ISG Software Research Analyst Perspectives | Business Intelligence (23)

Plumbing the Salesforce Clouds is Your Business

Posted by Mark Smith on 25 September 2012

Salesforce is a global software-as-a-service (SaaS) company to be reckoned with. The swarming crowds at its Dreamforce event last week were estimated to exceed 90,000. The company is rapidly growing an ecosystem that includes Sales, Service and Marketing Clouds; Force.com for building applications; and Data.com for storing data in the cloud centrally for use across Salesforce products. It is also...

Topics: Master Data Management, Sales Performance, Salesforce.com, Social Media, SnapLogic, Zyme Solutions, IT Performance, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, CIO, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Data Governance, Data Integration, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), Informatica, Information Builders, Information Management, Data, data integrity, database.com, Kapow

Salesforce Struggles to Deliver on the Dream of Analytics

Posted by Mark Smith on 21 September 2012

I was at the Salesforce.com Dreamforce conference this week to hear about the latest advancements from the cloud computing software giant. Salesforce has helped revolutionize cloud computing for business, and its social media and collaborative technologies help advance business processes in sales, customer service and improve the interactions between employees, partners and customers. Salesforce...

Topics: Big Data, Predictive Analytics, QlikView, Sales Performance, Salesforce.com, Social Media, Gooddata, SnapLogic, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, InetSoft, Information Applications, Information Management, KXEN, Operational Intelligence, Cloud9 Analytics, Domo, Information Builder iway, Roambi

Salesforce Dreamforce Keynote: Social is Changing Industry Power Structures

Posted by ISG Software Research on 21 September 2012

With more than 90,000 attendees registered and 100,000 more expected to watch via live stream on Facebook, Salesforce.com’s Dreamforce is the biggest technology event of this year. The conference kicked off yesterday morning with MC Hammer letting the packed house know that it was “Chatter time” and leaving little doubt about the theme of the Marc Benioff’s keynote speech: Social. Citing numbers...

Topics: Big Data, Mobile, Sales Performance, Social Media, IT Performance, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Location Intelligence, Workforce Performance, Social

Transforming Three Vs of Big Data into Three Ws of Business Analytics

Posted by ISG Software Research on 19 September 2012

Thinking about big data and the swirling world of analytics that surrounds it can be overwhelming. Broad-based organizational and technological changes are driving a new industrial constitution built on time-to-value and closed-loop systems of organizational and machine learning. As I analyze our next-generation business intelligence benchmark research results, I see trends in collaboration and...

Topics: Big Data, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Customer & Contact Center, Information Applications, Information Management, Location Intelligence, Operational Intelligence

Are You Dreaming Social? Salesforce Is!

Posted by Mark Smith on 18 September 2012

The annual Salesforce.com Dreamforce conference (Twitter: #DF12), just underway, may be the largest software conference ever, with attendance, physically and on the Internet, expected to be 90,000. Certainly, as one of the largest software events of 2012, this conference will be heavily covered via social media, while under the roof of the Moscone Center and surrounding hotels Salesforce will be...

Topics: Sales Performance, Salesforce.com, Supply Chain Performance, Research, SFDC, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Mobility, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Information Applications, Information Management, Operational Intelligence, Workforce Performance, Dreamforce

Splunk Bids to be King of Search and Operational Analytics

Posted by ISG Software Research on 14 September 2012

As I listened to the keynote address at, conf2012, the annual Splunk user conference, my initial impression was that the company was spreading itself too thin. The company highlighted four rather formidable areas of organizational focus: Enterprise 5.0, the company’s flagship data platform, which is now in beta; Development, which is support for building applications and integrating Splunk within...

