9 lies CIOs tell themselves

“O what a tangled web we weave,” explained Scottish novelist Walter Scott, “when first we practice to deceive.” But no matter how tangled the web when someone else is the target, it has nothing on the mess that happens when we’re fooling ourselves. And fool ourselves we do — not because we deliberately want to…

IDG Contributor Network: Get your priorities straight before you start applying artificial intelligence in your business solutions

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the potential to put you ahead of your peers in the industry. However, like with many opportunities, you have got to be keen at doing the right things in the right order.  On the adoption curve, AI is clearly in the “innovators” stage. The “movers and shakers” at Google, Baidu, Facebook,…

10 early warning signs of ERP disaster

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems weave together software and services from disparate departments into a cohesive, collaborative whole. Companies rely on ERP systems to keep their business operations running smoothly. Without ERP implementations to coordinate purchases, customer orders, financial transactions and beyond, modern business would take a significant step back in efficiency. But the integrated…

What makes a great chatbot? Laser focus on customers

Fewer technologies have garnered more attention over the past year than chatbots, those virtual assistants that mimic human speech while facilitating tasks on behalf of humans, typically via a conversational messaging interface. At a time when software is driving unprecedented levels of automation, companies are using chatbots to help customers order anything from food to…

9 warning signs of bad IT architecture

Chances are someone at some point spent countless brain cycles planning your organization’s IT architecture before handing the grand plan off to someone else to build it out, and then to someone else to maintain it as your computing environment inevitably grew. And, chances also are, somewhere along the line, best intentions faded in the…