$50 Billion Saved Through Sourcing

According to a survey conducted by TPI, the leading global sourcing advisory firm, companies have reduced their spend on IT services and business transformation by almost one fifth by turning to outsourcers, thus saving $50 bn. The firm surveyed 120 companies it had advised on sourcing over the last five years. TPI found its clients saved on average more than 33 per cent. After one-time and ongoing management expenses, the savings averaged more than 17 per cent. According to TPI chairman and CEO Michael Connors the majority of businesses, 60 per cent, said that reducing costs was “their number one reason for implementing sourcing strategies”.

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$50 Billion Saved Through Sourcing


How to Add / Manage Custom Fields | Vision Helpdesk Video Tutorials

Custom fields allows you to extend helpdesk forms with additional fields. Vision Helpdesk make custom field addition simple with its advance custom field addition mechanism — For adding custom fields you are absolutely not required to have any programming knowledge. Example Vision helpdesk allows you to add custom fields while operations like – User Registration User Ticket Create Staff Ticket Create

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How to Add / Manage Custom Fields | Vision Helpdesk Video Tutorials


Ticket Status | Flags | Priority | Vision Helpdesk Video Tutorials

Below video shows how to create and manage Ticket Status, Flags and Priorities in Vision Helpdesk. Ticket Statuses To make ticket categorization simple Vision Helpdesk uses ticket status. Each ticket has a status example (Open, Awating and Close ) Admin can create custom ticket statuses for his or her own convenience. Each status has a meaning – like Open indicates issues is unresolved, Awaiting — Staff has replied to ticket and waiting for clients answer and Close — Issues is resolved

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Ticket Status | Flags | Priority | Vision Helpdesk Video Tutorials


SMTP Settings | Vision Helpdesk Video Tutorials

Your server does not support PHP mail() function ? don’t worry Vision Helpdesk allows you to choose alternate SMTP server to send email reply’s to your clients. By default Vision Helpdesk uses PHP mail() function to send email reply to client tickets, for some reason you want alternate method to send outgoing emails then you can setup SMTP settings in Settings Tab > > Preferences > > SMTP This SMTP setting allows Vision Helpdesk to bypass the PHP mail() function and send email directly to an SMTP server.

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SMTP Settings | Vision Helpdesk Video Tutorials


Admin Access | Vision Helpdesk Video Tutorials

Vision Helpdesk offers extremely flexible, fine-grained privilege system it is categorized  in to three main categories – Super Admin There is only one super admin in vision helpdesk system that has a complete access to system. Domain Admin Domain Admin is a staff that has admin access to particular domain.

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Admin Access | Vision Helpdesk Video Tutorials


Staff Access | Vision Helpdesk Video Tutorials

The major challange while designing  satellite helpdesk was creating a logical seperation between multiple company data and on top of it an access control system that will allocate/restrict privileges to staff. Vision Helpdesk offers extremely flexible, fine-grained privilege system it is categorized  in to three main categories – Vision Helpdesk Staff Access Control System Super Admin There is only one super admin in vision helpdesk system that has a complete access to system. Domain Admin Domain Admin is a staff that has admin access to particular domain. Domain Admin is created by Super Admin. Staff User Staff users can be created by domain admin and super admin

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Staff Access | Vision Helpdesk Video Tutorials


japanese health care

The Japan America Society of Chicago sponsored this event SOME ADVICE ON HEALTH REFORM FROM THE WORLD’S HEALTHIEST PEOPLE – THE JAPANESE featuring Prof. Greg Kasza of Indiana University.  Greg talked about 3 facets of health care in Japan: features of the health care system it’s a universal & mandatory public health insurance system out

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japanese health care


global branding & marketing from Interpro

The Chicagoland Chamber hosted a program organized by Interpro Translation Solutions:  How to Brand & Market Your Business Globally. Here are the presentations they gave.  Tom Earll of Nexus Business Solutions pretty much just read his presentation, so check that out there.  John Schwartz of Aumne added these tidbits to his presentation: every department should

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global branding & marketing from Interpro


Groupon buys into 18 European countries

I caught with interest this little diddy in the Chicago Tribune  Groupon expands by acquiring Citydeal of Europe Hat’s off to a Chicago tech company making a bold move to go after markets outside of the U.S.  It’s mind-boggling that both of these companies are less than 2 years old & are already $B companies.