Topics: Big Data, Splunk, data fabric, IT Performance, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Operational Intelligence, Digital Technology

Jaspersoft 4.7 Shows Big Data Opportunity and Mobile BI Challenges

Posted by ISG Software Research on 31 August 2012

Jaspersoft Business Intelligence Suite competes in the open source and broader BI market. Its customer base is mostly in the small and midsized business and OEMs and SaaS providers who can embed Jaspersoft code directly into their offerings. Earlier this summer, the company introduced Jaspersoft 4.7, which features advancements in interactive reporting, big data access and mobile business...

Topics: Big Data, Mobile, Jaspersoft, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Information Applications

Gaining Time-to-Value From Big Data

Posted by ISG Software Research on 30 August 2012

I had a refreshing call this morning with a vendor that did not revolve around integration of systems, types of data, and the intricacies of NoSQL approaches. Instead, the discussion was about how its business users analyze an important and complex problem and how the company’s software enables that analysis. The topic of big data never came up, and it was not needed, because the conversation was...

Topics: Big Data, Datameer, Predictive Analytics, Sales Performance, Supply Chain Performance, Planview, SuccessFactors, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, IBM, Information Management, Operational Intelligence, Workforce Performance, PivotLink

What a Bugatti Can Teach Us About Information Management

Posted by Robert Kugel on 29 August 2012

One of the community groups to which I donate my time is an organization that puts on a Concours d’Élegance – a vintage car show. Such Concours date back to seventeenth-century France, when wealthy aristocrats gathered to see who had the best carriages and most beaudacious horses. Our Concours serves as the centerpiece to a broader mission of raising money for several charities. There a many such...

Topics: Big Data, GRC, IT Performance, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, CIO, Financial Performance, Information Management, Operational Intelligence, CFO, finance, Talent Management, FPM

Good Data Stewardship Is Critical for Business Analytics

Posted by Robert Kugel on 24 August 2012

Our research consistently finds that defects in data are the root cause of a wide range of problems encountered by modern corporations. The magnitude of the problem correlates with the size of the company: Big companies have bigger headaches than midsize ones. Data issues diminish productivity in every part of a business as people struggle to correct errors or find workarounds. Issues with data...

Topics: Big Data, Predictive Analytics, Sales Performance, Supply Chain Performance, GRC, IT Performance, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, CIO, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Information Management, Operational Intelligence, Workforce Performance, CFO, finance, FPM

Closing the Analytics Skills Gap

Posted by ISG Software Research on 23 August 2012

A study by the McKinsey Global Institute published earlier this year suggests a coming shortage of more than 140,000 workers with deep analytical skills and a shortage of more than 1.5 million data-literate managers. I’m not sure how the study defined these roles, but I’d guess that those with deep analytic skills are those folks building the complex models, and the data-literate managers are...

Topics: Big Data, Data Scientist, Predictive Analytics, Sales Performance, IT Performance, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Operational Intelligence, Workforce Performance

The Stupidity of KPIs in Business Analytics

Posted by Mark Smith on 23 August 2012

In my last rant, on business analytics and the pathetic state of dashboards, I pointed out significant flaws in business intelligence software created by technology providers and in how it is being deployed by business and IT. Now I want to follow up with some insight on disconnects to a critical asset that is essential to the success of business analytics. I mean key performance indicators...

Topics: Sales Performance, Social Media, Supply Chain Performance, Sustainability, KPI, IT Performance, Key Performance Indicators, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), Information Applications, Information Management, Location Intelligence, Operational Intelligence, Workforce Performance

The Pathetic State of Dashboards

Posted by Mark Smith on 22 August 2012

Over the last several months, my colleague VP and Research Director Tony Cosentino and I have been assessing vendors and products in the business intelligence market as part of our upcoming Value Index. Tony recently wrote about the swirling world of business analytics, covering many of the dynamics of this industry. He and I have been reviewing the breadth and depth of over 15 of these vendors...

