Analyst Perspectives

The Office of Finance can be compared to a numbers factory where the main raw material, data, is transformed into financial statements, management accounting, analyses, forecasts, budgets, regulatory filings, tax returns and all kinds of reports. Data is the strategic raw material of the finance and accounting department. It is the key ingredient in every sale and purchase as well as every...

The data and analytics sector rightly places great importance on data quality: Almost two-thirds (64%) of participants in Ventana Research’s Analytics and Data Benchmark Research cite reviewing data for quality and consistency issues as the most time-consuming task in analyzing data. Data and analytics vendors would not recommend that customers use tools known to have data quality problems. It is...

MicroStrategy is a long-standing business intelligence and analytics vendor that operates worldwide. Founded in 1989, this publicly traded company with hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue recently held its first in-person conference since prior to the pandemic. Similar to previous in-person events, the event was well attended by about 2,000 attendees and exhibitors. The theme,...

Artificial intelligence (AI) has evolved from a highly specialized niche technology to a worldwide phenomenon. Nearly 9 in 10 organizations use or plan to adopt AI technology. Several factors have contributed to this evolution. First, the amount of data they can collect and store has increased dramatically while the cost of analyzing these large amounts of data has decreased dramatically....

The data platforms market has traditionally been divided between products specifically designed to support operational or analytic workloads, with other market segments having emerged in recent years for data platforms targeted specifically at data science and machine learning (ML), as well as real-time analytics. More recently, we have seen vendor strategies evolving to provide a more...

Generative AI is a class of artificial intelligence used to generate new, seemingly real content. Broadly speaking, AI has traditionally been used to identify patterns in data and apply those patterns to categorize and predict behaviors. For instance, it can organize customers into groups (or clusters) with similar characteristics, or predict which customers are most likely to respond to certain...

The recent publication of our Value Index research highlights the impact of intelligent applications on the operational data platforms sector. While we continue to believe that, for most use cases, there is a clear, functional requirement for either analytic or operational data platforms, recent growth in the development of intelligent applications infused with the results of analytic processes,...

In my perspective on decision intelligence, I lamented the fact that business intelligence technologies have left the rest of the exercise to the reader for too long. Making a decision is a process that involves many steps and many people. Decision-making is so complicated and divorced from day-to-day business processes that organizations have had to create entirely separate teams to focus on the...

Organizations are becoming increasingly aware of the potential value that can be gained by processing big data. As data sources grow, it becomes important to have tools and methods to effectively process, analyze and visualize this information from disparate systems and warehouses.

People analytics is the application of data and statistical methods to better understand and optimize the human capital within an organization. It has become a crucial aspect of business strategy as organizations seek to make data-driven decisions about the workforce. In the past decade, the people analytics market has experienced substantial growth, as businesses look for ways to gain insight...

Organizations are continuously searching for new business opportunities hidden in their data. They are using various technologies including artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) to uncover granular insights that can support decision-making. Existing tools and dashboards are effective for observing standard metrics; however, they do not address follow-up questions, such as why...

Success with streaming data and events requires a more holistic approach to managing and governing data in motion and data at rest. The use of streaming data and event processing has been part of the data landscape for many decades. For much of that time, data streaming was a niche activity, however, with standalone data streaming and event-processing projects run in parallel with existing...

Now more than ever, effective data management is crucial to enable decision-makers to better assess information and take calculated actions. It is also important to keep up with the latest trends and technologies to derive higher value from data and analytics and maintain a competitive edge in the market. However, every organization faces challenges with data management and analytics. And as...

Data analytics provide valuable insights and enable organizations to make better decisions, improve performance and gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace. Analytics can change frequently depending on the data being analyzed and the methods used to gather and process it. Factors such as new data, changes in the underlying systems or updates to algorithms can all contribute to differences...

I’ve previously written about the analytics continuum, which spans a range of capabilities including reporting, visualization, planning, real-time processes, natural language processing, artificial intelligence and machine learning. I’ve also written about the analysis that goes into making intelligent decisions with decision intelligence. In this perspective, I’d like to focus on one end of the...

Markets have been more volatile than ever. It creates a need for decision makers to utilize technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) to better understand the external factors that impact their business. By identifying these factors, organizations can better plan for changing market environments and seize market opportunities. However, manual modeling is a...

Ventana Research recently announced its 2023 Market Agenda for Analytics, continuing the guidance we have offered for nearly two decades to help organizations derive optimal value from technology investments to improve business outcomes.

Ventana Research recently announced its 2023 research agenda for the Office of Revenue, continuing the guidance we’ve offered for nearly two decades to help organizations realize their optimal value from applying technology to improve business outcomes. Chief Sales and Revenue Officers face an imperative to manage their sales and revenue organizations, but they don’t always have the guidance they...

Ventana Research recently announced its Market Agenda in the expertise area of Customer Experience. CX has emerged as a way for organizations to demonstrate value and stand out in the marketplace. The technology underlying modern CX is transitioning from tools that are based on communication to those centered on data analysis and process automation. This allows organizations to build great...

I’m proud to share Ventana Research’s 2023 Market Agenda for Digital Technology. Our focus in this agenda is to deliver expertise to help organizations prioritize technology investments that improve customer, partner and workforce experiences while also increasing organizational effectiveness and agility.