http://pietersz.net/Make the right choices, manage your IT betterenContents © 2026 <a href="mailto:graeme@pietersz.net">Graeme Pietersz</a> Wed, 17 Jun 2026 17:27:34 GMTNikola (getnikola.com)http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rsshttp://pietersz.net/posts/tech-business/Graeme Pietersz<div><p>Many years ago the CEO of a large transport company <a class="brackets" href="http://pietersz.net/posts/tech-business/#footnote-1" id="footnote-reference-1" role="doc-noteref"><span class="fn-bracket">[</span>1<span class="fn-bracket">]</span></a> told me that he regarded their IT as a key competitive advantage. IT should be a vital part of reducing costs, or improving the product or service, or generating leads in almost any business. What opportunities do you have to make technology a competitive advantage?</p> <p><a href="http://pietersz.net/posts/tech-business/">Read more…</a> (2 min remaining to read)</p></div>strategyusphttp://pietersz.net/posts/tech-business/Mon, 10 Feb 2020 15:44:29 GMThttp://pietersz.net/posts/code-quality-problems/Graeme Pietersz<div><p>I am very much an advocates of developing custom systems in pursuit of productivity and competitive advantage, but in this post I am discussing one of the draw backs of doing so. In fact, most businesses rely on custom code in some form or another, but do not really realise it.</p> <p><a href="http://pietersz.net/posts/code-quality-problems/">Read more…</a> (2 min remaining to read)</p></div>costplanningstraegyhttp://pietersz.net/posts/code-quality-problems/Mon, 27 Jan 2020 17:30:35 GMThttp://pietersz.net/posts/web-success-failure/Graeme Pietersz<figure><img src="http://pietersz.net/images/background.png"></figure> <div><p>What makes a web site (or a web app) a success or a failure? Having seen a lot of successes and failures I find there are a few common types of business website that have different risks and determinants of success:</p> <p><a href="http://pietersz.net/posts/web-success-failure/">Read more…</a> (6 min remaining to read)</p></div>strategyusabilitywebhttp://pietersz.net/posts/web-success-failure/Wed, 18 Sep 2019 13:52:11 GMThttp://pietersz.net/posts/whats-your-disaster-recover-plan/Graeme Pietersz<div><p>A business can be destroyed by losing its data. I have known even losing the data on a single person's hard drive to be very expensive, and losing your servers can be much worse. You need to think about backups, continuity, hardware. I have taken a server out of a bomb blasted building and it worked - but it might not have.</p> <p><a href="http://pietersz.net/posts/whats-your-disaster-recover-plan/">Read more…</a> (1 min remaining to read)</p></div>backupsclouddisasterplanninghttp://pietersz.net/posts/whats-your-disaster-recover-plan/Thu, 13 Jun 2019 04:01:43 GMThttp://pietersz.net/posts/technical-debt-from-a-business-perspective/Graeme Pietersz<div><p>Technical debt tends to be talked about, and worried about, more by developers than by those running a business or looking after its finance. The problem is that not taking it into account <strong>will</strong> lead to bad decisions.</p> <p><a href="http://pietersz.net/posts/technical-debt-from-a-business-perspective/">Read more…</a> (3 min remaining to read)</p></div>costfinanceliabilitiesstrategyhttp://pietersz.net/posts/technical-debt-from-a-business-perspective/Tue, 16 Apr 2019 17:41:40 GMThttp://pietersz.net/posts/ugly-website/Graeme Pietersz<div><p>Most people (out side the industry anyway) assume that web sites should look good, and an aesthetically good website will produce better results than an ugly one. This is not true, and many of the things that make a website look good will tend to make it worse for users.</p> <p><a href="http://pietersz.net/posts/ugly-website/">Read more…</a> (3 min remaining to read)</p></div>designuiusabilitywebhttp://pietersz.net/posts/ugly-website/Tue, 19 Mar 2019 10:35:42 GMThttp://pietersz.net/posts/problem-saas/Graeme Pietersz<div><p>SaaS (software as a service) is extremely popular right now, and it can solve a lot of problems. It means someone else takes responsibility for maintenance and security. Of course nothing is ever <em>that</em> easy a win.</p> <p>So, what are the problems? Our experience is that there are three, two of which are closely linked:</p> <p><a href="http://pietersz.net/posts/problem-saas/">Read more…</a> (4 min remaining to read)</p></div>cloudcostcustom softwarefinanceopen sourcesaashttp://pietersz.net/posts/problem-saas/Thu, 14 Mar 2019 19:25:46 GMT