ISG Software Research Analyst Perspectives

insightsoftware Enables a Predictive and Effective Finance Department

Posted by Robert Kugel on 14 February 2023

insightsoftware provides applications for finance departments and other business users in midsize and larger organizations, offering a broad range of functions including analysis, internal and regulatory reporting, planning, consolidation, tax provision and treasury. The software brings together applications that enable business users to maximize data collected in existing systems and streamline... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, embedded analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Planning, Financial Performance Management, ERP and Continuous Accounting

Prevedere Provides Predictive Insights with Analytics and Planning

Posted by David Menninger on 24 January 2023

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... Read More

Topics: embedded analytics, Analytics, Business Intelligence, AI and Machine Learning

The 2023 Market Agenda for Analytics: Empowering Workforces to Engage

Posted by David Menninger on 17 January 2023

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. It has been exciting to follow innovations in the analytics market, but for businesses, capitalizing on these innovations can be challenging. To support this, I... Read More

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

Oracle Links Analytics and Business Intelligence in the Cloud

Posted by David Menninger on 29 December 2022

Organizations conduct data analysis in many ways. The process can include multiple spreadsheets, applications, desktop tools, disparate data systems, data warehouses and analytics solutions. This creates difficulties for management to provide and maintain updated information across multiple departments. Our Analytics and Data Benchmark Research shows that organizations face a variety of... Read More

Topics: embedded analytics, Analytics, Business Intelligence, natural language processing, AI and Machine Learning

Make Intelligent Decisions with Decision Intelligence

Posted by David Menninger on 27 December 2022

For far too long, business intelligence technologies have left the rest of the exercise to the reader. Many of these tools do an excellent job providing information in an interactive way that lets organizations dive into the data and learn a lot about what has happened across all aspects of the business. More recently, many of these tools have added augmented intelligence capabilities that help... Read More

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

InterSystems Transforming Organizations with Cloud Smart Data Fabric

Posted by Matt Aslett on 27 December 2022

The shift from on-premises server infrastructure to cloud-based and software-as-a-service (SaaS) models has had a profound impact on the data and analytics architecture of many organizations in recent years. More than one-half of participants (59%) in Ventana Research’s Analytics and Data Benchmark research are deploying data and analytics workloads in the cloud, and a further 30% plan to do so.... Read More

Topics: Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Data Management, Data, natural language processing, data operations, analytic data platforms, Analytics and Data, AI and Machine Learning

Master Metrics with Kyligence Zen

Posted by David Menninger on 23 December 2022

Analytics processes are all about how organizations use data to create metrics that help manage and improve operations. Yet, the discipline applied to analytics processes seems to be lacking compared to data processes. I’ve pointed out that the weak link in data governance is often analytics. Organizations can also do a better job tying AnalyticOps to DataOps and do more to define and manage... Read More

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

The Data Pantry Accelerates Actionable Analytics for Decision-Making

Posted by Robert Kugel on 22 December 2022

Ventana Research uses the term “data pantry” to describe a method of data storage (and the technology and process blueprint for its construction) created for a specific set of users and use cases in business-focused software. It’s a pantry because all the data one needs is readily available and easily accessible, with labels that are immediately recognized and understood by the users of the... Read More

Topics: Continuous Planning, Business Intelligence, Data Management, Business Planning, Data, Financial Performance Management, Enterprise Resource Planning, continuous supply chain, data operations, Streaming Data Events, Analytics and Data, AI and Machine Learning

Cloud Computing Realities Part 4 — Security and Governance

Posted by David Menninger on 21 December 2022

In previous perspectives in this series, I’ve discussed some of the realities of cloud computing including costs, hybrid and multi-cloud configurations and business continuity. This perspective examines the realities of security and regulatory concerns associated with cloud computing. These issues are often cited by our research participants as reasons they are not embracing the cloud. To be... Read More

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

Recognize and Plan for the AI and Machine Learning Skills Gap

Posted by David Menninger on 15 December 2022

Recently, I suggested you need to “mind the gap” between data and analytics. This perspective addresses another gap — the gap in skills between business intelligence (BI) and artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML). There’s a lot of hype surrounding AI/ML, and for good reason too. Our research shows that the interest in AI/ML is justified. Organizations using AI/ML report it has helped... Read More

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

Monte Carlo Bets on the Future of Data Observability

Posted by Matt Aslett on 13 December 2022

Earlier this year, I wrote about the increasing importance of data observability, an emerging product category that takes advantage of machine learning (ML) and Data Operations (DataOps) to automate the monitoring of data used for analytics projects to ensure its quality and lineage. Monitoring the quality and lineage of data is nothing new. Manual tools exist to ensure that it is complete, valid... Read More

Topics: Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Data Management, Data, data operations

