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As quantum computing advances at an unprecedented pace, the concept of Q-Day—a day when quantum computers can fundamentally undermine our current encryption methods—has entered discussions among cybersecurity professionals and business leaders alike. While there is no definitive date set for Q-Day, we are approaching a critical juncture where traditional cryptographic techniques may no longer...

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Topics: Digital Technology, Cybersecurity, Digital Security


In an era defined by the relentless advance of cyber threats, enterprise security leaders grapple with an overwhelming landscape. Enterprises face complex challenges as sophisticated attacks and increasing responsibilities stretch security teams thin. Many describe daily experiences as perpetual "firefighting," trapped in cycles of reacting to incidents rather than developing proactive strategies...

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Topics: Digital Technology, Cybersecurity


In a defining moment for the artificial intelligence (AI) sector, the recent breach involving Chinese company Liang Wenfeng (makers of DeepSeek AI) has shed light on the emerging cyber threats that challenge the industry. The reported incident revealed that DeepSeek AI had left its ClickHouse database accessible to the public, exposing over one million lines of log entry data. This data included...

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Topics: Digital Technology, Cybersecurity, Generative AI, DeepSeek, OpenAI


The evolution from basic task automation platforms to advanced task orchestration and management marks a milestone in the journey toward Intelligent Automation. Task automation platforms initially enabled enterprises to automate repetitive tasks, freeing valuable human resources for more strategic activities. However, as the need for seamless coordination of multiple automated tasks becomes...

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Topics: Digital Technology, RPA


The structures that govern enterprise security teams are under scrutiny. A recent report from a government watchdog group has taken issue with Microsoft’s cybersecurity strategies in the wake of its Exchange Server attacks, prompting the enterprise software giant to re-evaluate its reporting structures. The implications of this shift extend beyond Microsoft itself, with cybersecurity becoming a...

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Topics: Digital Technology, Cybersecurity, CISO


Generative AI (GenAI) software can transform various aspects of enterprise operations, which makes it a critical component of modern business strategies. GenAI tools can automate repetitive tasks such as data entry, report generation and customer interactions. GenAI can improve overall operational efficiency, resulting in time and cost savings for the organization. Another benefit from GenAI...

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Topics: Playbook, Digital Technology, employee experience


The latest ISG Buyers Guide for Cloud Computing Platforms uncovers the market evolution of regional and global cloud providers. Buyers Guides for Public Cloud Platforms, Private Cloud Platforms and Hybrid Cloud Platforms are part of the recent software provider evaluations. ISG Software Research defines Cloud Platforms as a software service for organizations to access virtualized IT resources via...

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Topics: Cloud Computing, Digital Technology, natural language processing, ITOps, Accessibility, Hybrid Cloud Platforms


I am happy to share insights gleaned from our latest Buyers Guide, an assessment of how well software providers’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The Cloud Computing Platforms Ventana Research Buyers Guide is the distillation of a year of market and product research by ISG and Ventana Research.

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Topics: Cloud Computing, Digital Technology


Embracing artificial intelligence technologies opens doors for innovation and efficiency. Alongside these opportunities, however, come risks. Threat actors are keenly aware of the potential impact of AI systems and are actively exploring ways to manipulate them. In this Analyst Perspective, I explore the world of adversarial machine-learning threats and provide practical guidance for securing AI...

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Topics: Digital Technology, DevOps and Platforms, AI and Machine Learning


ServiceNow is a global software provider that has developed a cloud computing platform that helps organizations manage digital workflows for enterprise operations. The provider uses its annual Knowledge user conference to educate customers and showcase product announcements. Ventana Research had the opportunity to attend the Knowledge 2024 event and provides this analyst perspective to summarize...

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Topics: IT Service Management, Digital Technology, natural language processing, AI and Machine Learning


The technology landscape for enterprise IT faces a daunting challenge: complexity. As systems grow more intricate, organizations must actively seek ways to simplify the technology stack. This process, known as decomplexification, is crucial for enhancing efficiency, security and collaboration within an enterprise.

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Topics: Cloud Computing, IT Service Management, Digital Technology, DevOps and Platforms


Enterprises are increasingly recognizing the need to streamline operations for efficiency, agility and innovation. This has led to various “operations” or “Ops” initiatives, each focusing on a specific aspect of enterprise IT. From software development and data analytics to IT and cloud management, these Ops groups are transforming the way enterprises operate and compete.

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Topics: Analytics, Cloud Computing, Digital Technology, data operations, Analytic Operations, AIOps


Is your organization prepared for the increasingly sophisticated and pervasive cyber threats that are challenging enterprise CIOs and IT leaders? Our previous analyst perspective underscored the importance of protecting digital assets and driving business growth with Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) — a proactive approach to identifying and managing cyber threats. In this perspective,...

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Topics: Digital Technology


Cyber threats are becoming more sophisticated and pervasive, posing a major challenge for CIOs and IT leaders. To protect their digital assets and drive business growth, they need a new approach to security: Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM). CTEM software continuously monitors and manages the enterprise’s exposure to cyber risks, enabling a swift and effective response to any security...

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Topics: Digital Technology


The migration of on-premises applications to the cloud has become more than just a technological shift; it’s a strategic imperative for enterprises. This transition, driven by the need for competitiveness, agility and responsiveness in a rapidly evolving business environment that operates at the speed of digital, is not a simple task. It requires a careful balance between the technology roadmap...

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Topics: Cloud Computing, Digital Technology


Ventana Research recently announced its 2024 Market Agenda for Digital Technology. This agenda is designed to provide expertise to enterprises across various industries, helping them prioritize technology investments that enhance workforce effectiveness, customer engagement and enterprise agility. Digital Technology is especially important for CIO and Chief Digital Officers looking to rationalize...

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Topics: Business Continuity, Cloud Computing, IT Service Management, Digital Technology


Imagine a world where artificial intelligence (AI) seamlessly integrates into every facet of your business, only to subtly distort your data and skew your insights. This is the emerging challenge of AI hallucinations, a phenomenon where AI models perceive patterns or objects that do not exist or are beyond human detection.

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Topics: Digital Technology, AI and Machine Learning


Ventana Research has announced its market agenda for 2024, continuing a 20-year tradition of credibility and trust in our objective efforts to educate and guide the technology industry. Our research and insights are backed by our expertise and independence, and we do not share our Market Agenda or our market research, including analyst and market perspectives, with any external party before it is...

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Topics: Customer Experience, Human Capital Management, Marketing, Office of Finance, Digital Technology, Operations & Supply Chain, AI, Analytics and Data


Discussion about potential deployment locations for analytics and data workloads is often based on the assumption that, for enterprise workloads, there is a binary choice between on-premises data centers and public cloud. However, the low-latency performance or sovereignty characteristics of a significant and growing proportion of workloads make them better suited to data and analytics processing...

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Topics: Cloud Computing, Internet of Things, Data, Digital Technology, analytic data platforms, Analytics and Data, AI and Machine Learning


As articulated in Ventana Research’s Data Platforms Buyer’s Guide and DataOps Buyer’s Guide research, the combination of cloud computing and advanced analytics has lowered the cost of storing and processing large volumes of data, accelerating the emergence of new data platform and data operations products that enable organizations to gain operational efficiency and competitive advantage. The...

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Topics: Data Management, Data, Digital Technology, data operations, analytic data platforms, Analytics and Data


In the evolving landscape of business operations, intelligent automation has emerged as a key driver of productivity, operational efficiency and workforce satisfaction. Each facet of an organization perceives the value of automation through the lens of its unique objectives and goals. In a previous perspective, I shared the reasons why enterprise organizations are leaning towards automating...

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Topics: Digital Technology, robotic automation


The phrase ‘big data’ may have largely gone out of fashion, but the concept of storing and processing all relevant data continues to be important for enterprises seeking to be more data-driven. Doing so requires analytic data platforms capable of storing and processing data in multiple formats and data models. This will be an important focus for the forthcoming Data Platforms Buyer’s Guide 2024. 

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


Ensuring digital effectiveness requires insights into how enterprises can provide the best outcomes through people, processes and technologies. Armed with those insights, business and technology investments can effectively innovate and streamline organizational processes.

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Topics: Digital Technology, robotic automation, AI and Machine Learning


I recently discussed how fashion has a surprisingly significant role to play in the data market as various architectural approaches to data storage and processing take turns enjoying a phase in the limelight. Pendulum swing is a theory of fashion that describes the periodic movement of trends between two extremes, such as short and long hemlines or skinny and baggy/flared trousers. Pendulum swing...

