The first wave of green IT solutions failed to make sustainability benefits tangible, according to the most comprehensive assessment of the sector to date by independent research firm Verdantix.

But innovative IT sustainability solutions - just released into the market or on the horizon for 2010 - will quickly demonstrate the technology sector’s role in supporting corporate sustainability strategies.

Verdantix director and IT industry veteran David Metcalfe said: “Sustainability and green IT became mainstream business issues in 2007. To capitalise on this glorious marketing opportunity, technology vendors rushed to coat existing solutions with a green gloss. While this makes perfect sense from a marketing perspective, claimed sustainability benefits were rarely proven. The Verdantix analysis of 24 different sustainable technology categories finds that only 16 per cent demonstrate significant sustainability benefits.”

The findings are based on the Verdantix Total Portfolio methodology, which helps decision-makers align spending decisions with sustainability requirements. By assessing IT solutions across the entire product life cycle - from R&D to retirement - the report provides a complete picture of technology offerings that measure or manage greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, reduce energy demand or promote energy efficiency, support the roll-out of renewable energy, improve climate change risk assessment, cut road vehicle or aviation fuel use and eliminate waste from supply chains. This comprehensive view of the tech sector’s role avoids a narrow focus on data centres and desktops.

The Verdantix analysis of the total portfolio of sustainable IT solutions clearly indicates that innovative products designed to deliver sustainability benefits will hit the market in 2010. Key growth markets for the tech sector’s bid for sustainability budgets from 2010 to 2012 include:

• Digital smart meters for corporate energy management - in Europe and the US, a combination of mandatory GHG reporting and energy

efficiency programmes makes digital smart meters a hot sector for corporate demand.

• Carbon management business intelligence - a glut of GHG reporting legislation combined with expectations of carbon prices rising to €40 (£35.40) will drive demand for granular, activity-based energy and carbon data management.

• Substitution of video presence for air travel - telecoms operators like

Orange Business Services and Verizon and equipment vendors like Cisco and HP have had two years to learn how to substitute video presence for air travel. From 2010, enterprises will implement video presence as part of a sustainable business process that cuts air travel expenses and associated emissions. The entry of the aviation sector into the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme in 2012 will accelerate demand.

• Fresh air cooled data centres - building new data centres is a slow and costly business, but the trend to move to cooler locations will continue and strengthen. Fears about sky-rocketing data centre energy costs in a post-recession economy, standards like the EU code of conduct on data centres and competition between outsourcing firms to win sustainability credentials will drive activity.

Metcalfe said: “Over the last two years, despite the noise from high decibel green IT marketing, the reality is that the tech sector has only just got out of the starting blocks on delivering innovative solutions to support corporate climate change and sustainability programmes.

“The market transition triggered by resource scarcity and climate change will create multi-billion dollar growth opportunities for software, hardware and IT services firms.

“But tech sector executives need to stop drinking from the poisoned chalice of green IT marketing and focus instead on the real revenue-generating opportunities.”

MULTISORB ONLINE

Active packaging specialist Multisorb Technologies has launched a new website,

www.multisorb.com.

A comprehensive online resource for active packaging solutions, the new website provides in-depth information on how companies can address the protective packaging needs of their products to keep them fresh and stable, and extend shelf life.

Visitors to the site can access the latest company news and a host of educational articles and white papers.

The website also offers a detailed description of Multisorb’s portfolio of advanced active packaging technologies and systems solutions for the markets it serves, including healthcare, food and beverage, electronics and transport.

The website features a dynamic yet clean look, with a range of simple menus and tabs that allow for easier navigation. A particularly useful aspect is the market-specific navigation option, which makes it easy for customers to find solutions that are relevant to their business.

James V Renda, executive vice-president and chief operating officer of Multisorb Technologies, said: “The new website is a reflection of Multisorb’s customer-centric focus and has been designed with the needs of our global customers in mind.

“Every effort has been made to ensure the site is populated with information pertinent to our customers’ active packaging requirements.”

JS SIGNS UP WITH IBM

Sainsbury’s has signed a five-year deal with IBM to transform its supply chain with improved stock availability, according to retail-week.com.

The deal is aimed at helping the supermarket chain and its 4,000 suppliers better manage the supply chain.

An electronic trading network from Wesupply will be used by Sainsbury’s, and IBM will manage migrating the suppliers on to the system.

Issues with product availability prompted the move, following the merging last year of Sainsbury’s supply chain and retail director roles.

The IBM deal will give Sainsbury’s the chance to monitor the status of orders across its entire network and manage product availability. Information flows will be streamlined and visibility of supply chain performance will be improved.

The electronic data interchange (EDI) service will be transitioned to EDI network provider Inovis as part of the migration.

