Only 6% of companies have appointed a Chief Digital Officer to chart a course for digital transformation, according to PwC’s 2015 Chief Digital Officer Study. The problem isn’t the lack of CDOs, but the scarcity of digital leadership. Overhauling an organization for the digital age is a daunting task. This leader must oversee the transition of operations, sales and marketing, systems, and production — along with the internal corporate culture and in some cases the company’s products and services. Some corporations have a CIO or maybe a CMO who is taking charge…

Microsoft is betting on reinventing itself as a cloud company, and the financial results it released Thursday show that its push is paying off despite an overall decline in revenue. Azure revenue rose 127 percent from a year earlier, and sales of Azure Premium Services like Machine Learning were three times higher during the last quarter of 2015 than in the same period of 2014. (Not counting the effects of currency exchange rates.) The company also bragged that more than one-third of the Fortune 500 is using its Enterprise Mobility…

Skepticism remains high among chief technology officers that moving their entire enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to the cloud will be of any real benefit, much less reduce complexity. Although this skepticism remains constant, some companies are finding that noncritical components of their ERP systems benefit significantly from moving to the cloud simply because of reduced costs, but in reality, reducing the complexity of managing an ERP system takes more than simply changing the location of the software used to power the ERP system. Historically, ERP systems have remained on…

We’ve been hearing a steady drumbeat about the Internet of Things (IoT) in 2015, and as we approach the New Year, an expanding array of connected devices is poised to make an incredible impact on the technology landscape. One of the most interesting ways in which the IoT stands ready to influence the realm of business involves a technology that has been around for quite some time and is long past the hype cycle: customer relationship management (CRM). At its annual Dreamforce conference in September, Salesforce.com announced the launch of…

Enterprise resource planning, or ERP, systems are critical to the business operations of many companies, despite their notorious reputation for failed deployments and expensive maintenance plans. ERP is used to track important data — usually related in some way to an organization’s financial performance —across the enterprise. It links departments and gives employees a more insightful view of the company’s operations, ultimately allowing them to make better and faster business decisions. Many ERP systems are deeply entrenched in organizations, and their core technologies are mature — yet, ERP is in…

IBM and the University of Michigan are working on a conversational computing system that will transform human-machine communication. How would you like to have a conversation with your computer to plan your vacation or to do your taxes, or literally hold a discussion with your car about the best way to get home through traffic? Well, if a new project from IBM and the University of Michigan goes as planned, that may not be so far off. Sure, it is possible to “talk” to PCs, cars, smartphones and other devices…