As many CIOs and IT managers from the UK are being offered positions in South Africa’s burgeoning IT industry (and vice versa), we take a look at some key differences between the two countries’ employment law for those of you considering relocation:    Private sector pensions There is no legal requirement for South African companies to provide any form of retirement scheme f...

  Those of you in the market for a new ERP (enterprise resource planning) system are likely to have heard the term ‘postmodern ERP’ bandied around. While it might sound as if a philosophy professor has infiltrated the IT industry, the term was actually coined by tech research pioneers Gartner to refer to a newer approach that enables businesses to maximise their use of multi...

The vast majority of workplaces have long taken on board the advantages of building a decent team. Studies have shown that groups tend to have a definite edge over individuals when it comes to solving complex problems, but – as any experienced IT manager can attest – there’s a lot more to putting a productive team together than arbitrarily putting people to task. The best on...

The scale of October’s Ddos attack on internet infrastructure provider Dyn came as a nasty wake up call to some in the tech industry, hitting seven out of ten of the world’s most visited sites, from Spotify and Twitter to the New York Times. Not everyone was so surprised, however – cyber security experts have been warning of the risks posed by the rapidly expanding internet ...

With a sizeable proportion of the world’s top firms using IT recruiters to find interim and permanent employees for their most senior positions, it’s becoming more and more important for candidates to be able to work with them as effectively as possible. Building a decent relationship with a top recruiter is worth the effort for experienced professionals as well as those at ...

The emergence of ‘data lakes’ has been all over the tech press over the last six months. As the interest in big data methods gains traction, it’s a concept data and analytics professionals need to be able to accurately explain to customers, with many non_IT specialists unsure about what the term really means. The person who coined the term, Pentaho CIO James Dixon, compares ...

The higher up the IT career ladder you climb, the more likely it is you’ll be going for positions in further flung locations. Gone are the days of flying out to meet potential employers in person – these days the odds are you’ll be put through your paces via a Skype or Google Hangout video interview, especially at earlier stages of the process. It’s important to remember tha...

Nothing has got tech insiders quite so animated in the last year or so as the predicted explosion of the Internet of things. Market forecasts have become increasingly ambitious: 50 billion devices connected by 2020 according to Cisco; more than 250 million cars connected within the next four years if you believe AT&T; the heads at McKinsey think the market will be worth up t...

As any successful IT manager can attest, there’s a lot more to effective delegation than just doling out work to your subordinates. Get this skill right, and you’ll have a happier team and a stronger department where every member’s skills and competencies are being maximised, as well as giving yourself more time to think about ‘big picture’ issues. Get it wrong, and you coul...

You may have noticed that the most successful IT professionals you know are not necessarily the whizziest of the bunch when it comes to technical knowhow, but have a noticeable ability to effectively communicate the most complex of IT concepts to their non-techie colleagues. You might be able to talk IP protocols and the intricacies of SDN deployments with the best of them, ...