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Topics: Analytics, Cloud Computing, Data Management, Data, Digital Technology, data operations, Analytics and Data, AI and Machine Learning


I previously described how Oracle had positioned its database portfolio to address any and all data platform requirements. The caveat to that statement at the time was that any organization wanting to take advantage of the company’s flagship Oracle Autonomous Database could only do so using Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) cloud computing service, their own datacenter or a hybrid cloud...

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Topics: Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Data Management, Data, Digital Technology, analytic data platforms, Analytics and Data


I recently articulated some of the reasons why IT teams can fail to deliver on the business requirements for data and analytics projects. This is an age-old and multifaceted problem that is not easily solved. Organizations have a role to play in alleviating the issue by ensuring that their business processes and project planning support a collaborative approach in which business and IT...

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


I have previously written about the functional evolution and emerging use cases for NoSQL databases, a category of non-relational databases that first emerged 15 or so years ago and are now well established as potential alternatives to relational databases. NoSQL is a term used to describe a variety of databases that fall into four primary functional categories: key-value stores, wide-column...

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Topics: Cloud Computing, Data, Digital Technology, data operations, Analytics and Data


I previously wrote about the challenge facing distributed SQL database providers to avoid becoming pigeonholed as only being suitable for a niche set of requirements. Factors including performance, reliability, security and scalability provide a focal point for new vendors to differentiate from established providers and get a foot in the door with customer accounts. Expanding and retaining those...

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Topics: Analytics, Cloud Computing, Data, Digital Technology, Streaming Data Events, analytic data platforms, Analytics and Data, AI and Machine Learning


I previously discussed the trust and accuracy limitations of large language models, suggesting that data and analytics vendors provide guidance about potentially inaccurate results and the risks of creating a misplaced level of trust. In the months that have followed, we are seeing some clarity from these vendors about the approaches organizations can take to increase trust and accuracy when...

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Topics: Analytics, Business Intelligence, Data, Digital Technology, natural language processing, data operations, analytic data platforms, Analytics and Data


In my past perspectives, I’ve written about the evolution from data at rest to data in motion and the fact that you can’t rely on dashboards for real-time analytics. Organizations are becoming more and more event-driven and operating based on streaming data. As well, analytics are becoming more and more intertwined with operations. More than one-fifth of organizations (22%) describe their...

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Topics: Analytics, Business Intelligence, Data, Digital Technology, Streaming Analytics, Streaming Data Events, Analytics and Data


I previously described how Databricks had positioned its Lakehouse Platform as the basis for data engineering, data science and data warehousing. The lakehouse design pattern provides a flexible environment for storing and processing data from multiple enterprise applications and workloads for multiple use cases. I assert that by 2025, 8 in 10 current data lake adopters will invest in data...

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Topics: Analytics, Business Intelligence, Data Governance, Data Management, Data, Digital Technology, analytic data platforms, Analytics and Data, AI and Machine Learning


The data platforms market may appear to have little or nothing to do with haute couture, but it is one of the data sectors most strongly influenced by the fickle finger of fashion. In recent years, various architectural approaches to data storage and processing have enjoyed a phase in the limelight, including data warehouse, data mart, data hub, data lake, cloud data warehouse, object storage,...

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Topics: Cloud Computing, Data Governance, Data Management, Data, Digital Technology, data operations, Streaming Data Events, analytic data platforms, Analytics and Data, AI and Machine Learning


Despite a focus on being data-driven, many organizations find that data and analytics projects fail to deliver on expectations. These initiatives can underwhelm for many reasons, because success requires a delicate balance of people, processes, information and technology. Small deviations from perfection in any of those factors can send projects off the rails.

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


I have written before about the rising popularity of the data fabric approach for managing and governing data spread across distributed environments comprised of multiple data centers, systems and applications. I assert that by 2025, more than 6 in 10 organizations will adopt data fabric technologies to facilitate the management and processing of data across multiple data platforms and cloud...

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


At one point, analytics and business intelligence were considered non-mission critical activities. One of the primary concerns in designing analytics systems was to ensure they didn’t interfere with or draw computing resources away from operational systems. But today, analytical systems are integral to many aspects of operations. More than 9 in 10 participants in our Analytics and Data Benchmark...

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Topics: Analytics, Business Intelligence, Data Management, Data, Digital Technology, data operations, Analytics and Data


I recently wrote about the various technologies used by organizations to process and analyze data in real time. I explained that while the terms streaming data and events and streaming analytics are often used interchangeably, they are separate disciplines that make use of common underlying concepts and technologies such as events, event brokers and event-driven architecture. Confluent’s...

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Topics: Analytics, Cloud Computing, Data Governance, Data, Digital Technology, Streaming Analytics, Streaming Data Events


This title plays on the now-ancient meme from the 1990s: “On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog,” which pointed to a challenge of anonymity posed by new technology. In this case, though, I’m using it to highlight an opportunity that generative artificial intelligence presents in streamlining routine business functions that require some level of individual skill and experience to handle....

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Topics: Office of Finance, Digital Technology, robotic automation, AI and Machine Learning


If I had a magic wand, I would want to add scenario evaluation to all business intelligence tools on the market. I have previously written about the need to make intelligent decisions with decision intelligence. The data and analytics markets have evolved so that organizations have far greater capabilities to utilize data in decision-making processes. While there is some convergence around the...

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


It is a mark of the rapid, current pace of development in artificial intelligence (AI) that machine learning (ML) models, until recently considered state of the art, are now routinely being referred to by developers and vendors as “traditional.” Generative AI, and large language models (LLMs) in particular, have taken the AI world by storm in the past year, automating and accelerating the...

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Topics: Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Data Governance, Data, Digital Technology, natural language processing, analytic data platforms, Analytics and Data, AI and Machine Learning


As I have previously explained, we expect an increased demand for intelligent operational applications infused with the results of analytic processes, such as personalization and artificial intelligence-driven recommendations. These systems rely on the analysis of data in the operational data platform to accelerate worker decision-making or improve customer experience.

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Topics: Analytics, Data, Digital Technology, Streaming Analytics, Streaming Data Events, Analytics and Data, AI and Machine Learning


The role of the chief information officer has evolved from managing IT to maximizing technology for business value. Many organizations launch digital transformation programs to identify and deliver the desired value but discover that digital transformation is a complex, lengthy process. Budgets and resources can be quickly exhausted with little to show for the investment. Yet business objectives...

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Topics: Digital Technology, robotic automation


Intelligent automation is a powerful tool that can help the CIO and IT leaders optimize business processes and outcomes while reducing costs, risks and errors. Automation takes many forms, each with its own applications, benefits and limitations. In a previous perspective, I shared how technology helps organizations automate processes and enhance workflow efficiency. This perspective explains the...

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Topics: Digital Technology, robotic automation, AI and Machine Learning


Automation uses technology to perform tasks or functions that would otherwise require human intervention or effort. Automation has existed for decades, and it takes many forms. It handles routine tasks, freeing time for knowledge workers to perform other activities that require creativity, subjectivity or empathy. Automation can also improve the quality, efficiency and consistency of business...

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Topics: Digital Technology, robotic automation, AI and Machine Learning


The publication of Ventana Research’s 2023 Operational Data Platforms Value Index earlier this year highlighted the importance of incorporating analytic processing into operational applications to deliver personalization and recommendations for workers, partners and customers. This importance is being accelerated by interest in generative AI, especially large language models. The emergence of...

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Topics: Analytics, Cloud Computing, Data, Digital Technology, analytic data platforms, Analytics and Data, AI and Machine Learning


Despite best intentions, many organizations still struggle with some fundamental aspects of data processing and analytics. Taking data from operational applications and making it available for analysis is a first step, but data management remains a perennial challenge. Data movement and transformation difficulties can lead to delays and data quality problems that prevent organizations from...

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Topics: Cloud Computing, Data Management, Data, Digital Technology, data operations, Analytics and Data


Cloud computing has emerged as the catalyst for a shift from digital transformation to digital modernization. This technology offers many advantages, including heightened agility, cost reduction, improved collaboration, enhanced security and accelerated innovation. Hybrid and multi-cloud strategies offer distinctive strengths that enable organizations to optimize the IT infrastructure necessary...

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Topics: Cloud Computing, Digital Technology


I previously explained the arguments in favor of adoption of distributed SQL databases, the new generation of operational data platforms designed to combine the benefits of the relational database model and native support for distributed cloud architecture. It is critical for distributed SQL vendors to engage with developers to ensure they are considering the importance of resilience that spans...

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Topics: Cloud Computing, Data, Digital Technology, Analytics and Data


A lot has been written about the definition of generative artificial intelligence (AI) and large language models (LLMs), though less has been written about the business considerations for an organization to evaluate adopting and implementing these technologies. And more importantly, does the technology align with the Office of the CIO objectives and the goals of the business? The value of...

