ISG Software Research Analyst Perspectives (126)

Kronos Goes Usability and Mobility in New Releases

Posted by Mark Smith on 28 November 2010

At its annual user conference in Las Vegas, Kronos unveiled the next stage of its approach to workforce management to its customers and partners, showing an aggressively confident posture after completing its fiscal year 2010 with revenue increased 9 percent to $741 million. Kronos is the largest provider of workforce management systems for time and attendance, scheduling, absence tracking,... Read More

Topics: Human Capital, Human Resources Management, Kronos, Mobile Applications, Operational Performance, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Workforce Performance, Compensation, Talent Management, Workforce Management

Enkata Advances Contact Center Analytics to Improve Customer Experience

Posted by ISG Research on 28 November 2010

Among the important findings of our latest benchmark research on contact center analytics were these two: 88 percent of companies said they can use analytics to improve the performance of the contact center (41% said they could make significant improvement), and the main issue holding them back from doing that is an excessive reliance on spreadsheets (90% indicated they use spreadsheets on a... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Customer Relationship Management, Enkata, Operational Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer Service, Call Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM

What is the Value of Your Financial Performance Management Software?

Posted by Robert Kugel on 28 November 2010

Ventana Research has just announced its Value Index for Financial Performance Management (FPM) for 2010. Our value indexes are user-focused assessments of how well software vendors and packages enable companies to improve their execution of core processes. This one is designed to help businesses, especially the finance organization, evaluate the FPM software suites offered by major vendors in the... Read More

Topics: ERP, Office of Finance, Financial Applications, Business Performance, Business Technology, Financial Performance, Business Planning, CFO, finance, Corporate Finance, Financial Performance Management

Planview Does Initiative-Based Planning

Posted by Robert Kugel on 28 November 2010

I’ve written quite a bit about integrated business planning (IBP), which is the process of connecting aspects of the planning function across an organization to improve its internal alignment and financial performance. IBP begins with operational – rather than financial – planning (that is, budgeting) because it’s about running the business and figuring out how to make the financial aspects work... Read More

Topics: Performance Management, Project Portfolio Management, IT Performance, Operational Performance, CIO, Financial Performance, Business Planning, CFO, Initiatives Management, Initiatives Planning, Operational Planning

Aurix Powers New Generation of Speech Analytics

Posted by ISG Research on 28 November 2010

Aurix is not a widely recognized vendor in the speech analytics market even though its technology powers products provided by companies such as CallCopy, KnoahSoft, NewVoiceMedia and OnviSource. In fact its strategy is to provide the engine that these and other partners use in market-facing speech analytics solutions. Its main product, Aurix speech search SDK, is a search engine that searches... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Customer Relationship Management, Customer Service, Uncategorized, Call Center, Contact Center Analytics, Voice Analytics

Tableau 6 Combines In-Memory Processing and Visualization

Posted by ISG Research on 28 November 2010

Tableau Software officially released Version 6 of its product this week. Tableau approaches business intelligence from the end user’s perspective, focusing primarily on delivering tools that allow people to easily interact with data and visualize it. With this release, Tableau has advanced its in-memory processing capabilities significantly. Fundamentally Tableau 6 shifts from the intelligent... Read More

Topics: Data Visualization, Enterprise Data Strategy, Tableau, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, CIO, In-Memory Computing

Advantages and Challenges of In-Memory Databases and Processing

Posted by ISG Research on 28 November 2010

Interest in and development of in-memory technologies have increased over the last few years, driven in part by widespread availability of affordable 64-bit hardware and operating systems and the performance advantages in-memory operations provide over disk-based operations. Some software vendors, such as SAP with its High-Performance Analytic Appliance (HANA) project has been advancing with... Read More

Topics: Database, Enterprise Data Strategy, IT Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, CIO, Complex Event Processing, In-Memory Computing, Information Management, Information Technology

Microsoft Hopes for a Miracle with Windows Phone 7

Posted by Mark Smith on 28 November 2010

Mobile computing isn’t new anymore. The capabilities of smartphones, among other things, enable businesses to run applications across an enterprise and workers to collaborate across business and social networks. In this endeavor Microsoft was early to market with its Windows CE devices that provided e-mail and Web browsing to phones. For the first years it was a low-level battle among Microsoft,... Read More

Topics: Microsoft, Mobile, Mobile Applications, Mobile Technology, IT Performance, Operational Performance, Business Performance, Business Technology, CIO, Mobility, Digital Technology

Saba Dedicates Itself to People and Collaboration

Posted by Mark Smith on 28 November 2010

At its annual user conference in Boston, Saba provided insights to industry analysts on its progress over the last year and its direction for 2011. Best known for its learning management system (LMS), collaboration and more recently its talent management applications, Saba now has more than 19 million users in 1,400 customer organizations that are mostly in the public sector, have 5,000 or more... Read More

Topics: Human Capital, Human Resources Management, Learning, Mobile Applications, Performance, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Workforce Performance, Compensation, Saba, Talent Management, Workforce Analytics

Happy BIRT Day

Posted by Robert Kugel on 28 November 2010

Actuate held its annual customer day in San Francisco amid the happy chaos of the World Series champion Giants’ ticker-tape celebration, and on that day the company’s ticker symbol changed from ACTU to BIRT (a shift, incidentally, botched by NASDAQ). There was a great deal of focus on its ActuateOne platform (which my colleague reviewed here) and the advancements in using open source software... Read More

