KiteBlue

That old, old story...

The debate around whether IT does or doesn't matter has been around for some years now. Jyoti Banerjee asks if there is anything more to be said.

It is possible that there is nothing more to be said till we can have some startling new evidence that swings the case for or against the business performance of IT. It is also possible that the analyst community is bored out of its brains on this one. But every month I meet end-user organisations that are asking themselves this question one more time. Or even for the first time.

Next month Nick Carr and Bob McDowell will be debating exactly this issue in London, rather as they have in a number of locations in the US. And it is my privilege (?) to chair the debate between them.

Laying down regulatory burdens

As far as business is concerned, regulation of any sort is a burden. How burdensome is the burden, asks Jyoti Banerjee? And what should government be doing about the burden?

The burden of regulation shows itself in three ways.

One, business carries the burden of much of the interchange between government and its citizens, whether processing tax, tax credits, maternity pay or even alimony payments. This represents an administrative cost on businesses for the privilege of being employers.

There is a separate regulatory burden that comes from meeting government policies that relate to public safety, correction of market failures or the promotion of a fair business environment. This is usually referred to as the policy cost of regulation.

Finally, there is a cost borne by business that relates to the policy cost – this is the administrative cost of complying with policies: getting to know the policies, keeping records on policy issues, reporting on compliance, and costs relating to government inspection and enforcement.

Getting around is expensive

Are you working with or about to hire a consulting services firm? Find out how much they are spending on their travel expenses in this guest blog from Brian Sommer. UK readers must wonder at how much our Treasure Island status (read expensive everything) translates into travel expenses on our side of the pond.

My friend and colleague, Vinnie Mirchandani, loves to advise buyers of software and services. It’s what he does for a living. Vinnie has bent my ear on more than one occasion when he speaks of the high overhead costs of major systems integrators, consultants, outsourcers and software vendors. Vinnie hates seeing waste and he’ll likely have some interesting remarks related to this blog posting.

Business Travel News published its annual Corporate Travel 100 special edition this month (August 2006). It ranks the top 100 buyers of air travel in the United States. Each of these companies is profiled with many profiles identifying the net change in travel spend year over year, the best practices each firm is employing and how many employees are currently participating in these programs. Sadly, the data is not complete or consistent for all of these firms.

Counting the uncountable

How many M organisations are there in the UK? Jyoti Banerjee ventures an estimate.

In a recent blog, Philip Woodgate opines that that there are 26,000 medium organisations, out of an SME population of 4.3m altogether.

Question: Is Philip right?

To answer that question, we need to ask what a medium enterprise is. How do we identify one that we can count it? The trouble is that different definitions give us different answers to the question of how many M enterprises are out there. But right at the outset, let me commend Philip for taking on the challenge of figuring out how many there are.

Size definitions
The commonest definitions of medium organisations have to do with numerical boundaries. The measure used in UK government circles is based on employment with a small business defined as up to 49 people, and a medium business as up to 249, though account is also taken of annual turnover and asset values.