Wolverine hits pause for cloud success

Sometimes — even in IT — slowing down can pay off big-time. For Wolverine Worldwide, COVID-19 proved the point. While many companies accelerated their cloud migrations in response to the pandemic, the 140-year-old boot and shoe manufacturer halted much of its technology projects to focus on keeping the business afloat, a decision that left the…

How to Reduce WAN Costs While Preserving the Digital Experience

The data center has traditionally been the central spine of your IT strategy. The core hub and home for applications, routing, firewalls, processing, and more. However, trends such as the cloud, mobility, and pandemic-induced homeworking are upending everything. Now, the enterprise is reliant on distributed workplaces and cloud-based resources generating traffic beyond the network, such…

Your Path to a More Efficient Network Operations

In the coming years, NASA’s James Webb telescope will discover the edge of the observable universe, allowing astronomers to search for the very earliest stars and galaxies, formed more than 13 billion years ago. That’s quite a contrast to today’s network operations visibility, which can sometimes feel like the lens cap has been left on the…

How IT Can Use User-Experience Metrics to Protect the Brand

Cloud-based platforms, the “work from anywhere” culture, and other trends are upending traditional network monitoring. This is because some or all of the infrastructure is no longer owned by the IT organization, instead, relying on home network infrastructure, the Internet, and SaaS/public cloud networks. A study by Dimensional Research reveals that current monitoring solutions are…

Estée Lauder CIO Michael Smith on driving simplicity

Michael W. Smith is a consummate business-first, cross-functional leader. Known for his leadership at big brand companies including Nike and Mylan, he currently serves as CIO of The Estée Lauder Companies, a Fortune 213 company that operates in 150 countries and generates roughly $17B in revenue. Michael is also well-known for the work he’s done…

6 ways to streamline IT vendor onboarding

CIOs are no strangers to lengthy, convoluted approvals processes. Every time they want to bring on a new IT vendor, they must go through multiple levels of approval: procurement, legal, compliance, and more. It might take anywhere from three to six months to onboard a new IT vendor, and during that time, the clock is…