ISG Software Research Analyst Perspectives

Don’t Rely on Dashboards for Real-Time Analytics

Posted by David Menninger on 31 March 2022

I have written previously that the world of data and analytics will become more and more centered around real-time, streaming data. Data is created constantly and increasingly is being collected simultaneously. Technology advances now enable organizations to process and analyze information as it is being collected to respond in real time to opportunities and threats. Not all use cases require... Read More

Topics: business intelligence, Analytics, Internet of Things, Data, Digital Technology, Streaming Analytics, Streaming Data Events, Analytics and Data, AI and Machine Learning

Working Across the Aisle in Analytics: Involving IT and LOB

Posted by David Menninger on 23 March 2022

For years, maybe decades, we have heard about the struggles between IT and line-of-business functions. In this perspective, we will look at some of the data from our Analytics and Data Benchmark Research about the roles of IT and line-of-business teams in analytics and data processes. We will also look at some of the disconnects between these two groups. And, by looking at how organizations are... Read More

Topics: Analytics, Business Intelligence, Data, Digital Technology, Analytics and Data, AI and Machine Learning

Looker Simplifies Business Intelligence in the Cloud

Posted by David Menninger on 17 March 2022

Organizations face various challenges with analytics and business intelligence processes, including data curation and modeling across disparate sources and data warehouses, maintaining data quality and ensuring security and governance. Traditional processes are slow when transforming large and diverse datasets into something which is easily consumable in BI. And, it can take days or weeks to... Read More

Topics: Big Data, Analytics, Business Intelligence

Explorium Improves Machine Learning Models With External Data

Posted by David Menninger on 09 March 2022

Today, organizations understand the importance of good external data that can be integrated with internal data to train machine learning models. Our Machine Learning Dynamic Insights research showed that external data adds a significant value in gaining competitive advantage, improving customer experience and increasing sales. But getting the right external data for a particular requirement is... Read More

Natural Language Processing Enables Self-service Analytics & BI

Posted by David Menninger on 02 March 2022

Natural language processing (NLP) is a field that combines artificial intelligence (AI), data science and linguistics that enables computers to understand, interpret and manipulate text or spoken words. NLP includes generating narratives based on a set of data values, using text or speech as inputs to access information, and analysing text or speech, for instance, to determine its sentiment.... Read More

Topics: Big Data, Analytics, natural language processing, NLP

Improving the State of Analytics in Organizations

Posted by David Menninger on 24 February 2022

Despite all the advances organizations have made with respect to analytics, our most recent research shows the majority of the workforce in the majority of organizations are not using analytics and business intelligence (BI). Less than one-quarter (23%) report that one-half or more of their workforce is using analytics and BI. This is a problem. It means organizations are not enabling their... Read More

Topics: Sales, business intelligence, embedded analytics, Analytics, Data, Sales Performance Management, Digital Technology, Digital Commerce, natural language processing, Subscription Management, partner management, Collaborative & Conversational Computing

Good Data Governance Improves Business Processes

Posted by David Menninger on 17 February 2022

Many organizations invest in data governance out of concern over misuse of data or potential data breaches. These are important considerations and valid aspects of data governance programs. However, good data governance also has positive impacts on organizations. For example, I have previously written about the valuable connection between the use of data catalogs and satisfaction with an... Read More

Topics: embedded analytics, Analytics, Data Governance, Data, Digital Technology

AtScale Universal Semantic Layer Democratizes and Scales Analytics

Posted by David Menninger on 10 February 2022

Organizations of all sizes are dealing with exponentially increasing data volume and data sources, which creates challenges such as siloed information, increased technical complexities across various systems and slow reporting of important business metrics. Migrating to the cloud does not solve the problems associated with performing analytics and business intelligence on data stored in disparate... Read More

Topics: Analytics, Business Intelligence, Data Integration, Data, data lakes, data operations, Streaming Analytics, AI and Machine Learning

The 2022 Market Agenda for Analytics: Enabling Actions and Effective Insights

Posted by David Menninger on 03 February 2022

Ventana Research recently announced its 2022 Market Agenda for Analytics, continuing the guidance we have offered for nearly two decades to help organizations derive optimal value from technology investments in order to improve business outcomes. It has been exciting to follow innovations in the analytics market, but for businesses, it can be challenging to stay on top of these changes and find... Read More

Topics: embedded analytics, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Digital Technology, natural language processing, Process Mining, Collaborative & Conversational Computing, Analytics and Data

The Digital Technology Market Agenda for 2022: Innovation for Business Resilience

Posted by David Menninger on 31 January 2022

I’m proud to share Ventana Research’s 2022 Market Agenda for Digital Technology. Our focus in this agenda is to deliver expertise to help organizations prioritize technology investments that increase workforce effectiveness and organizational agility, ensuring ongoing operations during any type of disruption. Digital technology is a business necessity, as demonstrated throughout 2020 and 2021,... Read More

