Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX)Resource Compliance Kit
Mandated Requirements
The SOX kit contains all of the tools that are need to comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation. This tool kit has been used successfully by over 500 publicly traded companies.
ITIL and "Best Practices" are no longer sufficient to conform to the Sarbanes Oxley and COBIT requirements. There are many products on the market that claim they can track changes, that they can control/manage changes or that they can audit the use of products and the changes made to systems.
Almost all of the Change Management products are either "Electronic Paper" (i.e. they cannot prevent unauthorized changes from being made) or they react after the event based on cyclic comparisons of the various data sets. The time between the cyclic comparisons is an open door for anyone trying to manipulate the systems, and paper based systems offer no protection at all.
Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404 requires that:
- Enterprises have an enterprise wide security policy;
- Enterprises have enterprise wide classification of data for security, risk, and business impact;
- Enterprises have security related standards and procedures;
- Enterprises have formal security based documentation, auditing, and testing in place;
- Enterprise enforce separation of duties; and
- Enterprises have policies and procedures in place for Change Management, Help Desk, Service Requests, and changes to applications, policies, and procedures.
To meet these needs the Sarbanes Oxley Kit, which comes in four editions (Standard, Silver, Gold, and Platinum) contains:
- Security Policies (all editions);
- Threat & Vulnerability Assessment Tool (all editions);
- Business & IT Impact Questionnaire Risk Assessment Tool (all editions);
- Safety Program Template (all editions);
- Disaster Recovery Template (all editions);
- Outsourcing guide update to reflect what you vendors need to do (all editions);
- Software tool to monitor key data files (all editions);
- Internet and IT Job Descriptions (Silver, Gold, and Platinum Editions) and;
- IT Service Management Template (Platinum Edition).
The tools provided in these kits address not only the needs of Sarbanes-Oxley, COBIT and ISO -- they also provide a vehicle to comply with the IT Governance requirements.
Security Manual
The plan is 178 pages and includes everything needed to customize the Internet and Information Technology Security Manual to fit your specific requirement. The electronic document includes proven written text and examples for your security plan.
Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP)
This Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) can be used as a template for any enterprise. DRP is sent to you via e-mail in WORD and/or PDF format. Included is a 13 page Business Impact Questionnaire as well as a 3 page Job Description for the Disaster Recovery Manager.
220 Internet and IT Job Descriptions
The 220 Internet and IT Position Descriptions are in Word for Windows format. Includes positions from CIO and CTO to Wireless and Metrics Managers.
The IT Service Management Template
The IT Service Management Template contains policies, standards, procedures and metrics for Change Control, Help Desk and Service Request processing. ITSM template also contains several easy to implement forms and conforms with ITIL.
Practical Guide for IT Outsourcing
The guide is 91 packed pages and includes everything needed to plan for, negotiate, and manage an outsourcing process within an enterprise.
Safety Program Template
The plan is 60 pages and includes everything needed to customize the Safety Program to fit your specific requirement. The Safety was updated in December of 2004 and reflects the latest issues associated with the most recent legislation (Sarbanes Oxley).
CIO - CTO - CSO News
Cloud Process Benefits Defined
The benefits that that come from Cloud Processing and the associated infrastructure transformation include:
- Improvement in application performance
- Hardware reduction
- Reduce system administration overhead
- Reduce carbon footprint
- Power savings
- Savings in software licenses
- Faster job submissions
- Downtime avoidance
- Reduce compliance and ISO 9001 validation time
- Single path to support
- Warranty savings
Janco also points to other less tangible advantages that cloud processing achieves, such as: higher employee productivity, better performance across its infrastructure and avoided costs of outages. Additional savings and efficiencies, such as from virtualization, casn be expected as the cloud process continues to expand.
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Firefox releases 4.0 Beta
Mozilla has launched the fourth beta of Firefox 4, adding bookmark and password synchronization, and revamping how people wrestle tabs.
The latest build supports the first attempt at accelerating Firefox 4's page rendering by tapping the graphics processor. The hardware acceleration, available only in Windows Vista and Windows 7, is disabled by default.
Trends in Browser Market Share
Firefox 4 Beta 4's most visible addition is "Panorama," a new name for what Mozilla had been calling "Tab Candy." Largely driven by the work of Aza Raskin, creative lead of Firefox, Panorama lets users collect tabs into sets, graphically displays those sets, and when users open a tab, shows only those tabs within the group.
Mozilla, which calls Panorama a tab manager, has argued that it's the next step in the evolution of tabs.