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Groupon buys into 18 European countries


Vertical IT Spending to Go Upwards

According to a new report from IT research and advisory firm Gartner, IT spending across all industry markets is forecast to exceed $2.4 trillion in 2010, an increase of 4.1% compared to same period last year, with banking and financial industries leading the way. Government agencies and health care providers are also expected to boost their IT this year. The report says that IT spending by banking and financial industries will grow by 4.6% to $396.9bn in 2010, while total IT spending by communications media and services market is expected to reach $394.2bn, marking a 4.4% increase from the previous year. National and international government will show the strongest growth in 2010, with an increase of 6.2% in IT spending. Manufacturing and natural resources, and wholesale trade will experience the weakest growth through 2014, growing at 2009-2014 CAGRs of 3.0% and 3.1%, respectively

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Vertical IT Spending to Go Upwards


German Consul General on the fall of the wall 20 years later

The Niagara Foundation hosted another luncheon speech, featuring Onno Hückmann, Counsel General of Germany in Chicago, who spoke about the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years after the fact.  He still considers it a miracle that such a radical change occurred with the use of no military force.  He also noted it was the

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German Consul General on the fall of the wall 20 years later


new middle class key to islamic capitalism

The Chicago Council on Global Affairs sponsored this event THE RISE OF ISLAMIC CAPITALISM: WHY THE NEW MIDDLE CLASS IS KEY TO DEFEATING EXTREMISM featuring Vali Nasr @ Tufts U.  Here’s what he had to say: Is changing religion necessary for Islamic reform?  If so, does everything else change too?  Nasr is not convinced.  Early

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new middle class key to islamic capitalism


European IT Services Market Growth

According to a recent report provided by the International Data Corporation (IDC), the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets, demand for IT services is anticipated to grow by 2.2 per cent for the year 2011, with IT outsourcing being the main driver behind this.

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European IT Services Market Growth


US-Poland Bio Business Forum

The Polish American Chamber of Commerce in partnership with the Lifescience Cluster in Krakow & Depaul University put on the US-Poland Bio Business Forum, which provided a good update on what’s going on in biotechnology in Poland. Zbigniew Kubacki, Minister Counselor Head of Trade & Investment section @ the Embassy of Poland in Washington, D.C.

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US-Poland Bio Business Forum


Healthy Growth of BI Market

According to a new report from market research firm Gartner, Inc., the business intelligence software market was one of the segments that significantly outperformed the overall enterprise software market in 2009. The study revealed that the worldwide market for business intelligence, analytic applications and performance management software saw revenues exceed $9.3 billion last year, a rise of more than four per cent compared with 2008 revenues of $8.9billion. “Even though growth was nowhere near the levels of 2008, and by no means immune to the recession, BI showed that it is not as cyclical as many other software areas, recording healthy growth in one of the toughest years recorded in software history,” said Dan Sommer, a senior research analyst at Gartner. BI was one area of IT that businesses were not prepared to push aside due to cost pressures. Mr.

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Healthy Growth of BI Market


Freelance Writing: Become a Specialist

There are two types of writers out there — generalists and specialists. Generalists will write about any topic and specialists write mainly (and sometimes exclusively) about the topic or subject that they know best. No matter how you make your freelance writing dollars — through applying for work, marketing, networking, bidding …

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Freelance Writing: Become a Specialist


Project Rescue: How to Save a Sinking Ship

Recognizing that your ship is sinking – that your project is over budget, and/or way off schedule – is the first and often hardest step, but once you recognize that you have a problem, how do you bail out and get back on track? Iceberg Classification You may be asking yourself, We’re …

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Project Rescue: How to Save a Sinking Ship


oDesk Lends a Helping Hand to Vator Splash Finalists

Last week we were privileged to be able to attend the Vator Splash competition in San Francisco which was put on by the folks at Vator.tv. Vator is a leading platform for innovators and entrepreneurs to broadcast themselves, and a provider of news and information through VatorNews. The event gave …

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oDesk Lends a Helping Hand to Vator Splash Finalists


iPad: Anatomy of a Tech Failure

Courtesy of Apple

[/caption] The much anticipated release of Apple’s tablet has left many making off-color jokes and scratching their heads, wondering, “How the $%&! did that happen?” Its easy to point and laugh, but the iPad is already joining the elite league of …

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iPad: Anatomy of a Tech Failure


Happy Freelancing — How to Know When You and the Client Are Not a Good Fit

In freelancing — much like in conventional careers — there will be times when you and the people paying your salary are just not a good match. While being half a world away from a difficult client may give you an advantage over an employee who works 10 feet from the boss …

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Happy Freelancing — How to Know When You and the Client Are Not a Good Fit


Planned outages – February 13-14, 2010

oDesk will be switching datacenters on Saturday February 13, 2010 beginning 10:00AM PST (18:00 GMT/UTC). We’re making the change to enhance our hardware, increase capacity and improve uptime. During the datacenter migration oDesk.com and its services will be unavailable.

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Planned outages – February 13-14, 2010