ISG Software Research Analyst Perspectives | ISG Software Research (39)

Disaster, Risk Management and the Lean Supply Chain

Posted by ISG Software Research on 12 May 2011

The earthquake, tsunami and nuclear plant trifecta that devastated Japan has had a negative impact also on companies that embraced the concept of managing a lean supply chain – one that minimizes inventories at each stage. If news accounts are to be believed, there seem to be legions regretting that decision as disruptions caused by the disasters have a ripple impact, hampering manufacturers’...

Topics: Performance Management, Sales Performance, Supply Chain Performance, Sustainability, Human Capital Management, Marketing, IT Performance, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), Workforce Performance, Supply Chain

Analytics for IT: Cobbler’s Children Need Shoes

Posted by ISG Software Research on 12 May 2011

As part of our largest-ever research study on business analytics, which surveyed more than 2,600 organizations covering the maturity and competency of business, IT and vertical industries, we looked at how IT is applying analytics to support their own business activities. One of the things we found is that, charged with enabling business units to use information systems as effectively as...

Topics: Predictive Analytics, IT Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Information Applications, Information Management, Information Technology, IT Analytics, IT Service Management, ITIL, ITSM, IT Performance Management (ITPM)

Think Carefully about Social Media and Your Customers

Posted by ISG Software Research on 12 May 2011

Unless you have been on a long vacation somewhere without newspapers, mobile phones or the Internet, you must have noticed all the buzz about social media – some of it factual and lots of it hype. Over a billion people use Facebook. There are many millions of tweets on Twitter every day, and YouTube has become the place to share videos, whether for a laugh, for a company’s brand awareness or for...

Topics: Predictive Analytics, Sales Performance, Salesforce.com, SAS, Social Media, Customer Analytics, Customer Experience, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Clarabridge, Genesys, ResponseTek, RightNow, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Information Applications, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Text Analytics

SAP Diversifies into Contact Center and Communications Technology Market

Posted by ISG Software Research on 12 May 2011

Most people associate SAP with enterprise software: ERP, CRM and more recently with business analytics and business intelligence. The majority also see the company as committed to providing these as on-premises applications and having only begun its presence in cloud computing for business applications. But there’s more to the story, as I recently discovered. With its Business Communications...

Topics: Sales Performance, SAP, Customer Analytics, Customer Experience, Social CRM, Voice of the Customer, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Information Applications, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Unified Communications

MarkLogic Revs Up Information Applications with New Energy and Leadership

Posted by ISG Software Research on 12 May 2011

At this year’s user conference, it was clear that change is afoot at MarkLogic, whose technology platform enables users to access information more easily accessible within applications and devices. Last month the board of directors appointed a new CEO, Ken Bado, created the new position of chief marketing officer (CMO) and named a head of global services and alliances, all within three weeks. The...

Topics: Sales Performance, Supply Chain Performance, MarkLogic, Reporting, XML, IT Performance, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), Information Applications, Information Management, Workforce Performance, Content Management, Document Management, Information Platform, Search

SuccessFactors Finds Learning Management System and More with Plateau Acquisition

Posted by ISG Software Research on 12 May 2011

Consolidation in the human capital management software market is in full swing. Recently Peopleclick Authoria acquired Aquire Solutions, and just this week Golden Gate Capital and Infor agreed to buy Lawson Software for about $2 billion, which my colleague Robert Kugel commented.

Topics: Performance Management, Sales Performance, Human Capital Management, Learning, Learning Management System, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Mobility, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Workforce Performance, Compensation, Talent Management, Workforce Planning

Acquisition of Lawson Complements Infor’s Portfolio

Posted by ISG Software Research on 12 May 2011

Golden Gate Capital and Infor (which is owned largely by Golden Gate Capital) will acquire Lawson Software for approximately $2 billion in a transaction that is expected to be completed sometime in this year’s third quarter. Lawson is the latest in a string of enterprise software acquisitions made or financed by Golden Gate that began almost a decade ago. Today, Infor is made up of legacy...

Topics: Sales Performance, Supply Chain Performance, ERP, Human Capital Management, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Performance, Business Technology, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), Oracle, Workforce Performance, CFO, Infor, Talent Management, Corporate Finance, Financial Performance Management

Datawatch Offers Shorter Path from Data to Information

Posted by ISG Software Research on 12 May 2011

Turning data into information for taking actions and making decisions has bedeviled businesses throughout the computer age. Many organizations have data in dozens of applications and legacy systems along with many reports in various business intelligence systems. The challenge is to get data from each of the reports and assemble it into contextualized views of information for particular business...

Topics: Sales Performance, Sustainability, Reporting, Business Technology Innovation, IT Performance, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), Information Applications, Information Management, Workforce Performance, Datawatch, Document Management

Zyme Solutions Tackles Channel Data Challenge

Posted by ISG Software Research on 04 May 2011

Companies (especially in high technology) that sell through an indirect channel face a difficult challenge because global sales channels are complex, fragmented and changeable, with different business practices and customs than direct channels. Keeping track of which products have sold in and sold through which partners can be a difficult task. Unless a company is working with only a handful of...

Topics: Sales, Sales Performance, Salesforce.com, Human Capital Management, Zyme Solutions, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Financial Performance, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), channel, CRM

Prospects for Ending Forklift Migrations of ERP

Posted by ISG Software Research on 03 May 2011

Back in the old days (20 years ago or so) companies that wanted to expand or update their telephone systems had to do what was called a “forklift migration.” In other words, they had to remove big, heavy and very expensive boxes of electronics from an equipment room and replace them with newer big, heavy and very expensive boxes. The process of adding, deleting or changing people, offices and...

