Please send me your price list! Sorry, but we don't have one!

Here at Caltec we often receive requests from companies asking for the pricelist for a software solution.
They say, “Please send me your price list”.  The person who asks the information is almost always a secretary...who's is also usually the designated person in the company to collect price lists and select IT solutions from a Google search! We love secretaries, but dont understand why the most important acquisition that impacts business should be selected by un unqualified professional!

In this kind of company, there’s no one responsible for iT, just a free lancer that does Anti-virus or Operative Systems reinstallations when needed.  People are still working with a pre-technological mindset: long hours, repetitive tasks, non-productive operations using general software tools available to any company. Average leading to average.

In these companies the computers are like type machines, files in the desktop are like papers and the folders are also full of printed documents. Managers are still asking for updates... and waiting for it, instead of looking at information real time whenever they want. They even think “organized information” means "documents stored in files"...And how do they share information? By email, by pen, by printing papers that can be easily lost or never traced back.

We are living in the XXI century, the information age.  Is it possible to believe that any company will still be alive and competitive in the future without an outstanding personalized information system? And is it clear that these information system should be carefully and properly selected and deployed and more expensive than that meeting room table made by that famous designer! Isn't it obvious?

We like to give total control and the best information for those who decide.

Screen-shot of our Issue Tracking System SolutionA great customer service is key to any successful business.

It means rapidly presenting the best offer and service. But are you sure you are looking to the right information? And its not fair if you are taking your daily decisions based on "half-trues" or incomplete data. We build solutions to support you. And that's where you will find the added value of Caltec's information systems.

To personalize and assemble your platform, we dive into your processes, identifying weaknesses and potential. We use the best technological practices to redesign operations and leverage change. We assemble new workflows of information that will influence positively your daily activity and give powerful support to your decision making process.  

We make solutions that lasts and evolves. Caltec has clients using 14 years old systems that are never obsolete because are transformed, updated and redesigned to face new challenges.

We like that. Fiercely protecting your data and giving total control and the best information for those who decide. We are here to offer you the opportunity to step forward and invest in the growth of your business.

In defense of CEOs: Is information technology conservatism preventing CEOs from knowing what is really happening?

Poor tools to prevent and navigate through storms.The recent case at Barclays Bank and the resignation of its CEO Bob Diamond follows a long standing and disturbing pattern. Public sentiment, fueled by mass media hysteria, is that "heads must roll" and the bigger the better. The verdict of the crowd: "the big boss is guilty and must resign". No one is talking about what will happen next, or about the serious contributing factors that lead to repeated hidden fraud in major corporations and governments around the world!

There is another way to view this difficult problem. A CEO is ultimately responsible of everything that happens in a multinational corporation, the thousands of employees and the millions of daily transactions, yet today's successful businesses are largely computer automated, so we must ask; "where are the digital mechanisms to prevent, monitor and track deviations and abuse before they become major frauds?"

If a business ecosystem is relying on spreadsheets living in parallel and entangled with obsolete systems, where the data is being freely manipulated and adjusted without tracking, who is to blame for this IT failure? If information is power then what role does the Information Technology play in giving CEOs the power to prevent internal problems?

Why doesn't the media ever ask for the resignation of the Chief Information Officer (CIO)?

If a fraud is planed or ignored by a CEO, let him be punished, resign and pay for his acts as should any individual, however if he is also the victim of a deficient IT system then let the CIOs respond. After all, their job is to provide the CEOS and external auditors with accurate, valid, live and traceable information systems. The ultimate responsibility of any CIO in today's modern digital world is to be bold and dynamic not static and conservative.

Cristina Calçada