If someone asked about your ERP or gooey, how would you respond? Flummoxed? These are information-technology terms. And they perplex many a mid-market executive, shows a new survey, the Whittman-Hart Middle-Market Monitor -- revealing a "significant disconnect" in perception between information-systems departments and corporate management. The survey's main objective: to discern how middle-market firms (annual revenues between $50 million and $500 million) differ from the largest companies in IT use. Of middle-market executives interviewed:
- Just 22% knew ERP stands for "enterprise resource planning" -- generally used to describe an integrated software package that includes all a company's operations in a single system.
- Barely half knew GUI (pronounced "gooey") stands for "graphical user interface," software that allows a desktop or laptop user to display data in easy-to-interpret fashion.
- Only 32% knew TCP/IP stands for "transmission control protocol/Internet protocol," a set of languages that makes communication possible among different computers.
- See an executive summary or request a copy of the report at www.whittman-hart.com/mmm. Whittman-Hart is an IT consulting agency. CIC Research, an independent research firm based in San Diego, conducted the research.
