Robert L. Scheier

How often should you test your disaster recovery plans? Some experts say once a year. But to do it right, you have to make it real. Here's how.

When it comes to testing your disaster recovery plans, the best approach is to 'keep it real'. And never assume that everything will go as planned.

Here's good news for CIOs looking to do more with less. Business-process management (BPM) software can pay for itself within a year or two by linking expensive legacy applications to new, more streamlined workflows, customers say.

When Web-based self-service is good, it's really good. Customer satisfaction soars and call center costs plummet as customers answer their own questions, enter their own credit card numbers and change their own passwords without expensive live help.

When Web-based self-service is good, it's really good. Customer satisfaction soars and call centre costs plummet as customers answer their own questions, enter their own credit card numbers and change their own passwords without expensive live help.

It was a calculated risk, upgrading a 1,200-user PeopleSoft system from HP 9000s to less expensive servers from Dell Computer Corp. and from a Sybase Inc. database to Microsoft Corp.'s SQL Server. But Damien Bean, vice president of corporate systems at Hilton Hotels Corp. in Beverly Hills, Calif., came out on top, getting the lower cost and higher performance he wanted.

When a company as big as Wal-Mart talks, everybody listens. When the retailer announced last fall that it would do electronic data interchange (EDI) with suppliers over the Web instead of using value-added networks (VAN), it was a signal that EDI over the Web is ready for heavy-duty corporate use after years of development.

When a company as big as Wal-Mart talks, everybody listens. When the retailer announced in September that it would do electronic data interchange (EDI) with suppliers over the Web instead of using value-added networks (VAN), it was a signal that EDI over the Web is ready for heavy-duty corporate use after years of development.