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Topics: Digital Technology, natural language processing, Collaborative & Conversational Computing, AI and Machine Learning


Data fabric has grown in popularity as organizations struggle to manage data spread across multiple data centers, systems and applications. By providing a technology-driven approach to automating data management and governance across distributed environments, data fabric is attractive to organizations seeking to simplify and standardize data management. I assert that by 2025, more than 6 in 10...

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Topics: Cloud Computing, Data Management, Data, Digital Technology, data operations, analytic data platforms, Analytics and Data


The digital transformation movement was about making wholesale changes in the use of technology across all lines of business and functions. It required organizational change on a large scale, including adapting the organization’s culture, retraining or rehiring the workforce and process realignment. Change management and a significant time commitment to implement change were necessary while...

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Topics: Cloud Computing, Digital Technology


I am happy to announce that I have taken on a new role at Ventana Research to lead the firm’s overall research and advisory for the CIO and technology leader practice. The area focuses on digital modernization and the transformation necessary for IT teams to be successful across an organization. The market coverage spans Cloud Computing, Digital Security, Generative AI and the technologies...

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Topics: Digital Technology


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...

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Topics: Analytics, Data Governance, Data Management, Data, Digital Technology, natural language processing, Analytics and Data, AI and Machine Learning


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,...

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Topics: embedded analytics, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Digital Technology, natural language processing, Analytics and Data


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....

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Topics: Analytics, Digital Technology, natural language processing, Analytics and Data, AI and Machine Learning


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...

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Topics: Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Data, Digital Technology, analytic data platforms, Analytics and Data, AI and Machine Learning


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...

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Topics: Analytics, Digital Technology, AI and Machine Learning


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,...

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Topics: Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Data, Digital Technology, analytic data platforms, Analytics and Data


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...

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Topics: business intelligence, Analytics, Digital Technology, Collaborative & Conversational Computing, Analytics and Data


As engagement with customers, suppliers and partners is increasingly conducted through digital channels, ensuring that infrastructure and applications are performing as expected is not just important but mission critical. My colleague, David Menninger, recently explained the increasing importance of observability to enable organizations to ensure that their systems and applications are operating...

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Topics: Data Management, Data, Digital Technology, Analytics and Data


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...

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Topics: Analytics, Data, Digital Technology, Streaming Analytics, Streaming Data Events, analytic data platforms, Analytics and Data


I have previously written about the importance of data democratization as a key element of a data-driven agenda. Removing barriers that prevent or delay users from gaining access to data enables it to be treated as a product that is generated and consumed, either internally by employees or externally by partners and customers. This is particularly important for organizations adopting the data mesh

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Topics: Cloud Computing, Data Governance, Data Management, Data, Digital Technology, data operations, Analytics and Data


I recently wrote about the potential use cases for distributed SQL databases as well as techniques being employed by vendors to accelerate adoption. Distributed SQL is a term that is used by several vendors to describe operational data platform products that combine the benefits of the relational database model and native support for distributed cloud architecture, including resilience that spans...

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Topics: Cloud Computing, Data, Digital Technology, Analytics and Data


For years various types of systems have produced log files to help with monitoring, debugging and performance management. Often, this information was used in forensic analyses of why interruptions in service or other problems occurred. In many cases, log files are still used this way. But systems have grown more complicated, and many more devices are instrumented. Systems have been decomposed...

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Topics: Business Continuity, Digital Technology


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...

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


Data observability was a hot topic in 2022 and looks likely to be a continued area of focus for innovation in 2023 and beyond. As I have previously described, data observability software is designed to automate the monitoring of data platforms and data pipelines, as well as the detection and remediation of data quality and data reliability issues. There has been a Cambrian explosion of data...

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Topics: Cloud Computing, Data Management, Data, Digital Technology, data operations, Analytics and Data


I have written about the increased demand for data-intensive operational applications infused with the results of analytic processes, such as personalization and artificial intelligence-driven recommendations. I previously described the use of hybrid data processing to enable analytics on application data within operational data platforms. As is often the case in the data platforms sector,...

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Topics: Cloud Computing, Data, Digital Technology, analytic data platforms, Analytics and Data


I am happy to share insights from our latest Ventana Research Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The 2023 Analytic Data Platforms Value Index is the distillation of a year of market and product research by Ventana Research. Drawing on our Benchmark Research, we apply a structured methodology built on evaluation categories that reflect...

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Topics: Cloud Computing, Data, Digital Technology, analytic data platforms, Analytics and Data


Ventana Research recently published the 2023 Analytic Data Platforms Value Index. As organizations strive to be more data-driven, increasing reliance on data as a fundamental factor in business decision-making, the importance of the analytic data platform has never been greater. In this post, I’ll share some of my observations about how the analytic data platforms market is evolving.

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Topics: Cloud Computing, Data, Digital Technology, analytic data platforms, Analytics and Data


I am happy to share insights from our latest Ventana Research Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The 2023 Operational Data Platforms Value Index is the distillation of a year of market and product research by Ventana Research. Drawing on our Benchmark Research, we apply a structured methodology built on evaluation categories that reflect...

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Topics: Cloud Computing, Data, Digital Technology, Analytics and Data


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

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Topics: Cloud Computing, Data Governance, Data Management, Data, Digital Technology, data operations, Streaming Data Events, analytic data platforms, Analytics and Data


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.

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


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...

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Topics: Sales, Analytics, Internet of Things, Data, Sales Performance Management, Digital Technology, Digital Commerce, Conversational Computing, mobile computing, Subscription Management, extended reality, intelligent sales, partner management, AI and Machine Learning


I am happy to share insights from our latest Ventana Research Value Index, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The 2023 Data Platforms Value Index is the distillation of a year of market and product research by Ventana Research. Drawing on our Benchmark Research, we apply a structured methodology built on evaluation categories that reflect real-world criteria...

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Topics: Cloud Computing, Data, Digital Technology, analytic data platforms, Analytics and Data


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.

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Topics: Analytics, Cloud Computing, Internet of Things, Data, Digital Technology, blockchain, mobile computing, extended reality, robotic automation, Collaborative & Conversational Computing, AI and Machine Learning


Data observability is a hot topic and trend. I have written about the importance of data observability for ensuring healthy data pipelines, and have covered multiple vendors with data observability capabilities, offered both as standalone and part of a larger data engineering system. Data observability software provides an environment that takes advantage of machine learning and DataOps to...

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Topics: Cloud Computing, Data Management, Data, Digital Technology, data operations


Having recently completed the 2023 Data Platforms Value Index, I want to share some of my observations about how the market is evolving. Although this is our inaugural assessment of the market for data platforms, the sector is mature and products from many of the vendors we assess can be used to effectively support operational and analytic use cases.

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Topics: Cloud Computing, Data, Digital Technology, analytic data platforms, Analytics and Data


Ventana Research has announced its market agenda for 2023, continuing a 20-year tradition of credibility and trust in our objective efforts to educate and guide the technology market. Our research and insights are backed by our expertise and independence, as we do not share our Market Agenda or our market research – including analyst and market perspectives – with any external party before it is...

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Topics: Customer Experience, Human Capital Management, Marketing, Office of Finance, Analytics, Data, Digital Technology, Operations & Supply Chain, Office of Revenue


Consumer and mobile applications have influenced our expectations. Nearly all of us carry a smartphone, and we interact with a variety of applications on our devices. Those applications have forever influenced what we expect from computing systems. When I search the web for a gas station, I’m not searching for all gas stations. I’m searching for those stations that are near me. Not just near my...

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Topics: Digital Technology


In today’s organization, the myriad of analytics and permutations of dashboards challenge workers’ ability to take contextual actions efficiently. Unfortunately, conventional wisdom for investing in analytics does not recognize the benefits of empowering the workforce to understand the situation, examine options and work together to make the best possible decision.

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Topics: business intelligence, Analytics, Data, Digital Technology, analytic data platforms, Analytics and Data, AI and Machine Learning


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...

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


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...

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


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...

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


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).

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


The technology industry has established itself as a pivotal force in its ability to help organizations become more intelligent and automated. But doing so has required a journey of epic proportions for most organizations that have had to endure a transition of competencies and skills that was, in many places, transitioned to consulting firms who were hired appropriately to manage changes....

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Topics: Customer Experience, Human Capital Management, Marketing, Office of Finance, Analytics, Data, Digital Technology, Operations & Supply Chain, Office of Revenue


In my previous perspectives on cloud computing, I addressed some of the realities of cloud costs as well as hybrid and multi-cloud architectures. In the midst of the pandemic, my colleague, Mark Smith, authored a series of perspectives on considerations for business continuity in general, beginning with this look at some of the investments organizations must make to mitigate the risk of business...

