Office Business Applications

Abstract

It is sometimes difficult to remember the corporate office of the recent past. Think back 5 or maybe 10 years. For many of us, that isn’t long ago. However, from a technology perspective, we are talking about an era that might seem as distant as the dark ages. Sure, personal computing was taking off and the Internet was in its infancy. Not every company had a web site, and the average business user in a corporate office had very little exposure to the technologies that seem commonplace today. Remember when only the technically proficient used spreadsheets? Remember when email was a productivity tool and didn’t require labor-intensive filing and sorting? This trip down memory lane lends some perspective as to how far workers have come to embrace the technology solutions IT offers. Unfortunately, the amount of information that workers have to interact with increases daily, as does the proliferation of often-siloed software systems trying to provide work-related solutions. Today, many organizations find themselves in a state where information and labor are duplicated. Often, workers take more time finding and constructing information than analyzing it and making decisions. It is here that technology has an opportunity. The opportunity is to provide more-intelligent tools that focus on the work the corporate business user needs to accomplish. It is in this area that this book will explore common challenges and scenarios and their solutions.