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February 25, 2008
Think again! Three BI Brain Teasers
Do you think you have a lot of data in your organization? Think again! With information doubling every 18 months, we are about to be hit with another wave of information more daunting than anything we’ve experienced to date. And beyond the next wave, another wave will hit within six to twelve months. The information wave that hits us will be more complex and more diverse. More people will want access to the information than every before. How do we prepare for the coming wave?
Do you think your business is competing on analytics? Think again! According to most studies only 5-8% of companies are actually competing on analytics. That means two things. If you can figure out how to use analytics to beat the competition, you will have an advantage that most other companies do not have. If you don’t figure it out, chances are that one of your competitors will be the next to use intelligence to drive competitive advantage. How do we crack the code hidden in our data?
Do you think you’ve exhausted all of the ways that business intelligence can be used in your organization? Think again! Most companies have spent the last several years working on getting data in order. On the user side of things, most companies have not made it past the use of basic BI tools. Companies are springing up every day with new ways of using data. Think social networking, knowledge sharing, visualization, and embedded search. What can we do to take advantage of the newest technological advances in business intelligence?
Posted by John Santaferraro at 5:29 PM | Comments (0)
Think again! Three BI Brain Teasers
Do you think you have a lot of data in your organization? Think again! With information doubling every 18 months, we are about to be hit with another wave of information more daunting than anything we’ve experienced to date. And beyond the next wave, another wave will hit within six to twelve months. The information wave that hits us will be more complex and more diverse. More people will want access to the information than every before. How do we prepare for the coming wave?
Do you think your business is competing on analytics? Think again! According to most studies only 5-8% of companies are actually competing on analytics. That means two things. If you can figure out how to use analytics to beat the competition, you will have an advantage that most other companies do not have. If you don’t figure it out, chances are that one of your competitors will be the next to use intelligence to drive competitive advantage. How do we crack the code hidden in our data?
Do you think you’ve exhausted all of the ways that business intelligence can be used in your organization? Think again! Most companies have spent the last several years working on getting data in order. On the user side of things, most companies have not made it past the use of basic BI tools. Companies are springing up every day with new ways of using data. Think social networking, knowledge sharing, visualization, and embedded search. What can we do to take advantage of the newest technological advances in business intelligence?
Posted by John Santaferraro at 1:29 PM | Comments (0)
February 13, 2008
Intelligence That Makes a Difference
When I was at the Gartner BI Summit last week, I was on a panel with three other business intelligence vendors. Towards the end of the talk, I shared something that seemed to touch a chord with the audience.
I’ve heard 100 stories where business intelligence helps companies make a dollar. I’ve only heard a handful of stories where intelligence makes a difference. I understand the importance of using information to gain a competitive advantage, to save millions of dollars in operating expenses, or to drive new heights of profit. And I know that competitive advantage will continue to be the number one driver of BI moving forward. However, I would love to hear more stories of how intelligence is making a difference.
I know that technology transformed the VA Hospital into a leading example of patient service and efficiency, but I would love to know how they are using intelligence to make life better for the veterans of the US. Where else can we use intelligence to make a difference?
What if we created a balanced scorecard that measured use of energy within the company and materials usage within the supply chain? What if all of that mapped to the company’s carbon footprint and efforts to reduce emissions?
What if we could band together, companies from around the world, to use our combined intelligence to change the world? We could take our supply chain algorithms and offer them to non-profit organizations to help them better distribute food around the world. We could join efforts to speed the increase of recycled electronics. (We’ve already recycled more than 1 billion pounds of electronics and our goal is to knock off another billion by the end of 2010.)
Alright, I’m excited about this! I’m off to talk to our engineers at HP, to see how we can do this? What about you? I would love to hear your stories of how you are using intelligence to make a difference!
Posted by John Santaferraro at 3:20 PM | Comments (0)
Intelligence That Makes a Difference
When I was at the Gartner BI Summit last week, I was on a panel with three other business intelligence vendors. Towards the end of the talk, I shared something that seemed to touch a chord with the audience.
I’ve heard 100 stories where business intelligence helps companies make a dollar. I’ve only heard a handful of stories where intelligence makes a difference. I understand the importance of using information to gain a competitive advantage, to save millions of dollars in operating expenses, or to drive new heights of profit. And I know that competitive advantage will continue to be the number one driver of BI moving forward. However, I would love to hear more stories of how intelligence is making a difference.
I know that technology transformed the VA Hospital into a leading example of patient service and efficiency, but I would love to know how they are using intelligence to make life better for the veterans of the US. Where else can we use intelligence to make a difference?
What if we created a balanced scorecard that measured use of energy within the company and materials usage within the supply chain? What if all of that mapped to the company’s carbon footprint and efforts to reduce emissions?
What if we could band together, companies from around the world, to use our combined intelligence to change the world? We could take our supply chain algorithms and offer them to non-profit organizations to help them better distribute food around the world. We could join efforts to speed the increase of recycled electronics. (We’ve already recycled more than 1 billion pounds of electronics and our goal is to knock off another billion by the end of 2010.)
Alright, I’m excited about this! I’m off to talk to our engineers at HP, to see how we can do this? What about you? I would love to hear your stories of how you are using intelligence to make a difference!
Posted by John Santaferraro at 11:20 AM | Comments (0)
February 5, 2008
LIVE from the Gartner BI Summit in Amsterdam
I’m here at the Gartner BI Summit in Amsterdam and excited about four things: 1) The number of people who are just now getting involved in business intelligence continues to grow; 2) the drive toward operational business intelligence is almost universal, everyone is talking about it; 3) the scuttle about consolidation of the industry is everywhere and the door is wide open for innovation coming from new players in the market; and 4) there is a real openness to the concept of working together to use “intelligence” to make a difference, not just make a dollar. The bottom line is that business intelligence is still a big deal for a long time to come.
Posted by John Santaferraro at 1:39 PM | Comments (0)
LIVE from the Gartner BI Summit in Amsterdam
I’m here at the Gartner BI Summit in Amsterdam and excited about four things: 1) The number of people who are just now getting involved in business intelligence continues to grow; 2) the drive toward operational business intelligence is almost universal, everyone is talking about it; 3) the scuttle about consolidation of the industry is everywhere and the door is wide open for innovation coming from new players in the market; and 4) there is a real openness to the concept of working together to use “intelligence” to make a difference, not just make a dollar. The bottom line is that business intelligence is still a big deal for a long time to come.
Posted by John Santaferraro at 9:39 AM | Comments (0)
February 1, 2008
The Googlization of Information
Does anyone remember VITAL? I was thinking about it just the other day. The two original founders of my start up company, Marty Moseley and Subhash Chowdary, lived by it and infected me with the vision back in the early 90’s. It stands for Virtually Integrated Technical Architecture Lifecycle. It was brilliant!
VITAL provided a definition of the internet, data warehousing, business intelligence, and service oriented architecture before any of those terms had been coined. As an enterprise technical architecture, all of these components worked together; at least they did on paper.
Today, most of VITAL has become part of the fabric of our everyday life. The internet made thin client the norm, once and for all. Business intelligence is at the top of almost every CIO concern list, worldwide. More business decision makers rely on critical information than every before. Application modernization is gaining steam. And
But there is one VITAL frontier that has yet to be conquered. I’m talking about a world where business intelligence and service oriented architectures come together. Imagine that: Loosely coupled information services available for use by people and other services on the fly. It sounds a lot like Google Gadgets for the enterprise.
The googlization of information is not far away.
Posted by John Santaferraro at 5:22 AM | Comments (0)
The Googlization of Information
Does anyone remember VITAL? I was thinking about it just the other day. The two original founders of my start up company, Marty Moseley and Subhash Chowdary, lived by it and infected me with the vision back in the early 90’s. It stands for Virtually Integrated Technical Architecture Lifecycle. It was brilliant!
VITAL provided a definition of the internet, data warehousing, business intelligence, and service oriented architecture before any of those terms had been coined. As an enterprise technical architecture, all of these components worked together; at least they did on paper.
Today, most of VITAL has become part of the fabric of our everyday life. The internet made thin client the norm, once and for all. Business intelligence is at the top of almost every CIO concern list, worldwide. More business decision makers rely on critical information than every before. Application modernization is gaining steam. And
But there is one VITAL frontier that has yet to be conquered. I’m talking about a world where business intelligence and service oriented architectures come together. Imagine that: Loosely coupled information services available for use by people and other services on the fly. It sounds a lot like Google Gadgets for the enterprise.
The googlization of information is not far away.
Posted by John Santaferraro at 1:22 AM | Comments (0)