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Topics: Business Continuity, Cloud Computing, Digital Technology


In my first perspective on cloud computing realities, I covered some of the cost considerations associated with cloud computing and how the cloud costing model may be different enough from on-premises models that some organizations are taken by surprise. In this perspective. I’d like to focus on realities of hybrid and multi-cloud deployments.

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Topics: Cloud Computing, Digital Technology


The migration to cloud is obvious. Organizations are adopting cloud computing for all variety of applications and use cases. Managed cloud services, commonly referred to as software as a service (SaaS), offer many benefits to organizations including significantly reduced labor costs for system administration and maintenance, as many of these costs are shifted to the software vendor. SaaS also...

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Topics: Cloud Computing, Digital Technology


When joining Ventana Research, I noted that the need to be more data-driven has become a mantra among large and small organizations alike. Data-driven organizations stand to gain competitive advantage, responding faster to worker and customer demands for more innovative, data-rich applications and personalized experiences. Being data-driven is clearly something to aspire to. However, it is also a...

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Topics: embedded analytics, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Data Governance, Data Integration, Data, Digital Technology, natural language processing, data lakes, data operations, Streaming Analytics, Streaming Data Events, Analytics and Data, AI and Machine Learning


I recently wrote about the growing range of use cases for which NoSQL databases can be considered, given increased breadth and depth of functionality available from providers of the various non-relational data platforms. As I noted, one category of NoSQL databases — graph databases — are inherently suitable for use cases that rely on relationships, such as social media, fraud detection and...

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Topics: business intelligence, Analytics, Cloud Computing, Data, Digital Technology, Analytics and Data, AI and Machine Learning


I previously described the concept of hydroanalytic data platforms, which combine the structured data processing and analytics acceleration capabilities associated with data warehousing with the low-cost and multi-structured data storage advantages of the data lake. One of the key enablers of this approach is interactive SQL query engine functionality, which facilitates the use of existing...

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Topics: Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Data, Digital Technology, data lakes, data operations, Analytics and Data, AI and Machine Learning


As I recently described, it is anticipated that the majority of database workloads will continue to be served by specialist data platforms targeting operational and analytic workloads, albeit with growing demand for hybrid data processing use-cases and functionality. Specialist operational and analytic data platforms have historically been the since preferred option, but there have always been...

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Topics: Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Data, Digital Technology, Analytics and Data


I recently described the use cases driving interest in hybrid data processing capabilities that enable analysis of data in an operational data platform without impacting operational application performance or requiring data to be extracted to an external analytic data platform. Hybrid data processing functionality is becoming increasingly attractive to aid the development of intelligent...

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


The server is a key component of enterprise computing, providing the functional compute resources required to support software applications. Historically, the server was so fundamentally important that it – along with the processor, or processor core – was also a definitional unit by which software was measured, priced and sold. That changed with the advent of cloud-based service delivery and...

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Topics: Business Continuity, Cloud Computing, Data, Digital Technology, Analytics and Data


Over a decade ago, I coined the term NewSQL to describe the new breed of horizontally scalable, relational database products. The term was adopted by a variety of vendors that sought to combine the transactional consistency of the relational database model with elastic, cloud-native scalability. Many of the early NewSQL vendors struggled to gain traction, however, and were either acquired or...

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Topics: Business Continuity, Cloud Computing, Data, Digital Technology, Analytics and Data


I recently wrote about the importance of data pipelines and the role they play in transporting data between the stages of data processing and analytics. Healthy data pipelines are necessary to ensure data is integrated and processed in the sequence required to generate business intelligence. The concept of the data pipeline is nothing new of course, but it is becoming increasingly important as...

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Topics: Analytics, Business Intelligence, Data Governance, Data Integration, Data, Digital Technology, Digital transformation, data lakes, data operations, Streaming Data Events, Analytics and Data, AI and Machine Learning


I recently described the growing level of interest in data mesh which provides an organizational and cultural approach to data ownership, access and governance that facilitates distributed data processing. As I stated in my Analyst Perspective, data mesh is not a product that can be acquired or even a technical architecture that can be built. Adopting the data mesh approach is dependent on people...

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Topics: Business Continuity, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Data Governance, Data Integration, Data, Digital Technology, data lakes, Analytics and Data


I have written previously that the world of data and analytics will become more and more centered around real-time, streaming data. Data is created constantly and increasingly is being collected simultaneously. Technology advances now enable organizations to process and analyze information as it is being collected to respond in real time to opportunities and threats. Not all use cases require...

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Topics: business intelligence, Analytics, Internet of Things, Data, Digital Technology, Streaming Analytics, Streaming Data Events, Analytics and Data, AI and Machine Learning


Data mesh is the latest trend to grip the data and analytics sector. The term has been rapidly adopted by numerous vendors — as well as a growing number of organizations —as a means of embracing distributed data processing. Understanding and adopting data mesh remains a challenge, however. Data mesh is not a product that can be acquired, or even a technical architecture that can be built. It is...

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Topics: Analytics, Business Intelligence, Data Governance, Data Integration, Data, Digital Technology, Digital transformation, data lakes, data operations, Streaming Data Events, Analytics and Data


For years, maybe decades, we have heard about the struggles between IT and line-of-business functions. In this perspective, we will look at some of the data from our Analytics and Data Benchmark Research about the roles of IT and line-of-business teams in analytics and data processes. We will also look at some of the disconnects between these two groups. And, by looking at how organizations are...

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


As businesses become more data-driven, they are increasingly dependent on the quality of their data and the reliability of their data pipelines. Making decisions based on data does not guarantee success, especially if the business cannot ensure that the data is accurate and trustworthy. While there is potential value in capturing all data — good or bad — making decisions based on low-quality data...

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Topics: Data Governance, Data Integration, Data, Digital Technology, data lakes, data operations, Analytics and Data


Despite all the advances organizations have made with respect to analytics, our most recent research shows the majority of the workforce in the majority of organizations are not using analytics and business intelligence (BI). Less than one-quarter (23%) report that one-half or more of their workforce is using analytics and BI. This is a problem. It means organizations are not enabling their...

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Topics: Sales, business intelligence, embedded analytics, Analytics, Data, Sales Performance Management, Digital Technology, Digital Commerce, natural language processing, Subscription Management, partner management, Collaborative & Conversational Computing


I recently described the emergence of hydroanalytic data platforms, outlining how the processes involved in generating energy from a lake or reservoir were analogous to those required to generate intelligence from a data lake. I explained how structured data processing and analytics acceleration capabilities are the equivalent of turbines, generators and transformers in a hydroelectric power...

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Topics: Analytics, Data Governance, Data, Digital Technology, data lakes, data operations, Streaming Data Events, AI and Machine Learning


Many organizations invest in data governance out of concern over misuse of data or potential data breaches. These are important considerations and valid aspects of data governance programs. However, good data governance also has positive impacts on organizations. For example, I have previously written about the valuable connection between the use of data catalogs and satisfaction with an...

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Topics: embedded analytics, Analytics, Data Governance, Data, Digital Technology


I recently described how the data platforms landscape will remain divided between analytic and operational workloads for the foreseeable future. Analytic data platforms are designed to store, manage, process and analyze data, enabling organizations to maximize data to operate with greater efficiency, while operational data platforms are designed to store, manage and process data to support...

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Topics: embedded analytics, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Data, Digital Technology, Streaming Data Events, Analytics and Data, AI and Machine Learning


Ventana Research recently announced its 2022 Market Agenda for the Office of Revenue, continuing the guidance we have offered for nearly two decades to help organizations realize optimal value from applying technology to improve business outcomes. Chief sales and revenue officers and their associated operations teams are experts in their respective fields but may not have the guidance needed to...

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Topics: Sales, Analytics, Internet of Things, Data, Sales Performance Management, Digital Technology, Digital Commerce, Conversational Computing, mobile computing, Subscription Management, extended reality, intelligent sales, partner management, AI and Machine Learning


Ventana Research recently announced its 2022 Market Agenda for Analytics, continuing the guidance we have offered for nearly two decades to help organizations derive optimal value from technology investments in order to improve business outcomes.

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


I’m proud to share Ventana Research’s 2022 Market Agenda for Digital Technology. Our focus in this agenda is to deliver expertise to help organizations prioritize technology investments that increase workforce effectiveness and organizational agility, ensuring ongoing operations during any type of disruption.

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Topics: Analytics, Cloud Computing, Internet of Things, Data, Digital Technology


Ventana Research has announced its market agenda for 2022, continuing the tradition of reliability in our efforts to educate and guide the technology market. Our assessments are backed by our expertise and independence, as we do not share our market agenda or our research – including analyst and market perspectives or our Value Index – with any external party until it is published. We review and...

