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December 22, 2006
Tag, You
Andy Bitterer from Gartner invited me to join this tag, youre it initiative for weblogs. Andys weblog can be found at www.bitblueblog.com. The idea is, just like at cocktail parties to share something that most people wouldnt know about you. It might be a bit off focus for this weblog, but I think it is such a nice idea.
So, following on Andys list, here is my list of things:
1. I currently have pitchblack hair. This was necessary for taping the Business Performance Magic movie, where I play the role of the magician. It will take at least three weeks before my hair returns to normal.
2. There is life outside work. One of my passions is studying the art of 17th century Dutch Master etchings.
3. My favorite type of music is Trance. This type of music (and my fascination with it) goes back to the days of Jean Michel Jarre and Kraftwerk. I create my own music as well, but theres a looooooong way to go.
4. I am an analyst and a presenter at heart. As an 8 year old, my first show-and-tell was about the history of Maarssen, the village where I lived. I was researching the topic for weeks and had a 45 minute presentation. Some things never change.
5. I do more than just business and IT trend watching. I do a fair job of predicting male fashion trends. Not for the mainstream, but more on the business creative side. This winter: pocket squares are back. Previous predictions that were right: two-tone shoes, the old-fashioned hat and the re-emergence of the color orange.
6. I am a complete loser when it comes to technology (which is scary given the field where I work in). The only computer I am truly happy with is my old Apple at home. I dont even know five weblogs to send this tag, youre it to next... I just know one. http://cpm-view.blogspot.com/, tag, you are it!!
frank
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Posted by Frank Buytenkijk at 2:43 AM | Comments (0)
December 19, 2006
Information Magnetism
Search and Query are both incredibly poor instruments to find the right information, when we think of information as a market. A market is defined by a match between supply and demand, and that is the case with information as well. There is demand for information, people wanting access to what they are looking for, and there is supply of information, on the internet, in databases and many other sources.
However, search and query only recognize the demand for information, the supply side is totally reactive. Let me explain what I mean by exploring how buying shoes would look like if we were to use search and query techniques.
Scenario 1
You go into the shoe store and ask for black shoes of a certain brand. The salesperson says Sorry, I dont have them. Disappointed, you leave the store.
Scenario 2
You go into the shoe store and ask for black shoes of a certain brand. The salesperson says Wait a minute and comes back with size 6 through 15, as you forgot to specify which size. You think the person is crazy and you leave the store
Scenario 3
You go into the shoe store and ask for black shoes of a certain brand. The salesperson says Let me see and starts looking for it. In the meantime, you eye catches another pair of shoes that are nice too. You decide to buy the other shoes, and you are much happier with the new choice.
The first two scenarios show how poor search and query behave in real-life situations. The third scenario is more realistic, but is based on coincidence. However, that is not how a successful sales interaction works.
Scenario 4
You go into the shoe store and ask for black shoes of a certain brand. The salesperson says It looks like you wear a size 10, sure, let me get them for you (he may not even have them), and continues In the meantime, please have a look at these shoes as well, as they fit really well with that beautiful suit you are wearing. You look at the other shoes and although they are more expensive, you buy the other shoes, happy that you found something new and even more worthwhile.
Both search and query do not work that way, it is all demand driven, where the supply side of information simply responds. Like the sales conversation in Scenario 4 was bidirectional (supply and demand both influenced each other in the outcome), search and query should be bidirectional as well.
- If someone searches for a certain aggregation of data for a number of states on the East Coast of the USA in a database, the tool could/should respond with here is the data for Region East, which is almost the collection of states you asked for, as using the standard hierarchies may be more important for comparisons of data than a specific question.
- If you ask for planning data on a certain level of granularity, perhaps the system responds with the nearest aggregate level of available data.
- If you query for a certain filtered set of data, the system may respond with a slightly larger or narrower set of results, to produce a statistically more relevant bell curve.
- If you define a query that is quite near the query within a standard report, it should show the standard report.
- If you ask for certain information, the system should suggest, not unlike amazon.com, what other people with the same search or query asked for as well.
I would like to call this principle information magnetism, where supply and demand of information are attracted to each other based on common rules and understanding.
Thoughts?
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Posted by Frank Buytenkijk at 3:11 AM | Comments (0)
December 14, 2006
BI Is A-Changin
With apologies to Bob Dylan...from my good friend Nigel...
Come gather round IT
Wherever you roam
And admit that the reports
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
Youll be in the drowning zone.
If your time to you Is worth savin
Then you better start thinking
Or youll sink like a stone
For BI it is a-changin.
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Posted by Frank Buytenkijk at 5:22 PM | Comments (0)
December 13, 2006
Smart Space
On November 30, 2006, Hyperion announced plans to release Hyperion System 9 Smart Space, an innovative composite application environment that will deliver always-on” business intelligence (BI) to every user in the enterprise, utilizing Microsoft Windows XP and Vista.
