Over the past few days, when you picked up your copy of the Globe, the Herald, the Boston Business Journal, or the Wall Street Journal New England edition, you may have found interesting reading in an advertorial that describes how Microsoft is protecting personal privacy online.  Consumer concern over privacy has long been a difficult barrier for businesses operating online, and Microsoft has been a leader in working to strengthen online privacy and security.   For their part, businesses have been concerned about the accidental loss or theft of customer data, and the built-in features of Windows Vista are going a long way toward protecting that personal information from hackers or thieves.  

At the same time that Microsoft is helping shape these kinds of security initiatives, we’re also working to help businesses meet the challenges presented by the current national economy.  Interestingly, CIOs are telling us that they find themselves in an even more crucial position within their companies during times like these.  Top-level management tends to rely on technology to remove inefficiencies in business processes and ensure that the company gets the best prices from vendors.  The often CIO becomes the point person for making this happen.

AMR Research recently issued some advice in a paper called “Tactical Tips for CIOs in Uncertain Economic Times.”  Its recommendations included centralizing the vendor management function, employing IT to get a view of all vendors across all departments to identify redundancies and to look for opportunities to get better pricing by combining orders.  Other recommendations centered on consolidating vendors and contracting with overseas vendors in lower-cost nations, again to gain price reductions.

While helping structure the company to get the best deals from the right vendors, CIOs also should look inward at their IT infrastructure to produce efficiencies.  Last week, I met with 38 Microsoft partners at our Waltham office, and they tell me that their business customers are increasingly focused on what Microsoft calls business productivity infrastructure optimization, or BPIO.  This is actually a process of mapping out the way customers use their IT infrastructure and providing guidance to help them to realize the full value of their technology investments.  BPIO looks at three areas:

·         Unified communications and collaboration to protect companies from unauthorized access and to provide mobility and integrated communication

·         Enterprise content management to help manage information and processes with forms, documents, records and Web-content management technology

·         Business intelligence, incorporating reporting, analysis, scorecards, dashboards, data mining and other techniques.

Partners should be prepared to help businesses examine and improve the way they handle these technology areas, especially in difficult economic times. Companies are expecting to revisit pricing structures with their vendors, as recommended by AMR, while their own customers and suppliers are looking at costs and inventories as well.  BPIO can help businesses keep costs down by becoming more efficient, spot market changes that they can leverage, and respond to the marketplace more rapidly.

As businesses look closely at where they will invest their IT dollars going forward, AMR reports that, strategically, the following areas will be the most important for companies in the coming months:

·         Customer management

·         ERP

·         Governance, risk management and compliance

·         Business intelligence and performance management

Microsoft Dynamics products are built around precisely these areas of operation, so customers in the Northeast can find the advice and technology they need to thrive in the current economy by contacting a Microsoft partner who is ready to help them uncover new levels of efficiency and cost savings.