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Topics: Customer Experience, Human Capital Management, Marketing, Office of Finance, Analytics, Data, Digital Technology, Operations & Supply Chain, Office of Revenue, Market Agenda


Organizations today are working with multiple applications and systems, including enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain management (SCM) and other systems, where data can easily become fragmented and siloed. And as the organization increases its data sources and adds more systems and custom applications, it becomes challenging to manage the data...

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


The term NoSQL has been a misnomer ever since it appeared in 2009 to describe a group of emerging databases. It was true that a lack of support for Structured Query Language (SQL) was common to the various databases referred to as NoSQL. However, it was always one of a number of common characteristics, including flexible schema, distributed data processing, open source licensing, and the use of...

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Topics: Business Continuity, Analytics, Data, Digital Technology


Data lakes have enormous potential as a source of business intelligence. However, many early adopters of data lakes have found that simply storing large amounts of data in a data lake environment is not enough to generate business intelligence from that data. Similarly, lakes and reservoirs have enormous potential as sources of energy. However, simply storing large amounts of water in a lake is...

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


Breaking into the database market as a new vendor is easier said than done given the dominance of the sector by established database and data management giants, as well as the cloud computing providers. We recently described the emergence of a new breed of distributed SQL database providers with products designed to address hybrid and multi-cloud data processing. These databases are...

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Topics: Cloud Computing, Data, Digital Technology, Digital transformation, Analytics and Data


TIBCO is a large, independent cloud-computing and data analytics software company that offers integration, analytics, business intelligence and events processing software. It enables organizations to analyze streaming data in real time and provides the capability to automate analytics processes. It offers more than 200 connectors, more than 200 enterprise cloud computing and application adapters,...

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Topics: embedded analytics, Analytics, Collaboration, Data Governance, Information Management, Data, Digital Technology, data lakes, AI and Machine Learning


Organizations have become more agile and responsive, in part, as a result of being more agile with their information technology. Adopting a DevOps approach to application deployment has allowed organizations to deploy new and revised applications more quickly. DataOps is enabling organizations to be more agile in their data processes. As organizations are embracing artificial intelligence (AI)...

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Topics: business intelligence, Analytics, Data Governance, Data, Digital Technology, data operations


Talend is a data integration and management software company that offers applications for cloud computing, big data integration, application integration, data quality and master data management. The platform enables personnel to work with relational databases, Apache Hadoop, Spark and NoSQL databases for cloud or on-premises jobs. Talend data integration software offers an open and scalable...

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Topics: Analytics, Business Intelligence, Collaboration, Data Governance, Data Preparation, Information Management, Data, Digital Technology, data lakes, AI and Machine Learning


Enterprises looking to adopt cloud-based data processing and analytics face a disorienting array of data storage, data processing, data management and analytics offerings. Departmental autonomy, shadow IT, mergers and acquisitions, and strategic choices mean that most enterprises now have the need to manage data across multiple locations, while each of the major cloud providers and data and...

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Topics: Analytics, Cloud Computing, Data Governance, Data Integration, Data, Digital Technology, data lakes, data operations, AI and Machine Learning


How does your organization define and display its metrics? I believe many organizations are not defining and displaying metrics in a way that benefits them most. If an organization goes through the trouble of measuring and reporting on a metric, the analysis ought to include all the information needed to evaluate that metric effectively. A number, by itself, does not provide any indication of...

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Topics: Analytics, Business Intelligence, Internet of Things, Data, Digital Technology, Streaming Analytics, AI and Machine Learning


Our research shows that nearly all financial service organizations (97%) consider it important to accelerate the flow of information and improve responsiveness. Even just a few years ago, capturing and evaluating this information quickly was much more challenging, but with the advent of streaming data technologies that capture and process large volumes of data in real time, financial service...

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Topics: Analytics, Internet of Things, Data, Digital Technology, Streaming Analytics


I am very happy to announce that I have joined Ventana Research to help lead the expertise area of Digital Technology, including Analytics and Data, Cloud Computing, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, the Internet of Things, Robotic Automation, and Collaborative and Conversational Computing. While the breadth of applications and technology covered by our Digital Technology practice is...

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Topics: Digital Technology


The work environment today demands that your organization advances the efficiency to execute business processes for continuous operations to have a positive impact on business performance. The capability to be responsive to any range of minor to disruptive business events is required to support business continuity and level of organizational readiness to meet the needs of digital business....

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Topics: Customer Experience, Voice of the Customer, embedded analytics, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Contact Center, Data, Digital Technology, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, Digital transformation, natural language processing, continuous supply chain, agent management, Process Mining, Streaming Analytics, Experience Management, AI and Machine Learning


Access to external data can provide a competitive advantage. Our research shows that more than three-quarters (77%) of participants consider external data to be an important part of their machine learning (ML) efforts. The most important external data source identified is social media, followed by demographic data from data brokers. Organizations also identified government data, market data,...

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Topics: Analytics, Business Intelligence, Internet of Things, Data, Digital Technology, Lease Management, Streaming Data, Streaming Analytics, AI and Machine Learning


The technology industry throws around a lot of similar terms with different meanings as well as entirely different terms with similar meanings. In this post, I don’t want to debate the meanings and origins of different terms; rather, I’d like to highlight a technology weapon that you should have in your data management arsenal. We currently refer to this technology as data virtualization. Other...

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Topics: Analytics, Data Governance, Data Integration, Data, Digital Technology, data lakes


Data governance is a hot topic these days. In fact, we are conducting benchmark research on the subject here. With increasing regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), organizations face more external oversight of their data governance practices. The risk of significant fines associated with these and other regulations,...

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Topics: Analytics, Data Governance, Data, Digital Technology


The annual Ventana Research Digital Innovation Awards showcase advances in the productivity and potential of business applications, as well as technology that contributes significantly to the improved processes and performance of an organization. Our goal is to recognize technology and vendors that have introduced noteworthy digital innovations to advance business and IT.

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Topics: Customer Experience, Analytics, Internet of Things, Digital Technology, blockchain, natural language processing, Awards, Conversational Computing, collaborative computing, mobile computing, extended reality, AI and Machine Learning


The annual Ventana Research Digital Innovation Awards showcase advances in the productivity and potential of business applications, as well as technology that contributes significantly to the improved processes and performance of an organization. Our goal is to recognize technology and vendors that have introduced noteworthy digital innovations to advance business and IT.

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Topics: Continuous Planning, Analytics, Product Information Management, Price and Revenue Management, Digital Technology, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, Conversational Computing, collaborative computing, continuous supply chain, work experience management, AI and Machine Learning


The annual Ventana Research Digital Innovation Awards showcase advances in the productivity and potential of business applications, as well as technology that contributes significantly to the improved processes and performance of an organization. Our goal is to recognize technology and vendors that have introduced noteworthy digital innovations to advance business and IT.

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Topics: Analytics, Business Intelligence, Collaboration, Data Governance, Data Preparation, Information Management, Data, Digital Technology, blockchain, data lakes, AI and Machine Learning


The annual Ventana Research Digital Innovation Awards showcase advances in the productivity and potential of business applications, as well as technology that contributes significantly to the improved processes and performance of an organization. Our goal is to recognize technology and vendors that have introduced noteworthy digital innovations to advance business and IT.

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Topics: embedded analytics, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Collaboration, Internet of Things, Digital Technology, natural language processing, AI and Machine Learning


The annual Ventana Research Digital Innovation Awards showcase advances in the productivity and potential of business applications, as well as technology that contributes significantly to the improved processes and performance of an organization. Our goal is to recognize technology and vendors that have introduced noteworthy digital innovations to advance business and IT.

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Topics: Customer Experience, Human Capital Management, Marketing, Office of Finance, Voice of the Customer, Continuous Planning, embedded analytics, Learning Management, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Collaboration, Data Governance, Data Preparation, Information Management, Internet of Things, Business Planning, Contact Center, Data, Product Information Management, Sales Performance Management, Workforce Management, Financial Performance Management, Price and Revenue Management, Digital Technology, Digital Marketing, Digital Commerce, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, Revenue, blockchain, natural language processing, data lakes, Total Compensation Management, robotic finance, Predictive Planning, employee experience, candidate engagement, Conversational Computing, Continuous Payroll, collaborative computing, mobile computing, continuous supply chain, Subscription Management, agent management, extended reality, intelligent marketing, sales enablement, work experience management, robotic automation, AI and Machine Learning, lease and tax accounting


Event data can be used to enhance existing processes, but it can also be used to dramatically impact operations, revenue models and the bottom line for manufacturers. Our Benchmark Research shows 95% of manufacturers consider it important to speed the flow of information and improve responsiveness within business processes. In this perspective I’ll share how manufacturers are working with event...