Topics: SAP, ERP, Office of Finance, Business Performance, Financial Performance, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), Oracle, Infor

It’s Time for the Contact Center To Change

Posted by ISG Software Research on 03 May 2011

Twenty years ago, when I began consulting in the contact center industry, building a call center was a hard, resource-consuming task. Just to begin handling calls required purchasing lots of proprietary equipment, such as PBXs and automatic call distributors (ACDs), as well as software for computer/telephony integration (CTI) and business applications such as case management and CRM – and then...

Topics: Predictive Analytics, Sales Performance, SAP, Social Media, Customer Analytics, Customer Data Management, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, InContact, LiveOps, Operational Performance, Analytics, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Workforce Performance, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Interactive Intelligence, Text Analytics, Unified Communications, Workforce Management, Contactual

Interactive Intelligence Integrates Contact Center Interactions

Posted by ISG Software Research on 25 April 2011

Interactive Intelligence (ININ) recently invited partners, consultants and analysts to Portugal to hear about the latest developments in its products. Not surprisingly given the extensive range of products it now supports, none of us had much time to enjoy Lisbon but were put through an intensive program of presentations and discussions.

Topics: Predictive Analytics, Social Media, Customer Analytics, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, RightNow, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Workforce Performance, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Interactive Intelligence, Text Analytics, Unified Communications, Workforce Management

Alight Does Agile Planning

Posted by ISG Software Research on 25 April 2011

Alight Planning sells planning and budgeting software mainly to midsize companies and stresses its software’s ability to support a more effective approach to corporate planning and budgeting. It calls this “agile planning,” a term used to contrast a traditional, highly deterministic method of drawing up and executing plans with an “agile” mindset that is better able to deal with the high level...

Topics: Planning, Sales Performance, Supply Chain Performance, Forecast, Office of Finance, budget, Budgeting, Business Performance, Financial Performance, Workforce Performance, CFO, agile, budgeting software, CEO, Integrated Business Planning

Total Compensation Management Research: Voice Your Needs and Opinions

Posted by ISG Software Research on 25 April 2011

Are you a human resources executive who’s still using spreadsheets and various database systems to track and manage compensation and incentives of your workforce? If you aren’t, then believe it or not, you’re in the minority.

Topics: Sales Performance, Human Capital Management, Office of Finance, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Financial Performance, Workforce Performance, Compensation, finance, Talent Management, Workforce Performance Management

Datawatch Offers Shorter Path from Data to Information

Posted by ISG Software Research on 25 April 2011

Turning data into information for taking actions and making decisions has bedeviled businesses throughout the computer age. Many organizations have data in dozens of applications and legacy systems along with many reports in various business intelligence systems. The challenge is to get data from each of the reports and assemble it into contextualized views of information for particular business...

Topics: Sales Performance, Supply Chain Performance, Reporting, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Information Applications, Workforce Performance, Datawatch, Document Management

Predictive Analytics Are on the Rise

Posted by ISG Software Research on 24 April 2011

In various forms, business intelligence (BI) – as queries, reporting, dashboards and online analytical processing (OLAP) – is being used increasingly widely. And as basic BI capabilities spread to more organizations, innovative ones increasingly are exploring how to take advantage of the next step in the strategic use of BI: predictive analytics. The trend in Web searches for the phrase...

Topics: Predictive Analytics, Predixion, R, Revolution Analtyics, Sales Performance, SAS, Social Media, Supply Chain Performance, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Mobility, Business Performance, Business Technology, CIO, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, IBM SPSS, Information Builders, Information Technology, KXEN, Netezza, Oracle, Tibco, Workforce Performance

Talent Acquisition Best Practices in the Age of Social Media Coming Soon

Posted by ISG Software Research on 14 April 2011

You’d think it was raining “social.” Social media, social networking, social marketing, social recruiting, social learning – so many aspects of business these days have a “social” component to them.

Topics: Sales Performance, Social Media, Customer Experience, Human Capital Management, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Mobility, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Workforce Performance, Talent Management

PBBI Provides Portrait of Customers through Predictive Analytics

Posted by ISG Software Research on 13 April 2011

Since last summer, Portrait Software has been part of the Pitney Bowes Business Insight (PBBI) subsidiary. Since the acquisition the combined teams have been putting together a comprehensive set of products to support data quality and customer interaction management. The suite includes the Portrait Self-Service Analytics, Miner, Uplift, Uplift Optimizer, Dialogue, Interaction Optimizer and...

Topics: Predictive Analytics, Sales Performance, Social Media, Customer Analytics, Customer Experience, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Call Center, Contact Center, CRM, Data Mining

Peopleclick Authoria Elevates Workforce Analytics by Acquiring Aquire

Posted by ISG Software Research on 06 April 2011

Human resources professionals must deal with volumes of workforce data that resides in disparate software systems, including individual spreadsheets. But although the data is accessible to them, many organizations don’t have technology to aggregate, synthesize and analyze it, and so cannot easily use it to make efficient and effective decisions about talent acquisition and talent management.

Topics: Learning, Performance, Recruiting, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Mobility, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Mobility, Workforce Performance, Compensation, Hiring, Talent Management, Workforce Analytics

Executives Learn about Advances in Customer Experience Management

Posted by ISG Software Research on 06 April 2011

IQPC Europe, a global organizer of business conferences, recently held its Executive Customer Contact Exchange, where contact center and customer service executives and senior managers gathered to find out about developments in the management of customer interactions and the customer experience. Attendees had a variety of reasons for coming; the largest group consisted of attendees who (29%) said...

Topics: Sales Performance, Social Media, Customer Experience, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM