Posts Tagged ‘business analytics’

How to Select Integration Partners, the DMA Way

April 14th, 2010

dykeh

Just a quick post following the Computerworld SaaScon 2010 conference in Santa Clara recently …

I was very pleased by the extremely bullish outlook on cloud computing voiced at SaaSCon, especially by representatives from some of the larger companies. More than one speaker indicated that the market has reached a tipping point, where the maturity of services and software offered, combined with the current economic climate, are making the cloud much more attractive to large companies. Some, like Bob Sala, CEO of Distribution Marketing Advantage, stressed that moving to the cloud is now a strategic imperative. (more…)


Highlights from the 2010 Pacific Crest Technology Conference : SaaS as a Catalyst for Business Intelligence and Analytics

February 27th, 2010

qgallivan

This week I was on a panel discussing the growing state of Cloud Computing and the SaaS BI market.  The panel consisted of moderator Nabil Elsheshai, Senior Analyst of Information Management Software and IT Services at Pacific Crest along with Bill Soward, CEO of Adaptive Planning; Brian Gentile, CEO of Jaspersoft; Scott Weiner, CTO of Cloud9, and myself.  I want to share some key themes and observations from the event particularly because they set the tone for the next evolution of BI.

The criteria IT uses to buy BI has shifted, resulting in a new approach to BI decision-making. The era of high risk, complex and time consuming implementations is giving way to a new era of quick BI wins defined by specific business use-cases that are implemented in days, not months or years, with no CAPEX spending and extremely fast time-to-value. At PivotLink we’re seeing this shift in buying criteria being driven by both IT and the line of business.  IT needs to deliver a faster turnaround on BI solutions for high priority business projects and do so with limited resources. SaaS BI is a perfect augmentation strategy for legacy BI implementations. By enabling IT to better support the business with highly secure, easy-to-use tools and right-time data – all  without breaking the bank or bringing on new resources - SaaS BI is the best tool for these high value quick BI wins!

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What’s Happening at the Outdoor Retailer Winter Market Show?

January 18th, 2010

terie

PivotLink will be exhibiting and presenting at the Outdoor Retailer Winter Show in Salt Lake City, Utah this week – January 21st -24th.

Retail automation systems combined with data from the web are yielding more information than ever. On Thursday, January 21, 2010 PivotLink and the North Face will present a session entitled Retail Analytics – How to Get the Numbers That Matter. Sarah Jones, Retail Floor Space Management Manager at the North Face, will discuss how she uses PivotLink’s On-demand Retail Analytics and Reporting solution to turn mountains of data about customers, merchandise and operations into knowledge that provides blue sky visibility into what sells, to whom, why and empowers the North Face to stay ahead of the pack.

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Dynamic Insight and Decision-making Becomes the “New Normal”

November 5th, 2009

qgallivan

As companies continue to focus on managing costs and capital in these challenging economic times, the need to turn reams of data into actionable business insight has never been more imperative. Business leaders are now challenged to get more productivity from the same or fewer amounts of people resources as well as manage inventories and demand forecasting to the highest level of accuracy. As companies plan growth strategies to take advantage of the future economic recovery, their efforts will be guided by dynamic, granular insight from across the business. Using that information to make decisions at the speed of business will become the “new normal” in a post-recession economy.

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Is Reporting Overrated?

October 23rd, 2009

Ajay Dawar

Late last week I had lunch with Nenshad Bardoliwalla, an ex-VP from SAP’s Business Intelligence group. He has written a great book on Corporate Performance Management . He said (and I paraphrase)” that users don’t really know what to look for in a report and that information is useless without context. So even if you gave all the required reports to a customer they wouldn’t know all the right things to look for.” His point was that the BI industry needs much more than reports. Customers need guidance on what to look for.

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