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Topics: Customer Experience, Information Management, Internet of Things, Data, Digital Technology, Operations & Supply Chain


I am happy to share insights gleaned from our latest Value Index research, an assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The 2021 Ventana Research Value Index: Collaborative Analytics and Data is the distillation of a year of market and product research by Ventana Research. See our prior post for a description of our methodology and included vendors.

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Topics: business intelligence, Analytics, Collaboration, Data Preparation, Information Management, Data, Digital Technology, natural language processing, mobile computing


I am happy to share insights gleaned from our latest Value Index research, an assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index: Mobile Analytics and Data 2021 is the distillation of a year of market and product research by Ventana Research. See our prior post for a description of our methodology and which vendors are included.

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Topics: business intelligence, Analytics, Collaboration, Data Governance, Information Management, Data, Digital Technology, natural language processing, mobile computing


Unit4’s Financial Planning and Analysis (formerly Prevero) is a planning and budgeting application designed for the requirements of midsize corporations and the public sector. These organizations are challenged in buying software because they have almost all the requirements of larger enterprises but have a smaller budget and limited technical resources.

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Topics: Office of Finance, embedded analytics, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Planning, Financial Performance Management, Price and Revenue Management, Digital Technology, ERP and Continuous Accounting, Predictive Planning, collaborative computing, AI and Machine Learning


Process-mining software isn’t exactly new, but it’s also not widely known in the software technology market. The discipline has been around for at least a decade, but is generating more interest these days with both specialist vendors and major enterprise software vendors offering process-mining products and services. We assert that through 2022, 1 in 4 organizations will look to streamline their...

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Topics: business intelligence, Analytics, Digital Technology, AI and Machine Learning


Having just completed the 2021 Ventana Research Value Index for Analytics and Data, I want to share some of my observations about how the market has advanced since our assessment two years ago. The analytics software market is quite mature and products from any of the vendors we assess can be used to effectively deliver information to help your organization improve its operations. However, it’s...

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Topics: Big Data, Key Performance Indictors, embedded analytics, exadata, Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Collaboration, Data Preparation, Digital Technology, natural language processing, Conversational Computing, collaborative computing, mobile computing, AI and Machine Learning


The current pandemic has disrupted many of the traditional sales methods used by field-sales organizations to engage, and sell to, buyers. In an effort to provide help, many vendors have recently announced new features that focus less on the management of sales organizations and more on tools to help salespeople sell. This has been coupled with a renewed interest in using data to help with the...

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Topics: Sales, Analytics, Data, Product Information Management, Sales Performance Management (SPM), Digital Technology, sales enablement, AI and Machine Learning


Ventana Research recently announced its 2021 research agenda for the Office of Sales, continuing the guidance we’ve offered for nearly two decades to help organizations realize optimal value from applying technology to improve business outcomes. Chief sales and revenue officers are experts in their respective fields but may not have the guidance needed to employ technology effectively. As we look...

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Topics: Sales, Analytics, Financial Performance, Internet of Things, Data, Sales Performance Management, Digital Technology, Digital Commerce, mobile computing, Subscription Management, extended reality, intelligent sales, partner management, Machine Conversational Computing, Office of Revenue, AI and Machine Learning


I’m proud to share Ventana Research’s 2021 market agenda for digital technology. Our focus in this agenda is to deliver expertise to help organizations prioritize technology investments that increase workforce effectiveness and organizational agility, ensuring ongoing operation during any type of disruption.

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Topics: Big Data, Analytics, Cloud Computing, Internet of Things, Digital Technology, Robotic Process Automation, blockchain, Conversational Computing, mobile computing, extended reality, AI and Machine Learning


Ventana Research has announced its market agenda for 2021, continuing the tradition of transparency in our efforts to educate and guide the technology market but also our independence as we do not share our market agenda or analyst perspectives with any external party. Each year, we proudly formulate our market agenda that is not biased by clients or the technology industry, focusing on education...

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Topics: Customer Experience, Human Capital Management, Marketing, Office of Finance, Analytics, Data, Digital Technology, Operations & Supply Chain, Office of Revenue


The industry is making huge strides with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). There is more data available to analyze. Analytics vendors have made it easier to build and deploy models, and AI/ML is being embedded into many types of applications. Organizations are realizing the value that AI/ML provides and there are now millions of professionals with AI or ML in their title or...

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Topics: Sales, Customer Experience, Marketing, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Data Preparation, Digital Technology, AI and Machine Learning


Businesses are transforming their organizations, building a data culture and deploying sophisticated analytics more broadly than ever. However, the process of using data and analytics is not always easy. The necessary tools are often separate, but our research shows organizations prefer an integrated environment. In our Data Preparation Benchmark Research, we found that 41% of participants use...

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Topics: embedded analytics, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Collaboration, Data Preparation, Information Management, Internet of Things, Data, Digital Technology, natural language processing, Conversational Computing, AI and Machine Learning


The pandemic has raised the stakes for self-service in every part of the customer journey. In 2020, the customer service industry underwent a shock to its collective system by pulling up stakes and moving agents to remote work. At the same time, consumers moved away from in-person interactions in stores and branches. This systemic disruption has led to longer call wait times and tougher...

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Topics: Customer Experience, Contact Center, Digital Technology, natural language processing, Conversational Computing, agent management, AI and Machine Learning


Augmented reality (AR) is a critical component of digital technology. The role of AR is to virtualize the visualization and engagement of assets and products with information that can enhance the value of it for many purposes including manufacturing, marketing, sales and service. Consider how manufacturing and field service organizations are starting to use AR technology for hands-free call-up of...

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Topics: Sales, Business Continuity, Internet of Things, Business Planning, Digital Technology, Operations & Supply Chain, Digital transformation, mobile computing, extended reality


The annual Ventana Research Digital Innovation Awards showcases advances in the productivity and potential of business applications, as well as technology that contributes significantly to improved efficiency and productivity in the processes and the performance of an organization. Our goal is to recognize technology and vendors that have introduced noteworthy digital innovations that advance...

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Topics: Analytics, Collaboration, Data Governance, Data Lake, Data Preparation, IOT, Data, Information Management (IM), Digital Technology, blockchain, Conversational Computing, collaborative computing, mobile computing, extended reality, AI and Machine Learning


The annual Ventana Research Digital Innovation Awards showcases advances in the productivity and potential of business applications, as well as technology that contributes significantly to improved efficiency and productivity in the processes and the performance of an organization. Our goal is to recognize technology and vendors that have introduced noteworthy digital innovations that advance...

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Topics: Continuous Planning, Data, Digital Technology, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, blockchain, continuous supply chain


A data lake is a centralized repository designed to house big data in structured, semi-structured and unstructured form. I have been covering the data lake topic for several years and encourage you to check out an earlier perspective called Data Lakes: Safe Way to Swim in Big Data? for background. Our data lake research has uncovered some points to consider in your efforts, and I’d like to offer...

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Topics: Data Governance, Data Lake, Information Management, Data, Digital Technology


Every organization performing analytics with multiple employees needs to collaborate. They should be collaborating in the analytics process and in communicating the results of those analyses. As I continue my evaluation of analytics and data vendors, I have to admit some disappointment at the level of collaborative capabilities some analytics vendors provide. To be fair, the level of capabilities...

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Topics: business intelligence, Analytics, Collaboration, Data Governance, Data Preparation, Information Management, Data, Digital Technology, collaborative computing


The annual Ventana Research Digital Innovation Awards showcases advances in the productivity and potential of business applications, as well as technology that contributes significantly to improved efficiency and productivity in the processes and the performance of an organization. Our goal is to recognize technology and vendors that have introduced noteworthy digital innovations that advance...

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Topics: embedded analytics, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Collaboration, Digital Technology, natural language processing, Conversational Computing, collaborative computing, mobile computing, AI and Machine Learning


The annual Ventana Research Digital Innovation Awards showcases advances in the productivity and potential of business applications, as well as technology that contributes significantly to improved efficiency and productivity in the processes and the performance of an organization. Our goal is to recognize technology and vendors that have introduced noteworthy digital innovations that advance...

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Topics: Sales, Marketing, embedded analytics, Analytics, Sales Performance Management, Digital Technology, intelligent marketing, sales enablement, AI and Machine Learning


The annual Ventana Research Digital Innovation Awards showcases advances in the productivity and potential of business applications, as well as technology that contributes significantly to improved efficiency and productivity in the processes and performance of an organization. Our goal is to recognize technology and vendors that have introduced noteworthy innovations in technology that advance...