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Windows 7 takes off
Windows 7 is success
A major finding in the report is that Microsoft's new Operating System, Windows 7 has 17.39% of the OS market less than 13 months after its availability. That is a major factor in Microsoft's improved record earnings. Janulaitis said, "The last time that an OS was accepted as quickly the market was XP. Vista's market share has peaked and is in the process of being decommissioned in most enterprises."
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New IT Metrics Program and Benchmark Program
Most IT Managers understand the importance of collecting, reporting and acting on performance metrics, but few put this knowledge into action in a meaningful way. Our partners at Janco Associates' recommend that all IT organizations develop and maintain a metrics program by focusing on simple metrics that address specific business issues like spending and staffing justification or performance improvement.
To help you identify and launch a metrics program that is meaningful to your specific business, Info-Tech has assembled the Metrics for the Internet, Information Technology, and Service Management HandiGuide. It is a collection of metric reports and tools designed to get your IT team's metrics program up and running quickly and easily. You will be given simple steps to creating a metrics program including the most important step: How to act on the results and improve IT performance to better serve the business.
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Mainframes and server farms are sources of productivity improvements
In the post-recession environment, the demand and supply mismatch between IT departments and the businesses they serve is growing. Business demands on IT are increasing while IT budgets have been cut.
The needs that IT can't address as a supplier, it can address through other means. CIO can be a facilitators connecting the business units to the services they need, whether internally or externally, such as from a cloud or software-as-a-service provider.
IT is becoming more responsive, not because it can do more, but because it can acknowledge and help the business with more of their operationals needs. Productivity levels have improved
The path to value is taking some familiar and some new directions while also running into age-old issues.
Company have saved millions, mostly in cost savings, by putting new applications into a mainframe and on stand-alone servers environmens. The savings came from the smaller physical footprint, reduced cooling and power needs, and reductions in networking and systems administration work.
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Social networks hinder productivity
Social networks had already surpassed e-mail use among American Internet users. But according to a Nielsen Co. survey, online gaming is now also more popular that e-mail.
According to the Nielsen survey, Americans today are spending nearly a quarter of their online time posting comments, pictures and video on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, making it the most popular online activity among Americans.
Online gaming is the second most popular online activity, accounting for 10% of online use, while e-mail ranks third at 8.3%. In a survey completed in June, 2009, e-mail was the second most popular online activity, accounting for 11.5% of Inernet activity.
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Workforce mobility a productivity issue for CIOs
Part of the CIO's job is to support maximum productivity by choosing appropriate infrastructure for laptops and other devices to meet the individualized needs of
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- Outstanding security and network accessibility
- Simple, intuitive systems and data management tools
- A streamlined process for backing up critical data
- Smooth transitions when changing hardware or software
Good metrics improve performance
When valid metrics are used, performance improves. Janco has found that these six rules need to be followed.
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- Select metrics that relate directly to the factor that you want performance improved on
- Have at least four but not more than six metrics that are focused on a particular performance factor
- Set minimums and maximum values for each metric before you start
- Base metrics on at least two months of trend data
- Have metrics that are both leading and lagging indicators
- Set targets where actions will be taken when those thresholds are crossed
Service-Oriented Architecture and IT Service Management Are Keys To Success in the Recovery
SOA and ITSM drive success and productivity
One bad customer experience can cost you that customer for life. Hospitality, travel, retail, healthcare, and financial services are especially prone to losing customers who have a negative experience. It does not take much for a customer to decide that you and your company are not worth his time, effort, or money.
Customers like to feel loved, and they are turned off very quickly when they sense that you do not care about the pain they are feeling. Even if you cannot help them because the situation is beyond your control, acknowledge that you understand both the situation and their frustration.
No customer wants the person serving her to be distracted or preoccupied. Ever go to the local mall and try to get help from a teenager focused more on texting her friends than helping you find what youre looking for? On the other hand, being too focused can be a bad thing. Have you ever asked an innocent question out of curiosity and then found yourself stuck for an eternity while a customer support person hunts endlessly for an answer? This person is likely so focused on getting the answer that he does not realize that you really do not care that much about it and would rather not wait for an answer to an inessential question. Be sure your people understand the degree of focus required for the job.
Even if the employee has the right skill set and experience, his odds of being successful and remaining on the job are low if his core behaviors and tendencies do not line up with those needed for success in that particular role. This is especially true for customer-facing roles in which your frontline employees act as extensions of your brand and heavily influence the customer experience.
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