SQream if You Want to Analyze Data Faster

Posted by Matt Aslett on 08 December 2022

One of the most significant considerations when choosing an analytic data platform is performance. As organizations compete to benefit most from being data-driven, the lower the time to insight the better. As data practitioners have learnt over time, however, lowering time to insight is about more than just high-performance queries. There are opportunities to improve time to insight throughout... Read More

Topics: Business Intelligence, Data, data operations, analytic data platforms, AI and Machine Learning

Sisense is Sensible for Embedded Analytics and BI

Posted by David Menninger on 07 December 2022

Embedded business intelligence (BI) continues to transform the business landscape, enabling organizations to quickly interpret data and convert it into actionable insights. It allows organizations to extract information in real time and answer wide-ranging business questions. Embedding analytics helps tackle the issue of extracting information from data which is a time-consuming process. Our... Read More

Topics: embedded analytics, Analytics, Business Intelligence, natural language processing, Streaming Analytics, AI and Machine Learning

IBM Builds on Analytics and BI Foundation

Posted by David Menninger on 29 November 2022

In today’s data-driven world, organizations need real-time access to up-to-date, high-quality data and analysis to keep pace with changing market dynamics and make better strategic decisions. By mining meaningful insights from enterprise data quickly, they gain a competitive advantage in the market. Yet, organizations face a multitude of challenges when transitioning into an analytics-driven... Read More

Topics: embedded analytics, Analytics, Business Intelligence, IBM, IBM Watson, AI and Machine Learning

Technology Puts the ‘A’ Back in FP&A

Posted by Robert Kugel on 22 November 2022

The starting point of an era is never precise and rarely conforms to neat calendar delineations. For example, the start of the 20th century is associated with the outbreak of war in 1914. So I expect that decades from now, the consensus will hold that what became known as the 21st century began in the year 2020, with the pandemic serving as a catalyst that accelerated already existing trends and... Read More

Topics: Office of Finance, Business Intelligence, Business Planning, Financial Performance Management, AI and Machine Learning

IBM Planning Analytics Enables Agility Based on Insight

Posted by Robert Kugel on 18 November 2022

IBM Planning Analytics with Watson is a comprehensive, cloud-based business planning application that supports what Ventana Research calls integrated business planning. We coined this term in 2007 to describe a high-participation approach to business planning that integrates strategy, operations and finance. Our Next Generation Business Planning Benchmark Research demonstrated the value of IBP:... Read More

Topics: Predictive Analytics, Office of Finance, embedded analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Planning, Financial Performance Management, Watson, Digital transformation, AI and Machine Learning

Mind the Gap Between Data and Analytics

Posted by David Menninger on 16 November 2022

If you’ve ever been to London, you are probably familiar with the announcements on the London Underground to “mind the gap” between the trains and the platform. I suggest we also need to mind the gap between data and analytics. These worlds are often disconnected in organizations and, as a result, it limits their effectiveness and agility. Part of the issue is that data and analytics tasks are... Read More

Topics: embedded analytics, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Data Governance, Data Management, data operations, Analytics and Data

Databricks Lakehouse Platform Maximizes Analytical Value

Posted by Matt Aslett on 16 November 2022

I have previously written about growing interest in the data lakehouse as one of the design patterns for delivering hydroanalytics analysis of data in a data lake. Many organizations have invested in data lakes as a relatively inexpensive way of storing large volumes of data from multiple enterprise applications and workloads, especially semi- and unstructured data that is unsuitable for storing... Read More

Topics: Business Intelligence, Data Governance, Data Management, Data, Streaming Data Events, analytic data platforms, AI and Machine Learning

IBM’s Cloud Pak for Data Builds a Foundation for Data Fabric

Posted by Matt Aslett on 08 November 2022

I have written recently about the similarities and differences between data mesh and data fabric. The two are potentially complementary. Data mesh is an organizational and cultural approach to data ownership, access and governance. Data fabric is a technical approach to automating data management and data governance in a distributed architecture. There are various definitions of data fabric, but... Read More

Topics: Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Data Governance, Data Management, Data, data operations, AI and Machine Learning

Cloudera Embraces SaaS with Data Lakehouse Launch

Posted by Matt Aslett on 18 October 2022

Ventana Research’s Data Lakes Dynamics Insights research illustrates that while data lakes are fulfilling their promise of enabling organizations to economically store and process large volumes of raw data, data lake environments continue to evolve. Data lakes were initially based primarily on Apache Hadoop deployed on-premises but are now increasingly based on cloud object storage. Adopters are... Read More

Topics: Business Intelligence, Data Governance, Data Management, Data, data operations, Streaming Data Events, analytic data platforms, Analytics and Data, AI and Machine Learning