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Topics: Customer Experience, Voice of the Customer, Contact Center, Digital Technology, Digital Commerce, Conversational Computing, collaborative computing, agent management


The annual Ventana Research Digital Innovation Awards showcases advances in the productivity and potential of business applications, as well as technology that contributes significantly to improved efficiency and productivity in the processes and performance of an organization. Our goal is to recognize technology and vendors that have introduced noteworthy digital innovations that advance...

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Topics: Customer Experience, Human Capital Management, Marketing, Analytics, Internet of Things, Contact Center, Data, Digital Technology, Digital Commerce, Operations & Supply Chain, blockchain, employee experience, candidate engagement, Conversational Computing, collaborative computing, mobile computing, agent management, extended reality, business digital commerce, work experience management, AI and Machine Learning


The annual Ventana Research Digital Innovation Awards showcases advances in the productivity and potential of business applications, as well as technology that contributes significantly to improved efficiency and productivity in the processes and the performance of an organization. Our goal is to recognize technology and vendors that have introduced noteworthy digital innovations that advance...

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Topics: Customer Experience, Human Capital Management, Office of Finance, Contact Center, Workforce Management, Digital Technology, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, robotic finance, employee experience, continuous supply chain, agent management, work experience management


I’m very excited to announce to my network as well as the ever-expanding Ventana Research community that I’m now directing Ventana Research’s Office of Sales practice. The focus is to guide and educate sales and business professionals on the selling applications and technology including digital commerce, price and revenue management, product information management, sales enablement, sales...

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Topics: Sales, embedded analytics, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Collaboration, Data, Product Information Management, Sales Performance Management, Price and Revenue Management, Digital Technology, Work and Resource Management, Conversational Computing, collaborative computing, mobile computing, intelligent sales, sales enablement, AI and Machine Learning


The workforce is an essential part of an organization’s overall business potential because it ensures continuous operations, even in black-swan events. The workforce is the core of the organization and should get the attention it deserves. In challenging times, a “customer-first” mentality tends to take hold — this is not unreasonable but in focusing on satisfying customers and opportunities,...

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Topics: Sales, Customer Experience, Human Capital Management, Office of Finance, Voice of the Customer, Continuous Planning, Business Continuity, Analytics, Business Planning, Workforce Analytics, Workforce Management, Digital Technology, Operations & Supply Chain, Robotic Process Automation, employee experience, Conversational Computing, collaborative computing, mobile computing, agent management, People Analytics, AI and Machine Learning


Analytics and data provide visibility into an organization’s past, present and potential performance. However, not all organizations are using analytics that provide timely insights — insights that not just reflect what happen but direct a successful course for the future. Demand for personalized and relevant insight only intensifies in a black-swan event. To maintain business continuity in times...

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Topics: business intelligence, embedded analytics, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Collaboration, Internet of Things, Data, Digital Technology, natural language processing, Conversational Computing, AI and Machine Learning


Marketing is inextricably linked to business success, and digital technology is essential to an organization’s overall marketing potential because it generates interest and brand awareness. In a black-swan event, the marketing department often is overwhelmed by short-term demands, so in these situations it’s of the essence that digital transformation gets the attention it deserves. In challenging...

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Topics: Sales, Customer Experience, Marketing, Office of Finance, Voice of the Customer, Analytics, Data, Product Information Management, Digital Technology, Operations & Supply Chain, Conversational Computing


Today’s businesses must manage a continually expanding array of data, content and digital assets as well as satisfy the demands of consumers for comprehensive product information. Addressing these challenges requires unified processes and automated systems and, most importantly, the ability to augment and enrich product information. Our earlier PIM research found that more than half (52%) of...

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Topics: Sales, Customer Experience, Marketing, PIM, Digital Technology, Operations & Supply Chain, Intelligent CX, product experience management, PXM


Contact centers play a substantial role in an organization’s success. The customer journey is engaged here, at each moment of interaction. Agents, whether human or machine-driven, are intrinsic to the customer experience and the value of the contact center. Customers are essential to an organizations’ overall business potential because they generate revenue. In a black-swan event, demand for...

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Topics: Sales, Customer Experience, Marketing, Office of Finance, Voice of the Customer, Analytics, Data, Product Information Management, Digital Technology, Operations & Supply Chain, Conversational Computing


Subscriptions are the future of business. Subscribers are essential to an organization’s overall business potential because they generate recurring revenue. In a black-swan event, demand for a subscription may spike or dip, so in these situations it’s of the essence that subscriptions get the attention they deserve. In challenging times, a “subscriber-first” mentality tends to take hold — this is...

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Topics: Sales, Customer Experience, Marketing, Office of Finance, Voice of the Customer, Analytics, Data, Product Information Management, Digital Technology, Operations & Supply Chain, Subscription Billing, Conversational Computing, Subscription Management, Subscriber Experience


Partners play a key role in the revenue and growth of every organization. Whether channel selling is in assistance to internal sales or independent, what happens in partnering has ramifications that are simply too important to underestimate. The imperative to maintain business continuity with channel partners becomes painfully clear in a global pandemic, and that imperative demands that...

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Topics: Sales, Customer Experience, Human Capital Management, Marketing, Office of Finance, Voice of the Customer, Analytics, Internet of Things, Data, Digital Technology, Operations & Supply Chain, Conversational Computing, partner management, Partner Experience


Products and services are the foundation of every organization, regardless of its industry or size. Products are essential to an organization’s overall business health because they generate revenue and engage buyers and customers. In a black-swan event, demand for a product may spike or dip, so in these situations it’s of the essence that products get the attention they deserve as they are...

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Topics: Sales, Customer Experience, Marketing, Office of Finance, Voice of the Customer, Analytics, Data, Product Information Management, Digital Technology, Operations & Supply Chain, Conversational Computing, product experience management


The workforce is the center of any organization, no matter if the workforce consists of employees, contractors or what we call gig workers. It stands to reason that a black-swan event has an immediate impact on a workforce and thus an organization’s overall business health. In challenging times, a “family-first” mentality tends to take hold — a reality that, far too often, business leaders and HR...

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Topics: Sales, Human Capital Management, Learning, Office of Finance, Voice of the Customer, Analytics, Digital Technology, Digital Marketing, Operations & Supply Chain, Workforce Optimization, AI and Machine Learning


Suppliers play a critical role in supporting the operations and processes of every organization. Whether direct or indirect, an organization’s relationship with its suppliers has ramifications that are perilous to underestimate. The imperative to maintain business continuity becomes painfully clear in a global pandemic, and that imperative demands that organizations cultivate excellent supplier...

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Topics: Sales, Customer Experience, Human Capital Management, Marketing, Office of Finance, Voice of the Customer, Analytics, Internet of Things, Data, Digital Technology, Operations & Supply Chain, Conversational Computing


Supercharging the customer experience (CX) is more than just an opportunity. It’s essential for every organization that looks to optimize engagement at every moment of the customer journey. In times such as these, when business continuity is a top priority, organizations must address the customer experience, especially if it has not been a focal point of the executive team.

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Topics: Sales, Customer Experience, Human Capital Management, Marketing, Office of Finance, Voice of the Customer, Analytics, Collaboration, Data Governance, Data Preparation, Information Management, Internet of Things, Contact Center, Data, Digital Technology, Digital Commerce, Operations & Supply Chain, Intelligent CX, Conversational Computing


The imperative to infuse digital technology into your organization is not new, but it’s more essential than ever that organizations embrace digital transformation and business continuity to improve processes. I have recently written about the need for digital innovation in business continuity, outlining the steps every organization needs to take. These steps involve a close examination of the...

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Topics: Customer Experience, Human Capital Management, Office of Finance, Analytics, Data, Digital Technology


The global pandemic crisis was, in effect, an unrehearsed stress test measuring the resiliency of the department. The crisis highlighted the importance of sustaining confidence in the accuracy and control of accounting processes, not just efficiency. Virtualizing the close means using technology to substantially reduce the amount of manual processing and paper involved needed to complete the...

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Topics: Office of Finance, Continuous Accounting, Fast close, CFO, Digital Technology


At Ventana Research we’re familiar with the need for digital transformation as we have been researching and providing education on this topic for almost two decades. And recent global challenges make even clearer the sea change at hand: digital innovation is essential for not only success, but survival. Business continuity during a pandemic, natural disaster, cyber event or geopolitical situation...

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Topics: Sales, Customer Experience, HCM, Marketing, Office of Finance, Business Continuity, Analytics, Digital Technology


Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are all the rage right now. Our Machine Learning Dynamic Insights research shows that organizations are using these techniques to achieve a competitive advantage and improve both customer experiences and their bottom line. One type of analysis an organization can perform using AI and ML is predictive analytics. Organizations also need to plan...

