FEATURE: The Wisdom Of Integral Management Vs. Corporate Narcissism

Meetings: Corporate Narcissism? (Photo credit: lhl)

by Mats Eriksson

You have probably already heard this ancient wisdom tale: There was once a king who wanted to marry off his daughter. Naturally he wanted to find a smart and wise son-in-law. So he arranged a test for all her suitors. They had to go into a dark room and determine what was in it.

Smart grids at risk from cyber security in intelligent buildings

Intelligent building system – diagram.

Cyber attacks render smart grids intrinsically unsafe

By ECM Plus staff

ECM Plus /London/ +++ Building owners and designers, and particularly members of the building services industry, are racing to implement intelligent buildings and smart grids, aaccording to new research from a London academic institution.

Axe gods grab hi-fi firm in high-end audio expansion

Nashville, Tennessee, home of Gibson Guitars

Gibson acquires stake in Onkyo Japan and majority interest in Onkyo USA

By ECM Plus staff

ECM Plus +++ American musical instrument manufacturer Gibson Guitar has just inked a strategic partnership with Onkyo Corporation, the Japanese audio specialist.

According to the Nashville firm, Onkyo will give Gibson’s newly-formed pro audio division substantial technology resources.

Quango tinkering ignores true diversity on company boards

FR

Still no room for disabled in diversity

Financial Reporting Council ignores disabled talent in favour of just women in touting ‘benefits of diversity on corporate board appointments

By ECM Plus staff

ECM Plus +++ The FRC has proclaimed changes to their ‘UK Corporate Governance Code’ and is urging companies to respond ‘rapidly’.

FRC has decide to amend Britain’s Corporate Governance Code was meant to strengthen the “principle” on boardroom diversity.

Credit crunch driving SMEs to ‘raid the family silver’

SME sector - the engine of economies

47 percent of Britain’s small business owners inject personal cash into their companies to stay afloat

By ECM Plus staff

ECM Plus +++ Rising business costs are adversely affecting the private lives and personal finances of many SME owners, according to a new study by Make It Cheaper and the Centre for Economic and Business Research.

WEEKEND PLUS: Scapegoating scheme not helping – ICM

Francis Maude

ICM says Maude’ ‘name and shame’ plans ‘unworkable’

By ECM Plus staff

ECM Plus +++ Government plans to ‘name and shame’ late payers is impractical, unworkable and yet another missed opportunity, according to the Institute of Credit Management.

ICM said that such a ruse appeared to be to ‘chase a headline’ rather than address the fundamental issue that should be focused around up-skilling businesses and giving them the tools to better understand the value and importance of best credit management practice, it said in a statement.

Unity for all as document management marries ERP

Content is king but knowledge is power

American Software touts reseller agreement with KM Docs

By ECM Plus staff

ECM Plus +++ KM Docs is a new systems integration and software development company. KM Docs is in the business of providing integrated document management, content management and application integration solutions to streamline business workflow.

LATEST FEATURE: Enterprise Apps Forecast – Cloudy But With Chance of Transformation

Enterprise. Image: justshootingmemories

Today’s enterprise application forecast: Cloudy with a Chance of Transformation

By ROB PRINZO

The rapid pace of technology innovation combined with market forces creates the opportunity for organizations to find additional operating efficiencies through technology. These efficiencies are being found through consolidation, shared services, outsourcing and new deployment models such as SaaS and cloud computing.

LATEST FEATURE: Morale versus execution – the great debate

Esprit de corps or hive-minded automata? Picture: justified sinner

BY JOHN TREACE

Morale-the esprit de corps or “spirit of the body”-is the capacity of a group of people to hold a common spirit of loyalty and comradeship.

We think of morale as being deep-seated in the psych of the individual or group. Execution, on the other hand, is the process of reaching an objective as the result of performance. A team’s ability to execute is more of a surface measurement that’s easily evaluated by an outside observer.

In-house counsel warns over corporate compliance and internal reporting

Eagle-eyes and ears of corporate whistleblowers

Association of Corporate Counsel frustrated by SEC ruling on whistleblowing bounty provisions of Dodd-Frank

By ECM Plus staff

ECM Plus +++ The Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) is strongly disagreeing with a new Securities and Exchange Commission’s ruling that bypasses internal compliance and reporting systems in favour of permitting tips from prospective whistleblowers to be submitted directly to the SEC.

“The SEC’s bounty rule is a Pandora’s box that, when opened, is likely to create new and even unanticipated harms rather than promoting better reporting of potential problems” commented ACC’s senior vice president and general counsel Susan Hackett.

Software AG acquires Terracotta in Java cloud move

German company takes control of foreign firm to acquire cloud and memory assets

In-memory and cloud to enable high-performance Java applications for cloud services

By ECM Plus staff

ECM Plus +++ /Frankfurt, Germany/ +++ The German software firm Software AG has just acquired Silicon Valley innovator Terracotta’s portfolio of products and services which the German firm said will form the foundation of its new in-memory and cloud offerings.

According to Frankfurt-Germany-based Software AG, the combined portfolio will increase revenue with existing customers and expand opportunities with new enterprise customers.

The German software giant added that it would also gain access to Terracotta’s large open source community.

The firm also stated that the acquisition would also enable it to offercloud and to increase performance and scalability of its business process platform.

British website speeds trounce Europeans in mobile retail report

Internet mobile and cloud monitoring firm tracks best and worst in wireless retailing performances

Mobile retailers across Europe performing vastly differently

ECM Plus – Monitoring firm Keynote says that mobile website performance of 17 of the top retailers across five countries shows widely varied perfomances.

According to the firm, consumers are looking to their mobile handsets as their first port of call when making an online purchase, while retailers, it says, are investing heavily in making sure that their mobile offerings meet this new demand.