The idea of Smart Space is based on literally thousands of desktop gadgets (or widgets) that are already available for Windows. A gadget is a small application, sitting on the desktop, that tells you something. It can contain a webcam, a to-do list, an analogue clock, the weather forecast, a CPU usage monitor, the list of possibilities is endless. They become active the moment the computer is started and is connected. Hyperion Smart Space applies these technologies for a number of BI gadgets, and will also offer Instant Messenger integration.
Ofcourse a gadget is not as functionally rich as a complete analytic system or a full interactive report, or even a full dashboard. It brings a snippet of data to the desktop, in a visual way, so that you can look at it, and if there is an issue, immediately either launch a full report or any other BI or BPM application, or you can use IM to show someone else and collaborate on what to do.
The idea of mini BI will speak to groups of user for whom starting an application or even a report (also when it is web-based) is already too much, or -- in some cases -- simply too complicated.
Here are some examples you can think of:
- A fast food outlet manager may be responsible for multiple locations. As a hands-on manager, there will be no time, or it will not be natural behavior, to get behind a PC and start to study reports. However, with a BI gadget on on-going sales, can tell there is an immediate problem in a location. A webcam gadget can show there are people waiting in line, but there is not enough staff at the cash register.
- A manager in the local zoo may want to see an hourly update of ice cream across the facility. Perhaps this could be combined with a local weather forecast (freely available) gadget, to see if more staff or ice cream is needed across the zoo. Ofcourse weather forecasts can be loaded into a data warehouse as well, but how times does that happen (a project proposal, budget, ETL process, data modeling, information requirements, meta data management, pffffffffff). By combining 2 gadgets there is an immediate result.
- A call center manager may not see the huge TV screen in the call center and may want to glance at some operational statistics (queue length, average call duration, etc) once in a while.
- A logistics manager may want to track how the various cars and trucks are delivering goods exactly on time. A second gadget with traffic information will give an early warning already.
As you can see, all these examples are very operational of nature, a new field for BI where many BI die hard professionals need to get used to an build up an understanding of new user behaviors. It will be interesting to see which innovative uses customers will come up with.
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Posted by Frank Buytenkijk at 4:14 AM | Comments (2)
December 3, 2006
Strategy Leadership
Management theory teaches us there are core strategies. Each core strategy represents an area in which companies could excel. The catch is that companies must choose, they cannot excel in all areas. You cant be the cheapest, the best and the most customer oriented at the same time. Porter, and later Treacy and Wiersema have done a lot of research in this field, and operation excellence (or cost leadership), customer intimacy (or customer leadership) and product innovation (or product leadership) are considered the three core strategies. Others have suggested customer lock-in and brand mastery (brand leadership?) as the fourth and the fifth core strategy, but for the purpose of this story, lets stick to these three.
Many organizations do not understand they need to make a fundamental choice between these strategies, and in their mission statements claim to be everything for everyone. Usually this leads to a bland value proposition that is not recognized, and as a consequence not overly successful, in the marketplace. Choosing for customer intimacy means more expensive processes to cater to special wishes. Choosing for operational excellence means creating mass markets. Choosing for product innovation means creating new markets, instead of catering to existing customer requirements.
But some organizations break the rules and get all three right, who - in the words of management author Jim Collins - move from the Tyranny of the OR to the Genius of the AND. Recently I spoke with the CEO of a website that offers second hand cars to the general public. Their customers are the car dealers, who offer their cars through the e-business website. Although the website did not have first-mover advantage, it entered the market relatively late, it quickly gained marketshare and is not market leader in the region where they are active. Customers get the value proposition intuitively, probably without knowing about beating the three core strategies. The website itself is about product leadership, as it positions itself as the most reliable website for second hand cars. It has achieved so by a highly automated process (operational excellence) in which the characteristics of the car (such as age, mileage, maintenance details) are thoroughly checked against external data sources. At the same time, it offers the car dealers a system (customer intimacy) to enter car data and pictures themselves. Car dealers that repeatedly try to cheat the system are being barred.
How do you call an organization who is a product leader, a customer leader and a cost leader? Id like to call it a strategy leader. The conversation with the CEO revealed there was no grand design when they started the business, the business model was perfected over the last three years. Slowly it discovered that data quality was their unique selling point, which drove a high level of automation and process integration with the car dealers. Provocative marketing campaigns did the rest, the general public picked up on the concept.
In essence, it shows strategy leadership is a continuous process. Continuous improvement of processes, systems and practices. Continuous feedback on how the business is going. A continuous finger on the pulse. If strategy is a continuous process, business performance management (BPM) is the engine. BPM can best be explained by the metaphor of connecting the dots of a circle. Connecting the dots of the management processes, such as planning, measurement and reporting. Connecting the dots of performance indicators, to create insight in cause-and-effect relationships. Connecting the dots of systems, to make sure there are no conflicting versions of the truth. Connecting the dots of management, by creating a collaborative culture. And if all dots in the circle are connected, strategy formulation and strategy execution become one.
Does this mean Porter, Treacy and Wiersema are out of the window? I dont think so. What the website did is create a new level, where the competition now needs to live up to. The triangle of the core strategies still plays the same role, and the stakes are upped. Until the next one finds a way to break the new rules…
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Posted by Frank Buytenkijk at 11:37 PM | Comments (0)
