Entries by Ross Dawson

Seven MegaTrends of Professional Services – #5 Modularization

Download the complete White Paper: The Seven MegaTrends of Professional Services Continued from #4 Transparency. Full table of contents below. MegaTrend Five: Modularization One of the most important, yet least visible, implications of the current phase of information technology is the ability to break down business processes and activities into their components. Web services is […]

The future of blogging

The latest issue of BusinessWeek has an interesting interview with Mena Trott of Six Apart, the company that provides the software on which this blog is based, on the future of the blog. Some of the interesting issues raised include how blogging has brought a more personal tone to mainstream journalism, images, audio, and video […]

Seven MegaTrends of Professional Services – #4 Transparency

Download the complete White Paper: The Seven MegaTrends of Professional Services Continued from Connectivity. Full table of contents below. MegaTrend Four: Transparency On October 25, 2004, the board of directors of financial services conglomerate Marsh & McLennan announced “significant reforms to the business model… which will be rooted in transparency.” The controversy on the payments […]

Doing microfinance well

Following on from my story from last November, Microcredit gains momentum, the leading Indian microfinance institution SKS India has launched a great new website, driven by Chris Turillo, who is in Hyderabad after acting as business development manager for my US partner organization Business Development Institute. The website provides details on the lending methodology SKS […]

Seven MegaTrends of Professional Services – #3 Connectivity

Download the complete White Paper: The Seven MegaTrends of Professional Services Continued from #2 Governance. Full table of contents below. MegaTrend Three: Connectivity As we bustle about with Blackberries, mobile phones, WiFi laptops, and for the novelty seekers sometimes an entire armful of devices, we can now consider ourselves connected. Aside from when they’re out […]

Mashups and Edgeio give power to the edge

In web parlance, a “mashup” is a computer application that brings together elements of other applications. One of the key concepts behind it is that of APIs (application program interfaces), a term that is increasingly hard to avoid seeing. An API basically defines how other programmers can access a particular application. When Google first published […]

Seven MegaTrends of Professional Services – #2 Governance

Download the complete White Paper: The Seven MegaTrends of Professional Services Continued from #1 – Client Sophistication. Full table of contents below. MegaTrend Two: Governance The cowboy days are over. In the space of a couple of years at the beginning of the century, the business world shifted dramatically. Enron, WorldCom, Arthur Andersen, and similar […]

10 Trends for 2006+

My colleague Richard Watson, who among other claims to fame runs the fabulous NowandNext site, has just come out with what will be an annual report. 2006+ 10 Trends: Predictions & Provocations is through Richard’s generosity available here as a free download (usually £35), and Richard is allowing any use of his material with acknowledgement. […]

The Seven MegaTrends of Professional Services – #1 Client Sophistication

Download the complete White Paper: The Seven MegaTrends of Professional Services Continued from Introduction. Full table of contents below. MegaTrend One: Client Sophistication What do you prefer? A sophisticated client, or an unsophisticated one? It’s an interesting issue to debate with professionals. Some say they like unsophisticated clients, because, as they usually express a little […]

The Seven MegaTrends of Professional Services – Introduction

Around six months ago, I wrote a White Paper for the enterprise software company Epicor titled “The Seven MegaTrends of Professional Services: The Forces That Are Transforming Professional Services Industries and How To Respond”. The paper has attracted a huge amount of interest, however up until now, it has only been available on sites requiring […]