The Business Intelligence Blog

STRAIGHT TALK: Simple business intelligence?

John Santaferraro — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 20:27:00 GMT

Is there such a thing? When I look at all of the things we have to do with data, everything we have to do with infrastructure, and everything we have to do with the people and organizations who work with information, I have a hard time believing simple.

Think about it. What do we do with data? Acquire, cleanse, transform, load, update, model, store, manage, optimize, protect, report, analyze, search, mine, archive, query, retrieve, document, dispose.

What do we do with infrastructure? Configure, tune, test, optimize, deploy, tune again, protect, secure, scale, manage, refresh, repurpose, recycle, dispose.

What about all of the people who deal with data? Data modelers, data architects, data warehouse managers, systems administrators, database administrators, storage administrators, business analysts, data analysts, business managers, customers, suppliers, buyers, and everyone else who uses intelligence in any way to use do their job. The list goes on…

I do think there are ways to simplify the complex world of business intelligence, but I don’t think there is really such a thing as “simple business intelligence.” It does make sense to learn from those who have long term experience in the BI. It does make sense to look at ways of simplifying BI using appliances, accelerators, and cookbooks. It does make sense to look for new technologies that integrate the diverse components of BI (metadata management, master data management, etc.). But in the end, the only thing simple about business intelligence is the spelling of BI.

From operations to intelligence and back again

John Santaferraro — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 20:22:00 GMT

Almost every business I know would come to a screeching halt if we removed their operational business systems. Many would be out of business in a matter of days. When we make the move to operational business intelligence, the same thing will be true of business intelligence systems. In a world where intelligence is being provided to every customer or supplier touch point, and analytics are embedded in business processes throughout the organization, BI becomes mission critical. We are not far away from the day when companies will need to protect their business intelligence systems the same way they protect their operational business systems. Suddenly infrastructure matters, uptime is critical, and downtime can mean the downfall of the business.

Think again! Three BI Brain Teasers

John Santaferraro — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 17:29:00 GMT

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?

Intelligence That Makes a Difference

John Santaferraro — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 15:20:00 GMT

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!

LIVE from the Gartner BI Summit in Amsterdam

John Santaferraro — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 13:39:00 GMT

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.

The Googlization of Information

John Santaferraro — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 05:22:00 GMT

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.

The Digital Intelligence Revolution

John Santaferraro — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 14:40:00 GMT

Everything has gone digital. Music. Advertising. Documents. Art. Data. Photography. Economy. Community. Politics. Movies. Telephone. Voice. Television. Imaging. Internet. Video. And now Intelligence.

The “intelligence worker” used to download volumes of data from databases as a primary source of insight. Today that same worker searches through data, reports, analytics, digitized documents, and text.

Companies who unlock the hidden value of digital assets will be the first to experience digital dominance in their industries. Thomas Davenport heads down the right path in his book, “Competing on Analytics.” The book is full of creative insight into what it takes to beat the competition with strategic use of analytics. But there is more. When companies combine business intelligence with document and text-based intelligence, there is even more potential for competitive advantage.

What will it take for companies to deliver instant availability of the right information, the right documents, and the right text-based intelligence? It may not happen overnight, but the transition is in sight. For starters, companies must begin to think of their digital assets across the traditional boundaries of structured and unstructured data. Once they have crossed the chasm, they will need to identify the high return crossover points and begin building bridges between the two worlds. With bridges built, they will be able to make a tighter connection between digital intelligence and everyday decisions.

So what can we expect to happen in the world of BI to embrace the expansion of all things digital?

Digital media and text will become mining grounds for nuggets of intelligence, much like oil companies scour geospatial data.
Metadata will expand to provide common definitions and connectivity from databases across the digital divide.
Dashboards will be created with common access to data and documents.
Digital intelligence will be embedded in desktop tools for various functional areas such as human resources, marketing, or interactive media.
Search engines will be built to return the right combination of reports, analytics, documents, and text for ultimate decision making excellence.

The digital intelligence revolution is upon us!

This reminds me of the 60’s!

John Santaferraro — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 05:06:00 GMT

Yes, I was alive in the 60’s. And yes, blogging reminds me of the 60’s. I was just up in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco a few weeks ago and I reminisced about the free concerts, sit-ins, and general feeling of openness and community that used to thrive on the edge of Golden Gate Park. I always loved the view from Buena Vista Park and felt like something was happening in this place on top of the city, where you could see the world.

So, here we are 40 years later. The web is in full bloom and web logs are the new way of expressing yourself to the world. (I had to say “web logs” because I have this thing about remembering from where we have come.) The view from here is amazing! You can actually see the whole world (wide web).

Anyway, welcome to my little corner of the internet. In my “intelligence” blog, my hope is to communicate openly, invite you to dialogue (yes, I want to hear from you), and spark the kind of conversation that can potentially open new doors to the world of “intelligence.” We have barely plumbed the surface of what can be done with the insight that is still locked away in oceans of data. Kudos to the men, women, and companies who are driven to dig deeper and find the nuggets of knowledge that will change the way we do business and live life.

So, why an “intelligence” blog? I thought of doing a blog on “business intelligence,” but I wanted to go beyond business. Business intelligence is only one piece of what I want to talk about. Customers still matter most. Just in time delivery of goods still drives down costs and increases profit. And business performance delivers value to everyone that matters to your company.

We all know about intelligence that can make a dollar, but what about intelligence that makes a difference? Think about intelligence that could lead us to the cure for cancer; product data that could reveal the way to a cleaner, greener planet; social intelligence that could give us insight into how to meet the needs of third world countries; or, at a personal level, productivity intelligence that could give us back two extra hours a week to be with our families.

That’s the intelligence journey I’d like to take with you…