Topics: Analytics, Cloud Computing, Internet of Things, Data, Digital Technology

ThoughtSpot Enables Simpler Analytics with AI and NLP

Posted by David Menninger on 21 January 2022

Organizations today have huge volumes of data across various cloud and on-premises systems which keep growing by the second. To derive value from this data, organizations must query the data regularly and share insights with relevant teams and departments. Automating this process using natural language processing (NLP) and artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) enables... Read More

Topics: embedded analytics, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Data Integration, Data, natural language processing, data lakes, data operations, AI and Machine Learning

Reltio Connects MDM in the Cloud for Business

Posted by David Menninger on 11 January 2022

Organizations today are working with multiple applications and systems, including enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain management (SCM) and other systems, where data can easily become fragmented and siloed. And as the organization increases its data sources and adds more systems and custom applications, it becomes challenging to manage the data... Read More

Topics: Analytics, Business Intelligence, Data Governance, Data Integration, Data, Digital Technology, Analytics and Data

TIBCO Broadens Portfolio for Improved Analytics Efficiency

Posted by David Menninger on 30 November 2021

TIBCO is a large, independent cloud-computing and data analytics software company that offers integration, analytics, business intelligence and events processing software. It enables organizations to analyze streaming data in real time and provides the capability to automate analytics processes. It offers more than 200 connectors, more than 200 enterprise cloud computing and application adapters,... Read More

Topics: embedded analytics, Analytics, Collaboration, Data Governance, Information Management, Data, Digital Technology, data lakes, AI and Machine Learning

Analytic Ops: The Last Mile of Data Ops

Posted by David Menninger on 24 November 2021

Organizations have become more agile and responsive, in part, as a result of being more agile with their information technology. Adopting a DevOps approach to application deployment has allowed organizations to deploy new and revised applications more quickly. DataOps is enabling organizations to be more agile in their data processes. As organizations are embracing artificial intelligence (AI)... Read More

Topics: business intelligence, Analytics, Data Governance, Data, Digital Technology, data operations

Talend Data Fabric Simplifies Data Life Cycle Management

Posted by David Menninger on 16 November 2021

Talend is a data integration and management software company that offers applications for cloud computing, big data integration, application integration, data quality and master data management. The platform enables personnel to work with relational databases, Apache Hadoop, Spark and NoSQL databases for cloud or on-premises jobs. Talend data integration software offers an open and scalable... Read More

Topics: Analytics, Business Intelligence, Collaboration, Data Governance, Data Preparation, Information Management, Data, Digital Technology, data lakes, AI and Machine Learning

What Makes a Metric a KPI?

Posted by David Menninger on 09 November 2021

How does your organization define and display its metrics? I believe many organizations are not defining and displaying metrics in a way that benefits them most. If an organization goes through the trouble of measuring and reporting on a metric, the analysis ought to include all the information needed to evaluate that metric effectively. A number, by itself, does not provide any indication of... Read More

Topics: Analytics, Business Intelligence, Internet of Things, Data, Digital Technology, Streaming Analytics, AI and Machine Learning

Using Event Data in Financial Services to Improve Business Processes

Posted by David Menninger on 03 November 2021

Our research shows that nearly all financial service organizations (97%) consider it important to accelerate the flow of information and improve responsiveness. Even just a few years ago, capturing and evaluating this information quickly was much more challenging, but with the advent of streaming data technologies that capture and process large volumes of data in real time, financial service... Read More

Topics: Analytics, Internet of Things, Data, Digital Technology, Streaming Analytics

Databricks Lakehouse Platform Streamlines Big Data Processing

Posted by David Menninger on 26 October 2021

Databricks is a data engineering and analytics cloud platform built on top of Apache Spark that processes and transforms huge volumes of data and offers data exploration capabilities through machine learning models. It can enable data engineers, data scientists, analysts and other workers to process big data and unify analytics through a single interface. The platform supports streaming data, SQL... Read More

Topics: embedded analytics, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Collaboration, Data Governance, Information Management, Data, data lakes, AI and Machine Learning

Use External Data Platform to Improve Analytics

Posted by David Menninger on 19 October 2021

Access to external data can provide a competitive advantage. Our research shows that more than three-quarters (77%) of participants consider external data to be an important part of their machine learning (ML) efforts. The most important external data source identified is social media, followed by demographic data from data brokers. Organizations also identified government data, market data,... Read More

Topics: Analytics, Business Intelligence, Internet of Things, Data, Digital Technology, Lease Management, Streaming Data, Streaming Analytics, AI and Machine Learning

Data Virtualization Brings Data Together Quickly and Easily

Posted by David Menninger on 07 October 2021

The technology industry throws around a lot of similar terms with different meanings as well as entirely different terms with similar meanings. In this post, I don’t want to debate the meanings and origins of different terms; rather, I’d like to highlight a technology weapon that you should have in your data management arsenal. We currently refer to this technology as data virtualization. Other... Read More

Topics: Analytics, Data Governance, Data Integration, Data, Digital Technology, data lakes