ISG Software Research Analyst Perspectives | Business Intelligence (25)

Enterprise Revolution of Predictive Analytics with Version 6

Posted by Mark Smith on 15 June 2012

In our benchmark research in predictive analytics we’ve uncovered some intriguing tools for taking advantage of big data in the enterprise. Revolution Analytics, which we analyzed earlier this year, this month introduced its 6.0 release. Revolution extends the open source statistical programming language R with capabilities you would expect out of enterprise software. The company has grown...

Topics: Big Data, Linux, Predictive, Revolution, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Cloudera, Data Mining, Strata+Hadoop

Cognos Express Gives Midsize Companies Outsize Capabilities

Posted by Robert Kugel on 08 June 2012

A main reason why desktop spreadsheets are pervasive in midsize companies (which we define as those with 100 to 1,000 employees) is that these organizations do not have the financial and manpower resources to implement and maintain traditional enterprise business intelligence and performance management systems. To address this gap in the market, several years ago IBM Cognos launched Express, a...

Topics: ERP, Office of Finance, Reporting, Budgeting, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Dashboards, IBM, Uncategorized, CFO, finance, Financial Performance Management

New Generation of Big-Data Analytics with 1010data

Posted by Mark Smith on 08 June 2012

At first I thought 1010data just developed a faster data warehouse technology to be used with business intelligence tools. After a recent briefing, however, I learned that it provides much more than a data warehouse; the product is a large-scale analytics server that empowers business analysts to work on big data, conducting for, example, market basket analysis or correlations of customer and...

Topics: Big Data, Data Warehousing, Sales Performance, Predictive, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Information Management

Information Builders Advances Business Analytics and Big Data

Posted by Mark Smith on 06 June 2012

More than 1,000 people attended the 32nd annual Information Builders Summit conference this week to learn about the company’s advances in big data, business analytics, cloud computing, mobile technology and social media, which CEO and founder Gerald Cohen announced and demonstrated during his keynote address. With WebFOCUS version 8, Information Builders has made significant strides in a range of...

Topics: Big Data, Mobile, Sales Performance, Social Media, Supply Chain Performance, Sustainability, Business Technology Innovation, IT Performance, IT Research, Operational Performance, Analytics, 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, Search

Glad to be Part of the Ventana Research Team

Posted by ISG Software Research on 01 June 2012

Hello! I’m excited to be the newest member of the Ventana Research leadership team to bring research insights and education to the business analytics and technology industry. I’d like to start by telling you a bit about who I am, why I’ve chosen to join this company and what I hope to contribute.

Topics: Social Media, Market Research, IT Performance, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Information Applications, Information Management, Location Intelligence, Operational Intelligence

Echopass Demonstrates Value of Contact Center in the Cloud

Posted by ISG Software Research on 31 May 2012

Our benchmark research into the contact center in the cloud shows that almost all companies now support multiple communication channels to engage with customers. Most of them also involve multiple business units in handling inbound and outbound interactions. More companies now support at-home agents, and contact centers are becoming more distributed. These scenarios are a good fit for cloud-based...

Topics: Predictive Analytics, Sales Performance, Customer Analytics, Customer Experience, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Echopass, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Information Applications, Workforce Performance, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Text Analytics, Unified Communications

Cloudforce UK Shows Salesforce.com at Its Best

Posted by ISG Software Research on 24 May 2012

When the Salesforce.com marketing machine rolls into town, you have to sit up and listen, and that’s what 14,000 attendees did at the latest Cloudforce event in London. The company took over a vast portion of the ExCel London Exhibition Centre to accommodate the keynote speech, lots of side events and meeting rooms and an expo floor where attendees could see demonstrations of every product and...

