IDG Contributor Network: How to recover from SaaS stack bloat in the enterprise

Agility is highly sought-after in today’s business environment. As such, enterprises are now aggressively leveraging the efficiencies brought about by technology to drive their processes. And why not? Digital tools empower future-facing companies to perform better than laggards. A Harvard study shows that “digital leader” organizations enjoy a three-year average gross margin of 55 percent,…

How McGraw-Hill identifies at-risk students

For the past several years, McGraw-Hill Education’s user research department reported an issue with the company’s Assessment and Learning in Knowledge Spaces (ALEKS) offering. The web-based, artificially intelligent assessment and learning system was great at assessing students and creating customized learning paths based on their individual needs, but instructors were deluged with data. “In our…

IDG Contributor Network: Enterprise no/low code platforms: A golden phoenix has risen

Over time, all software technologies find their place in the IT world. Some technologies, like CODASYL hierarchical databases, become an indispensable part of the software development toolkit and seemingly overnight give way to more advanced components, in this case relational databases. Some programming languages, like Pascal, contained dramatic, even revolutionary, technological advances and quickly fall…

Insurance company finds its digital edge in AI

Epiphanies at innovation conventions are hardly new, but Tim Heinze wasn’t expecting his when the light bulb went off. The director of strategic operations for insurance company AXA XL’s North American property unit, Heinze had just watched a presentation in which an IBM engineer talked about how Watson, the company’s artificial intelligence (AI) software, generates…

What is low-code development? A Lego-like approach to building software

The trend of enterprises swapping traditional software development approaches in favor of agile and DevOps, which enable programmers to quickly build and continuously upgrade software in coding sprints, is widespread. But these approaches aren’t the only options CIOs have at their disposal to fuel faster application creation. Developers are increasingly using low-code development platforms to…

How to get the most out of mentoring

Mentoring isn’t just about bringing talent along so that they understand the workflow and process norms of a company; it’s about culture and nuances of learning a profession, communication skills, leadership skills and growth as a professional and as a person. It’s also about a building a deeper connection with someone who has ‘been there,…

Oracle the latest to face pay discrimination lawsuit

A U.S. Department of Labor Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) filing on Jan. 25 alleged Oracle discriminated against black, Asian and female employees, as well as international workers with visas, funneling them into lower-paying roles and ultimately underpaying them to the tune of $400 million dollars. The OFCCP, which enforces equal pay and ensures…