizations, whether small or large, are being asked to demonstrate compliance,” says Guy...

If any of these scenarios apply to your organization, it’s time to move to cloud-based ERP. By Minda Zetlin Fall 2018 There’s no doubt that an organization starting from scratch with a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system should opt for a cloud-based system over an on-premises version. A cloud-based ERP system offers more functionality and greater support for collaboration—especially across multiple locations and remote employees—and is upgraded more frequently, along...

How the scalable cloud keeps companies of all sizes nimble and competitive By Minda Zetlin Summer 2018 In 2005, when Reggie Bradford was president of startup N2Broadband, which provided equipment for live-streaming video content, the company’s TV network customers often found themselves planning for spikes in demand that might or might not happen. Streaming a new show or sporting event could draw many millions of viewers—or maybe it wouldn’t. They had to be ready, just in case. Ba...

Keeping costs under control as you grow By Minda Zetlin Summer 2018 The great thing about using the cloud is that you can scale practically to infinity. But that shouldn’t mean your costs for a cloud deployment are equally limitless. Too many companies, both large and small, start out with what seems like a very affordable cloud deployment, only to watch costs grow, little by little, until they reach unsustainable levels. Here’s how to keep this from happening to your company. 1....

Five skill sets for training effective bots By Minda Zetlin Spring 2018 Most experts agree that creating an effective chatbot requires collaboration among different functions with different areas of expertise. Here are just a few of the skill sets that go into building a chatbot: Scripting. Most chatbots can be built without any coding but do require some software development skills. “There is a certain level of customization that occurs where you need a developer,” says Suhas...