Making Sure the Right Experts are Involved in Decision-Making
9th February 2016

Decision-making within the workplace is often a complex and drawn-out process. There can be multiple moving parts, conflicting stakeholder interests to consider, and interpersonal issues as well as technical and practical considerations. Identifying the right people to be involved in decision-making can also be a challenge. It can be difficult not to listen to those who shout the loudest, but to identify those have the expertise to assess the decision in hand. Sally Roberts discusses decision-making, how identifying experts and having the right documentation in place can help support this process, and how to create a constructive meeting room environment to aid decision-making. In particular, we look at decisions about the replacement of IT systems.

Read

Making the Most of Business Information to Win Work
9th February 2016

How can business intelligence aid business development? Milan Dalal of the Brook Intelligence Centre explains the role of business intelligence in areas from marketing to competitor awareness and new market entry.

Read

Product Review of EBSCO Discovery Service (Introduction; Key Advantages; Contact Details)
8th February 2016

EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS) is premium content supplier EBSCO's world-leading tool for searching across all an information centre's resources. In the first part of the review, our researcher, Sophie Alexander, introduces its work with partners, clients and sums up how it provides value to organisations.

Note: Full review (PDF) at /go/sub/report/2620

Read

Working with People Who Think Fundamentally Differently to You
29th January 2016

Collaborative intelligence can provide a useful guide to understanding how we and our colleagues handle and process information, going a long way to understanding how they "think" and to building better relationships. Scott Vine explains how this can be useful when working with peers in the IT department.

Read

Make It Easy for IT Colleagues to Work With You
29th January 2016

How can end-users better communicate IT problems such as bugs, feature requests or a need for additional training or help? Robin Neidorf reports on useful tips she learnt from Jennifer and Ben Summers of Haplo Services, and how it's changed her approach to communicating with IT colleagues.

Read

Product Review of Research Monitor (Value - Help & Training; Competitors; Development; Pricing)
29th January 2016

Concluding our product review of Research Monitor, Euromonitor's entry level business reference database, Sophie Alexander looks at its competitors including MarketLine's Advantage, Key Note, Bureau van Dijk's FAME, and Euromonitor's own Passport database. She also covers planned developments and pricing.

Note: Full review (PDF) at /go/sub/report/2612

Read

Mini Review of Bloomberg Law App
29th January 2016

Continuing FreePint's collection of reviews of apps for legal research, John DiGilio looks at the Bloomberg Law app for iOS and Android devices. He considers elements such as ease of use, search, results presentation, standalone access and value and concludes that in designing its own mobile offering, Bloomberg BNA has taken a different route from its competitors, such as Westlaw, Nexis, HeinOnline and Fastcase.

Read

How Do You Ensure the Best Possible Relationship With Your IT Department?
28th January 2016

Building good working relationships between the information centre and IT department can be challenging. Tina Reynolds shares her tips for gaining mutual understanding, making expectations clear on both sides, and evolving a better appreciation of departmental and organisation-wide pressures and deadlines.

Read

Product Review of Research Monitor (Technology - Search & User Interface; Outputs & Alerts; Administration)
28th January 2016

We look at the technology behind Research Monitor, Euromonitor's entry level business reference database. In the third part of the review, Sophie Alexander describes how to search cross-comparable country and subject data. She details the range of countries, industries and data available to search across, languages, how to filter results, and provides examples of content available in the database.

Note: Full review (PDF) at /go/sub/report/2612

Read

Product Review of Key Note (Value - Help & Training; Competitors; Development; Pricing)
27th January 2016

Concluding our product review of Key Note, UK publisher of comprehensive and reputable UK market research, industry reports and company data, Sophie Alexander looks at competitors including IBISWorld, Mintel and FAME, plus Key Note product developments and pricing.

Note: Full review (PDF) at /go/sub/report/2611

Read