Topics: Sales Performance, Salesforce.com, Customer Analytics, Customer Experience, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, LiveOps, NewVoicemedia, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Information Applications, Workforce Performance, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Text Analytics, Vocalcom

Opera Solutions Orchestrates Intelligent Applications using Big Data and Predictive Analytics

Posted by Mark Smith on 23 May 2012

Predictive analytics has the potential to help businesses increase the impacts of their actions by creating indicators that represent future outcomes based on existing behavior. This process becomes more complicated when they have to apply predictive analytics to what we call big data environments. As yet only 13 percent of organizations are using predictive analytics according to our business...

Topics: Big Data, Predictive Analytics, Opera Solutions, IT Performance, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Mobility, Business Performance, Business Technology, CIO, Cloud Computing, Information Applications, Information Management, Information Technology, Operational Intelligence

Splunk Provides Intelligence for Customer Analytics

Posted by ISG Software Research on 22 May 2012

Recently my colleague Mark Smith wrote about Splunk and its latest technology supporting analytics for IT on machine data and providing operational intelligence. I wasn’t familiar with the company, which has focused on IT users and improving the performance of a company’s networks and IT systems. From a customer management perspective, these are of little interest unless they impact the customer...

Topics: Sales Performance, Customer Experience, Social CRM, Splunk, IT Performance, Operational Performance, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Information Applications, Information Management, Workforce Performance, Call Center, Contact Center, CRM

Genesys Moves into Mobile Self-Service for Customers

Posted by ISG Software Research on 21 May 2012

It has been a busy time for Genesys, a company best known for computer/telephony integration (CTI) and routing software for contact centers. In February it split from Alcatel-Lucent and announced that with financial backing from two investment funds it was going forward as a stand-alone company. Over the last few years Genesys has diversified its portfolio to include workforce optimization, agent...

Topics: Sales Performance, Customer Experience, Social CRM, Genesys, Operational Performance, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Information Applications, Workforce Performance, Call Center, Contact Center, CRM

Informatica 9.5 Supports New Generation of Big Data and Cloud Computing

Posted by Mark Smith on 18 May 2012

Informatica has announced a major release, version 9.5, of its software platform, which will be generally available in June. The company’s data integration technologies will support the new generation of computing that includes big data, cloud computing, mobile and social media. These computing environments, which our firm has defined as key business technology drivers for this decade, have a...

Topics: Big Data, Supply Chain Performance, Mobile Technology, IT Performance, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Mobility, Business Performance, Business Technology, CIO, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), Informatica, Information Applications, Information Management, Information Technology, Strata+Hadoop

NICE Systems Mobile Customer Self-Service Connects to Agents

Posted by ISG Software Research on 18 May 2012

Conventional wisdom in the contact center is that self-service options for customers reduce the number of their telephone calls. However, my benchmark research into the use of technology in contact centers throws doubt on this, finding that companies still expect the volume of interactions through all channels, including the phone, to increase. This is further supported by my benchmark research...

Topics: Sales Performance, Customer Experience, NICE Systems, Social CRM, Operational Performance, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Information Applications, Workforce Performance, Call Center, Contact Center, CRM

Sales Organizations Need a Swift Technology Kick

Posted by Mark Smith on 10 May 2012

Our latest benchmark research on sales applications and technology reveals three trends sales organizations see as critical to improving their operations and performance: mobile technology like smartphones and tablets, collaborative capabilities and business analytics applied to sales. At the same time many sales processes are becoming easier to use, including compensation, forecasting and quota...

Topics: Sales Performance, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Mobility, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), Location Intelligence, Workforce Performance

Pentaho Business Analytics Brings Visual Discovery and More Big Data Support

Posted by Mark Smith on 10 May 2012

With the release of Business Analytics version 4.5, Pentaho has expanded its platform and tools to address the needs of business and IT. The product has come a long way since the version 4 release less than a year ago, which broke ground in ease of use and support for big-data sources. Advancing beyond its roots in business intelligence, Pentaho Business Analytics 4.5 addresses data discovery,...