Topics: Sales Performance, Supply Chain Performance, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, CIO, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Dashboards, Financial Performance, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), Information Management, Location Intelligence, Workforce Performance, Expert Systems

Tibco Bets on Event-Driven Analytics

Posted by ISG Software Research on 20 August 2012

Over the years Tibco has provided infrastructure for enterprise data integration and has built a substantial installed base. Now the company positions itself as supplying next-generation analytics for big data through service-oriented architecture (SOA). SOA has been around for a while; Ventana Research has been tracking it since 2006 and conducted benchmark research on SOA. But it remains a...

Topics: Big Data, Predictive Analytics, Sales Performance, SOA, Spotfire, IT Performance, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Complex Event Processing, Customer & Contact Center, Information Management, Operational Intelligence, Tibco, CEP, Service Cloud

Predictive Analytics Move Toward Center Stage

Posted by ISG Software Research on 17 August 2012

In this second in a blog series on business analytics I focus on the increasingly important area of predictive analytics. Our benchmark research into predictive analytics shows that while the vast majority of companies see this technology as important or very important for the future of their organizations, most are not taking full advantage of it. This finding suggests that there is an...

Topics: Big Data, Predictive Analytics, Sales Performance, Supply Chain Performance, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Operational Intelligence, Workforce Performance

Stibo Is Red Hot for Product Information Management

Posted by Mark Smith on 13 August 2012

When it comes to managing product information, organizations know they have room for improvement; only 27 percent trust their efforts completely, and less than a fifth (19%) are very satisfied with them. Almost half (48%) say they have too many incompatible tools, while 41 percent do not have a centralized information repository and 45 percent use a manual process to create a single complete,...

Topics: Sales Performance, Supply Chain Performance, MDM, PIM, Operational Performance, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Information Management (IM), Product Information Management

Make IT Spending Transparent

Posted by Robert Kugel on 09 August 2012

What does it cost to run an IT department? That’s an easy question to answer, but for most companies, why it costs that amount is not. IT departments often complain that most of their budget is devoted to funding daily operations and basic maintenance (“keeping the lights on”), but often, one big overlooked problem is the chargeback process that most companies use to assign IT department...

Topics: Sales, Office of Finance, Budgeting, chargebacks, Operational Performance, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Financial Performance, IT cost

Making Sense of the Swirling World of Business Analytics

Posted by ISG Software Research on 09 August 2012

Our benchmark research on business analytics suggests that it is counterproductive to take a general approach to the topic. A better approach is to focus on particular use cases and lines of business (LOB). For this reason, in a series of upcoming articles, I will look at our business analytics research in the context of different industries and different functional areas of an organization, and...

Topics: Big Data, Predictive Analytics, Sales Performance, Social Media, Supply Chain Performance, IT Performance, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), Information Applications, Information Management, Location Intelligence, Operational Intelligence, Workforce Performance

Karmasphere Addresses Big-Data Skills Gap with Collaboration and Analytics

Posted by ISG Software Research on 04 August 2012

Karmasphere has an interesting story to tell. Much like Datameer, which I recently blogged about, Karmasphere sits on top of the Hadoop distributed platform where companies such as Cloudera, Hortonworks and MapR compete. Karmasphere provides a collaborative environment and an analytical workbench that help companies write applications and workflows that run on top of Hadoop. The company’s...

Topics: Big Data, IT Performance, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Collaboration, Customer & Contact Center, Information Applications, Information Management, Karmasphere, Strata+Hadoop

Microstrategy Provides Hadoop and Predictive Analytics with Version 9.3

Posted by ISG Software Research on 27 July 2012

MicroStrategy, announced version 9.3. The announcement came out of Amsterdam this month just in front of MicroStrategy World, the company’s annual conference for the European market. Release 9.3 delivers significant updates in four main areas: big data, advanced analytics, automated administration and visual data discovery.

Topics: Big Data, MicroStrategy, Mobile, Predictive Analytics, Sales Performance, IT Performance, Operational Performance, Visual Insight, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Information Applications, Operational Intelligence, Workforce Performance, Digital Technology