A DARWINIAN RESPONSE TO MANAGING CHANGE IS CRUCIAL TO ENSURE SUCCESS

This month, Anglia Business Solutions outlines the difficulties in implementing a new business management system, especially when it comes to the reaction of the different staff departments, and suggests several ways to make the transition easier for all involved.

selecting and implementing a new business management system can be fraught with danger. After all, it is not something that you will have to do too often in your career. Once installed, these systems should last between 10 and 15 years unless something drastic happens to the business or to the software supplier. It is hardly surprising, then, that many organisations get it wrong.

Writing in Computing magazine recently, IT industry guru Martin Butler highlighted the high failure rates where enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems were involved. His column stated that: “As a rule, about one in five projects can be labelled a success. Most others spend long periods in intensive care. About a third of them never see the light of day.”

The reality is that there is no guarantee of success on embarking on such a venture. However, the first stage is for the management team to realise precisely what is involved in making a success of the investment.

It is fair to say that the selected technology is just one part of the equation. Replacing a legacy application that has served the business well but has gone past its sell-by date requires a significant commitment. We are not just talking about the financial costs here. The real investment is to release the necessary resources to ensure the success of the project. The next is to manage the resulting changes.

In this article, the focus is on an aspect of deployment that can frequently endanger the whole project, i.e. that of change management.

It was Charles Darwin who once said that “it is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change”. Change management has historically been the focus of the most innovative businesses and those in the most competitive industries. Witness the changes that those survivors in the fresh produce industry have had to embrace during the last 10 years. Companies have had to alter their products to reflect consumer tastes, embrace the movement towards organic, get better at meeting even tighter delivery deadlines and deal with reduced margins and more demanding quality standards. This, along with improving traceability and labelling and consolidating to become larger organisations to service the major retailers.

However, when it comes to replacing internal systems and processes to reflect new challenges, it is easy to overlook the management of the necessary changes that happen to people as a result of new ways of doing things.

It is all too easy to assume that your traders will welcome more transparency in their deals, that your quality control staff will be ecstatic about having their productivity monitored and that the transport department will be keen to have the wisdom of their journey planning questioned. If you run a packing operation, your production staff may not be too delighted to have yield comparisons drawn between pack lines. It may also find production line cost comparisons uncomfortable. The look on the faces of your IT staff may not be one of unfettered joy when you explain that the business needs to change the core system that they have lived with for years.

Nevertheless, these changes may be vital in these challenging times if a company is to drive market share by making operations more agile and responsive while reducing costs. Business organisational changes, in general, fall into four major categories. They include structural changes that alter the strategic direction of the company, i.e. selling off part of the business or acquiring another to open up a new market. Cost-cutting is the most high-profile in this day and age. Cultural change where attitudes need to change is the most difficult. Process change which alters how things are done is the area most ripe for technological innovation. It can revolutionise existing processes, open up new routes to market and eliminate costs.

Managing the changes involved is not easy. Change is often welcomed by management as a means of meeting their commercial ambitions. However, only business leaders that think strategically and creatively take the necessary steps to ensure that their people and their supply chain react positively to the changes that are implemented.

A key part of this is clearly communicating the reasons for the need to alter how they operate. If this process is well managed, even a negative change such as the need to reduce staffing levels can allow management teams to reshape and reinvigorate their companies.

Ignoring this need to change and carrying on as normal, however, may not be an option. Hoping that things will go back to a previous trading environment after the recession is hardly a sensible survival strategy. Post downturn, customers are hardly likely to badger you to increase your prices to them or give you more time to deliver. The reality is that new pricing and performance standards will have been set. Only those who have adapted to the new competitive landscape will be well positioned to thrive on the back of the upturn.

Cambridge-based MDE Consulting has considerable project and change management expertise within the fresh produce industry.

The views of senior consultant Mike Evans on the topic are as follows: “Many organisations within the fresh produce industry often view change as a necessary reaction to external and commercial influences. The key point here is the reactive nature of change. While this is an accepted requirement of doing business within the industry, it does detract focus from planning and implementing continuous improvement.

“A structured method of change management can deliver significant benefits to any organisation. Whether it is a minor process change or a major system implementation, a lack of change management can have a very real effect on the adoption of anything new. Projects aim to design and deliver the required change, while change management ensures it becomes part of the accepted way of working.”

In summary, managing the change process as part of the new system deployment is crucial to its success. In today’s integrated world of IT, information flow is like a chain, meaning it is only as strong as its weakest link.

If some person or department has not bought into the vision, it can easily undermine the project. The good news is that the current harsh environment can actually help to make changes more acceptable. It can therefore enable the winners to embrace change with the same enthusiasm and energy that has been used to resist it in the past.