Topics: Big Data, Pentaho, Supply Chain Performance, Mobile Technology, IT Performance, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Mobility, Business Performance, Business Technology, CIO, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), Information Applications, Information Management, Information Technology, Strata+Hadoop

Kapow Software Harvests and Virtualizes Information and Applications for Business

Posted by Mark Smith on 08 May 2012

Making business use of the vast amount of information on the Web and Internet along with a company’s intranet is no easy task. Kapow Software aims to help by providing tools to define and virtualize access to information, integrate it with other information, such as that in databases, and present it in a useful format. The tool can supply access to data from legacy applications such as PeopleSoft...

Topics: Big Data, Supply Chain Performance, Mobile Technology, IT Performance, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Mobility, Business Performance, Business Technology, CIO, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), Information Applications, Information Management, Information Technology, Kapow, Strata+Hadoop

InetSoft Empowers Organizations To Mobilize Business Analytics

Posted by Mark Smith on 07 May 2012

Business intelligence software is increasingly mobile, becoming available via smartphones and tablets and now enabling planning and what-if scenarios to determine the impacts of changes that might be made to improve performance. InetSoft, which has been providing business intelligence tools for more than 15 years, has advanced its technologies to address these trends. The company recently ...

Topics: Sales Performance, IT Performance, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Business Technology, CIO, Cloud Computing, Financial Performance, InetSoft, Information Applications, Information Management, Information Technology

Interactive Intelligence Offers Customers Mobile Self-Service

Posted by ISG Software Research on 07 May 2012

Interactive Intelligence announced Interaction Mobilizer, the latest application in its growing portfolio of products. As I recently wrote, Interactive Intelligence has come a long way since it launched its first software-based PBX in 1994. It was a pioneer in offering contact center applications in the cloud, which now include communications in the cloud and products for workforce optimization....

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

NICE Transforms Customer Experience through Mobile and Interaction Intelligence

Posted by Mark Smith on 04 May 2012

I attended NICE Systems’ annual Interactions (Twitter #Interaction2012) conference in Nashville to get the latest from this growing global software business that focuses on customer-centric applications. If you have not heard of NICE you might not be primarily involved in managing and interacting with customers, the area in which NICE has been growing organically and by acquiring technology...

Topics: Predictive Analytics, Sales Performance, Social Media, Customer Analytics, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, NICE Systems, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Financial Performance, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), Operational Intelligence, Workforce Performance, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Interactive Intelligence, Text Analytics, Unified Communications, Workforce Management

Customer Engagement Day Reveals New Issues and Opportunity

Posted by ISG Software Research on 01 May 2012

I recently attended the second in the series of customer engagement days organized by the Directors Club (GB & NI). The format of the event was the same as the first day that I wrote about and included three keynote presentations and three roundtable sessions where attendees discussed how organizations should engage with customers. As for the first event I chaired the roundtable on perfecting...

Topics: Predictive Analytics, Sales Performance, Social Media, Supply Chain Performance, Sustainability, Customer Analytics, Customer Data Management, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, NICE Systems, Social CRM, Speech Analytics, Voice of the Customer, Genesys, InContact, IT Performance, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Mobility, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Customer Service, Financial Performance, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), Information Applications, Information Management, Location Intelligence, Operational Intelligence, Workforce Performance, Call Center, Contact Center, Contact Center Analytics, CRM, Desktop Analytics, Interactive Intelligence, Text Analytics, Unified Communications, Workforce Management, Noble Systems, Verint

Datawatch Enables Business Analytics through Data Discovery and Virtualization

Posted by Mark Smith on 01 May 2012

Thanks to Datawatch, businesses may find themselves buying and deploying fewer new business analytics and business intelligence tools. As I noted in my analysis last year, the company’s new management has begun to transition it to a more appealing market position in which it helps enterprises use analytics to improve operational efficiency and decision-making. The Datawatch products focus on data...

Topics: Supply Chain Performance, IT Performance, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Business Technology, CIO, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), Information Applications, Information Management, Information Technology, Datawatch