Topics: Microsoft, Open Source Software, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, CIO, Information Management, Microsoft Excel, Spreadsheets

IBM Makes InfoSphere Information Server a Force in IT

Posted by ISG Research on 28 November 2010

In the weeks leading up to and as part of its Information On Demand Conference that my colleague assessed, IBM introduced version 8.5 of InfoSphere Information Server and several related product updates. As my colleague suggested earlier, IBM has an ambitious agenda to provide comprehensive information management capabilities through a combination of product development and acquisitions. The... Read More

Topics: Enterprise Data Strategy, IT Performance, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, CIO, Data Integration, IBM, Information Management, Information Technology

Teradata Advances Analytics across the Board

Posted by Mark Smith on 28 November 2010

The battle for business analytics rages on. IBM, Oracle, SAP and SAS as billion dollar and larger companies each combine analytic computation and processing in the underlying data but Teradata remains a key player. For its part Teradata used its annual Partners conference to tout the next generation of analytics in its product portfolio and brought along customers to testify to their success in... Read More

Topics: Enterprise Data Strategy, Teradata, IT Performance, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, CIO, Information Management, Information Technology

Plateau Brings Mobility to Talent Management and Simplifies Applications

Posted by Mark Smith on 28 November 2010

At its 2010 user conference in Miami, Plateau Systems reviewed for analysts its progress in the market for talent management software. Plateau has a unified platform and suite of applications that cover learning, compensation, job performance and analytics. The company’s financials have been steadily growing as more customers adopt its platform and show good year-to-year growth in its... Read More

Topics: Learning, Performance, Plateau, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Workforce Performance, Compensation, Talent Management, Workforce Analytics

IBM Brings Business Analytics and Information Management to Center Stage

Posted by Mark Smith on 28 November 2010

This year IBM joined its annual Information on Demand conference with the new IBM Business Analytics Forum. Some 10,000 attendees came to learn about managing information assets using analytics for business, and the value of integrating business intelligence (BI) with information assets across the enterprise. All these topics are relevant, as large organizations have created thousands of silos... Read More

Topics: Enterprise Data Strategy, IT Performance, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, CIO, IBM, Information Management

Corporations Must Manage Taxes More Intelligently

Posted by Robert Kugel on 28 November 2010

For the past couple of years I’ve been asserting that most larger companies (those with 1,000 or employees) need to adopt a new approach to using software to handle their taxes comprehensively, both the direct sort (income taxes) and the indirect variety (sales and use taxes as well as value-added or goods and services taxes). This is a necessary response to an emerging challenge from more... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Enterprise Tax, Tax Software, Business Performance, Financial Performance, CFO, Corporate Finance, Financial Performance Management, International Finance

Cognos 10 Breaks Down Barriers To Business Intelligence and Analytics

Posted by ISG Research on 28 November 2010

On October 25, IBM introduced Cognos 10 at its Information on Demand and Business Analytics Forum in Las Vegas that I attended to review the technology closer from my examination at its recent IBM Business Analytics analyst summit in September. According to Rob Ashe, IBM’s general manager of business analytics, Cognos 10 has been developed for over six years. You’re probably aware that in that... Read More

Topics: Enterprise Data Strategy, Performance Management, Planning, IT Performance, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, CIO, IBM, Information Management

Think Outside the Box when Investing in Salesforce Chatter

Posted by ISG Research on 28 November 2010

A few weeks ago I wrote a blog discussing salesforce.com (SFDC) Chatter and the buzz the technology is making in which one of my biggest questions was how a non-SFDC customer could justify purchasing Chatter. Well I finally got to speak with someone who has paid at least partially for Chatter. I say partially because this particular customer already has several hundred licenses with SFDC (which... Read More

Topics: Sales, Social Media, Social CRM, Customer Relationship Management, CIO, Collaboration, Operational Intelligence

Merced Systems’ European Event Showcases Best Practices and Customer Insights

Posted by ISG Research on 28 November 2010

Merced Systems provides software to support performance management in both sales and service. Its products extract data from various systems to produce business-related reports, dashboards, scorecards and analysis that help companies improve performance in these two key functions. To further its efforts, Merced recently invited around 100 partners, customers and prospects to its 360 Degree... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Merced Systems, Operational Performance, Analytics

IBM Acquires Clarity Systems for More Financial Performance Management

Posted by Robert Kugel on 28 November 2010

IBM announced it has acquired Clarity Systems, a Toronto-based vendor of performance management software and consulting. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. (My most recent blog and analysis about Clarity Systems can be found here. The acquisition fills an important hole in the IBM Cognos applications portfolio, as Clarity FSR is a leading application for automating and managing the... Read More

Topics: Clarity Systems, Financial Close, Business Performance, Financial Performance, Financial Performance Management

SuccessFactors Takes a Calculator into the Cloud?

Posted by Mark Smith on 28 November 2010

SuccessFactors is known for applications in performance and talent management but has been working to expand its portfolio more broadly into business. This year the company expanded its focus to workforce analytics with the acquisition of Inform, which I assessed. I have assessed that Inform needed to improve the usability of its tools to compete better which is now more easily possible with a... Read More

Topics: Human Capital Management, SuccessFactors, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Financial Performance, Workforce Performance, Talent Management