Daily News Archive

Please note that The Daily News is publishing (hopefully) twice a week for the foreseeable future due to time constraints.

Tuesday, February 14th

"It has been said that figures rule the world. Maybe. But I am not sure that figures show us whether it is being ruled well or badly.” -- Goethe

 

The Picks of the Day

SEC OKs Internal-Control Audit Standard

“Auditing Standard No. 4, which the PCAOB adopted on July 26, 2005, establishes a stand-alone, voluntary engagement in which an auditor would express an opinion on whether the reported material weakness in internal controls over financial reporting under Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act still exists.”

http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/5515206/c_5515140?f=alerts

 

Compliance Spending on the Rise

“In spite of the current take up of regulatory compliance programmes being low, a MarketShare survey commissioned by Serena Software, covering 148 CIOs across Asia and Australia, has reflected that 75 percent of them ranked compliance as one of the top objectives for this year.”

http://cio-asia.com/ShowPage.aspx?pagetype=2&articleid=3372&pubid=5&issueid=81

 

IT Process Improvement Resource

BECTA on Change Management

Are you looking for a free resource on Change Management?  Check out the BECTA page on Change Management at:

http://www.becta.org.uk/fits/index.cfm?sect=change&refsect=ntss&bcsect=default

 

Legal and Regulatory Compliance

Security Convergence: The Compliance Component

“By some accounts, regulatory requirements such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act have led physical and information security departments to work more closely with each other.”

http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,108569,00.html?source=x73

 

Spending on Sarbanes-Oxley software climbs

“Spending on Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) technology continues to rise, according to the latest research from AMR Research Inc. in Boston. This year technology purchases are expected to account for 32% of $6 billion in total SOX spending.”

http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid14_gci1165253,00.html?track=sy160

 

Security and Risk Management

Security Convergence

“According to a survey of 8,200 IT and security executives in 63 countries conducted in March and April of 2005 by PricewaterhouseCoopers and CIO magazine, 53% of organizations have some level of integration between their physical and IT security divisions. That's up from just 29% in 2003.”

http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,108571,00.html?source=x73

 

2 Workers Have Chips Embedded Into Them

“Tiny silicon chips were embedded into two workers who volunteered to help test the tagging technology at a surveillance equipment company, an official said Monday.”

http://news.tmcnet.com/news/it/-2-workers-have-chips-embedded-into-them-/2006/02/13/1367903.htm

 

Human Error / Safety

Chertoff Defends DHS Response to Natural Disasters

“Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff denied criticism today that his agency cares only about terrorist threats at the expense of devastating natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/13/AR2006021300679.html?nav=rss_nation/nationalsecurity

 

Millions of Katrina aid wasted, review finds

“In its rush to provide Katrina disaster aid, the Federal Emergency Management Agency wasted millions of dollars and overpaid for hotel rooms, including $438-a-day lodging in New York City, government investigators said Monday.”

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/02/13/katrina.fraud.ap/index.html

 

Outsourcing / Globalization

Outsourcing Game Set To Change Big Time

“Major U.S. IT outsourcing firms, including Accenture and IBM, will face tougher competition from specialized and offshore firms over the next two years, says a report just released from AMR Research.”

http://www.idevnews.com/TipsTricks.asp?ID=169

 

TCS inks pact with Stanford

“If there's one problem that could take down India's BPO industry, it is weak data security, which makes foreign players think twice before outsourcing sensitive data work to Indian companies.  That's why Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India's biggest IT player is investing big on data privacy.”

http://www.ndtvprofit.com/homepage/storybusiness.asp?id=29746&template=

 

Economics / Business / Misc.

The Age of Disruption

“We are living in a time when, more than ever before, technology and its impact on society are increasingly disruptive. Never before have we had so much technology-driven change happen so rapidly, with the effect being felt right away instead of over generations or centuries.”

http://www.computerworld.com/managementtopics/management/story/0,10801,108640,00.html?source=x10

 

The Cell Chip's Other Life

“The powerful processor inside Sony's PlayStation 3 has other, less-publicized uses -- among them, telecom, defense, and medicine”

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/feb2006/tc20060208_094930.htm?campaign_id=rss_tech

Thursday, February 16th

"You get what you measure. Measure the wrong thing and you get the wrong behaviors.” -- John H. Lingle

 

The Picks of the Day

Sarbox Takes a Constitutional

“By challenging the constitutionality of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed last week believe that they can spur the courts and Congress to undo the entire Sarbanes-Oxley Act.”

http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/5516686?f=alerts

 

Learning From Toyota – Again

“While U.S. manufacturers in many sectors have used practices from the Toyota Production System (TPS) to boost performance substantially since the mid-'80s, they have used it improperly, experts say. Instead of embracing TPS as an overarching philosophy, they have used it piecemeal as a toolbox. These companies' leaders must revive their strategies to mimic Toyota's in order to compete, which means reversing the popular notion that lean and other TPS-derived concepts are tools to be used selectively to achieve departmental milestones.”

http://www.industryweek.com/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=11301

 

OfficeMax at center of major data-security breach with debit cards

“OfficeMax is the Northern California retailer at the heart of a major data-security breach affecting as many as 200,000 consumers, banking and law-enforcement sources confirmed Monday.”

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/02/14/BUGGQH7QK21.DTL&type=business

 

IT Process Improvement Resource

BECTA’s Configuration Management Page

For ideas on how to implement Configuration Management, be sure to visit:

http://www.becta.org.uk/fits/index.cfm?sect=config&refsect=ntss&bcsect=default

 

Legal and Regulatory Compliance

Compliance: How BearingPoint Lost Its Way

“BearingPoint, a publicly traded company listed on the New York Stock Exchange, with some 15,000 employees and operations in 41 countries, has yet to file financials for the last six months of 2004 and all of 2005-and therefore has so far failed to comply with SarbOx 404 regulations. Also, as a result of its delayed earnings reports, the company is on the brink of being de-listed by the NYSE, according to BearingPoint's own financial statements.”

http://www.baselinemag.com/article2/0,1540,1922841,00.asp

[Thank you for sending this Lisa!]

 

EU Privacy Directive Could Prohibit Information Sharing with U.S. Law Enforcement

“Article 15 outlines requirements for sharing data with third-party states, such as the United States. This is problematic because the EU views U.S. pri­vacy protections as inadequate; thus, the directive would likely prohibit cooperation and information sharing with the United States. Impeding such data exchanges would make fighting the war on terror­ism even more difficult.”

http://www.heritage.org/Research/HomelandDefense/em992.cfm

 

Security and Risk Management

Gates outlines further steps to improve computer security

“Trying to simplify online transactions and make them safer, Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates showed off a tool that manages all the usernames and passwords that people and companies use to unlock the doors of the Internet.”

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/states/california/northern_california/13871331.htm

 

McNealy to tech firms: Clean up your security act

“The digital divide won't get any smaller until technology companies clean up their security act, according to Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy.  Not surprisingly, he offered up a remedy that involved some of Sun's pet initiatives.“

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-6039499.html

 

How to Kill RFID Tags with a Cell Phone

“Shamir and his coworkers used a simple directional antenna to monitor the power consumption of an RFID tag as they transmitted correct and incorrect passwords to the device slowly, one bit at a time.”

http://blog.sciam.com/index.php?title=kill_rfid_by_cell_phone&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

 

RSA Security Conference Coverage is at:

http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/general/0,295582,sid14_gci1165948,00.html?track=NL-347&ad=543271&Offer=SEismprsa

[Thank you Julia!]

 

Human Error / Safety

Integrate strategies for hazard reduction and disaster recovery in the national sustainable development strategy

“The Conference provided a forum for the Government, Aid and Relief Organizations, International Finance and Development bodies, NGOs, Media, Academics and consultants to discuss and appraise management strategies for hazard reduction and disaster recovery. The Conference addressed the broader issues like, disaster reduction and its relationship to sustainable development, international response in general, in an era of globalization and information revolution, community response to disasters, contrasting strategies adopted by countries to meet hazard risks, logistics and management of disasters and research and science/technology intervention for recovery.”

http://www.asiantribune.com/show_news.php?id=17033

 

Outsourcing / Globalization

BPO Firms in India to Expand in Other Countries

“Riding on the wave of the BPO boom has suddenly become tough. Areas of India which were once prospering due to huge investments by companies are now facing competition from countries like Mauritius, Philippines, Malaysia, Canada and Ireland.”

http://news.tmcnet.com/news/2006/02/14/1371260.htm

 

E-Services expo to showcase BPO opportunities

“Entrepreneurs and businessmen thinking of investing in the business process outsourcing (BPO) sector can learn about the opportunities in this industry during e-Services Philippines (ESP) 2006 that will be held on February 16 to 17 at the Edsa Shangri-La, Manila.”

http://www.itnetcentral.com/computerworld/article.asp?id=15551&leveli=0&info=Computerworld

 

Bush battles to fulfill IT demands

“About 67% — that’s $12bn — of the total Indian IT services and business process outsourcing (BPO) exports are accounted for by the US. And if you want the head count, about 35,000 Indian IT professionals are working in the US.”

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1415175.cms

 

Is India still hot for offshoring?

“She adds that India will be "reinventing and extending its leadership" in the IT-ITES sector. ‘We started with a cost-advantage. Then, moved towards quality with many IT companies achieving the SEI-CMM levels. Now, the stress is on innovation,” says Gupta, adding: ‘There’s also a strong business element to the event.’’

http://www.business-standard.com/iceworld/storypage.php?hpFlag=Y&chklogin=N&autono=215202&leftnm=lmnu9&leftindx=9&lselect=0

 

China Joins The World

“It says both something about how the Chinese economy has grown over the past 25 years and how concerned some in the U.S. feel about that, that the U.S. has given notice that it will, in effect, now treat China as a trading partner in much the same way it treats the European Union--i.e., have its lawyers beat up their lawyers over world trade rules.”

http://www.forbes.com/business/2006/02/14/china-US-trade-cx_pm_0214trade.html

 

Economics / Business / Misc.

Continuous Improvement -- Taking A Big-Picture Approach To Lean

“Shipbuilder Northrop Grumman Newport News could serve as a model for U.S. automakers of how far-reaching lean should be.”

http://www.industryweek.com/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=11432&SectionID=1

 

The Inside Story on Company Blogs

“The numbers are downright puny. According to The Fortune 500 Business Blogging Wiki (a list of blogs provided by employees about their companies and products), only 22 of the 500 largest U.S. companies operate public blogs from their executive suites. That amounts to a measly 4.4%. Has the blogging sensation passed corporations by?”

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/feb2006/tc20060214_402499.htm?campaign_id=rss_tech

 

The New Human-Capital Metrics

“The human-resources department is in survival mode. As outsourcing the function becomes a more-prevalent option for companies, HR managers know that if they are going to endure, they have to deliver strategic value, and that value has to be measurable.”

http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/5491043?f=alerts