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


I would like to share some of my thoughts on COVID-19 and the challenges organizations are facing as they strive for business continuity and digital engagement with customers and buyers. As the global and US numbers get worse by the day, the pandemic is impacting life as we knew it and also leaves people (many in new forms of isolation) yearning for a bit of normalcy during these strange times.

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Topics: Sales, Marketing, Digital Technology, Digital Marketing, Digital Commerce


I was recently asked to identify key modern data architecture trends. Data architectures have changed significantly to accommodate larger volumes of data as well as new types of data such as streaming and unstructured data. Here are some of the trends I see continuing to impact data architectures.

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Topics: Analytics, Business Intelligence, Data Governance, Data Preparation, Data, Information Management (IM), Digital Technology, data lakes, AI and Machine Learning


In late February I attended Spark, the Scout annual user group meeting. This was the third and likely the last such meeting, as Scout was recently acquired by Workday. Scout’s users represent a new breed of purchasing managers and executives looking to change the role of the purchasing department. This change is critical for businesses. Saving money is the essential job of sourcing and purchasing...

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Topics: Office of Finance, Financial Performance Management, Digital Technology, Digital Commerce, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP and Continuous Accounting, purchasing, procurement, sourcing


MicroStrategy recently held its annual user conference, which focused on the theme of the “Intelligent Enterprise.” HyperIntelligence, an innovative product for delivering analytics throughout organizations that they introduced a year ago, was the star of the event. The company announced enhancements to HyperIntelligence and the latest version of its flagship platform, MicroStrategy 2020, as well...

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Topics: Analytics, Business Intelligence, Collaboration, Data Governance, Data, Digital Technology, Conversational Computing


Ventana Research recently announced its 2020 research agenda for digital technology, continuing the guidance we’ve offered for nearly two decades to help organizations derive optimal value and improve business outcomes. While we have seen more than four decades of digital transformation in the systems and tools businesses rely on, recent years have yielded transformative approaches to technology...

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Topics: Analytics, Internet of Things, Data, Digital Technology, blockchain, Conversational Computing, collaborative computing, mobile computing, extended reality, AI and Machine Learning


Here are some insights on Incentive Solutions drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic assessment of how well vendor offerings address buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index on Sales Performance Management 2019 is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. We evaluated Incentive Solutions and eight other...

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Topics: Sales, Customer Experience, Office of Finance, Analytics, Contact Center, Data, Sales Performance Management, Financial Performance Management, Digital Technology, Digital Commerce, Predictive Planning, Conversational Computing, collaborative computing, mobile computing, Subscription Management, agent management, intelligent sales, AI and Machine Learning


Here are some insights on NICE drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic assessment of how well vendor offerings address buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index on Sales Performance Management 2019 is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. We evaluated NICE and eight other vendors in seven categories, five...

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Topics: Sales, Customer Experience, Mobile Technology, Office of Finance, Analytics, Contact Center, Data, Sales Performance Management, Financial Performance Management, Digital Technology, Digital Commerce, Predictive Planning, Conversational Computing, collaborative computing, Subscription Management, agent management, intelligent sales, AI and Machine Learning


Here are some insights on beqom drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic assessment of how well vendor offerings address buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index on Sales Performance Management 2019 is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. We evaluated beqom and eight other vendors in seven categories,...

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Topics: Sales, Customer Experience, Office of Finance, Analytics, Contact Center, Data, Sales Performance Management, Financial Performance Management, Digital Technology, Predictive Planning, Conversational Computing, collaborative computing, mobile computing, Subscription Management, agent management, intelligent sales, AI and Machine Learning


Here are some insights on SAP drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic assessment of how well vendor offerings address buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index on Sales Performance Management 2019 is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. We evaluated SAP and eight other vendors in seven categories, five...

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Topics: Sales, Customer Experience, Office of Finance, Analytics, Contact Center, Data, Financial Performance Management (FPM), Sales Performance Management, Digital Technology, Digital Commerce, Predictive Planning, Conversational Computing, collaborative computing, mobile computing, Subscription Management, agent management, intelligent sales, AI and Machine Learning


Here are some insights on Optymyze drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic assessment of how well vendor offerings address buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index on Sales Performance Management 2019 is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. We evaluated Optymyze and eight other vendors in seven...

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Topics: Sales, Customer Experience, Office of Finance, Analytics, Contact Center, Data, Sales Performance Management, Financial Performance Management, Digital Technology, Digital Commerce, Predictive Planning, Conversational Computing, collaborative computing, mobile computing, Subscription Management, agent management, intelligent sales, AI and Machine Learning


Here are some insights on Anaplan drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic assessment of how well vendor offerings address buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index on Sales Performance Management 2019 is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. We evaluated Anaplan and eight other vendors in seven...

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Topics: Sales, Customer Experience, Office of Finance, Analytics, Contact Center, Data, Sales Performance Management, Financial Performance Management, Digital Technology, Digital Commerce, Predictive Planning, Conversational Computing, collaborative computing, mobile computing, Subscription Management, agent management, intelligent sales, AI and Machine Learning


With the backing of Great Hill Partners and Spectrum Equity, the company Varicent Software launched on Jan. 1st, purchasing IBM’s Sales Performance Management (SPM) assets and hiring employees from IBM’s SPM group. They will join a new team that includes Varicent’s original founders and key leadership.

This set of insights is drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic...

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Topics: Sales, Customer Experience, Office of Finance, Analytics, Contact Center, Data, Sales Performance Management, Financial Performance Management, Digital Technology, Digital Commerce, Predictive Planning, Conversational Computing, collaborative computing, mobile computing, Subscription Management, agent management, intelligent sales, AI and Machine Learning


Here are some insights on Xactly drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic assessment of how well vendor offerings address buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index on Sales Performance Management 2019 is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. We evaluated Xactly and eight other vendors in seven categories,...

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Topics: Sales, Customer Experience, Office of Finance, Analytics, Contact Center, Data, Sales Performance Management, Financial Performance Management, Digital Technology, Digital Commerce, Predictive Planning, Conversational Computing, collaborative computing, mobile computing, Subscription Management, agent management, intelligent sales, AI and Machine Learning


Here are some insights on Oracle drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic assessment of how well vendor offerings address buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index on Sales Performance Management 2019 is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. We evaluated Oracle and eight other vendors in seven categories,...

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Topics: Sales, Customer Experience, Contact Center, Data, Sales Performance Management, Sales Performance Management (SPM), Digital Technology, Digital Commerce, Predictive Planning, Conversational Computing, collaborative computing, mobile computing, Subscription Management, agent management, intelligent sales, AI and Machine Learning


For interactions with customers to go well, organizations must manage an ever-increasing array of engagement channels. Our research finds that organizations expect to see interaction volumes increase on all channels, especially digital ones such as text-based messaging, chat, mobile and social apps. Unfortunately, the systems that manage these channels are typically disparate and uncoordinated...

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Topics: Customer Experience, Voice of the Customer, business intelligence, embedded analytics, Analytics, Collaboration, Data Governance, Data Preparation, Information Management, Internet of Things, Contact Center, Data, Digital Technology, Digital Commerce, blockchain, natural language processing, data lakes, Intelligent CX, Subscription Management, agent management, extended reality, AI and Machine Learning


Using customer analytics effectively involves several challenges. Organizations must make it a business priority, cultivate leadership and set a course for ensuring data and analytics are being processed and governed effectively. But effectiveness also requires technology that will assist in the effective operations and management of customers and help an organization achieve its goals.

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Topics: Customer Experience, Voice of the Customer, embedded analytics, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Collaboration, Data Governance, Data Preparation, Information Management, Contact Center, Data, Digital Technology, Digital Commerce, blockchain, natural language processing, data lakes, Intelligent CX, Conversational Computing, collaborative computing, mobile computing, Subscription Management, agent management, extended reality, AI and Machine Learning


I am happy to share some insights from our latest Value Index research, which rates how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements in seven categories, five relevant to the product (adaptability, capability, manageability, reliability and usability) and two related to the vendor (TCO/ROI and vendor validation). The Ventana Research Value Index: Sales Performance Management 2019 is the...

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Topics: Sales, Customer Experience, Office of Finance, Analytics, Contact Center, Data, Sales Performance Management, Financial Performance Management, Digital Technology, Digital Commerce, Predictive Planning, Conversational Computing, collaborative computing, mobile computing, Subscription Management, agent management, intelligent sales, AI and Machine Learning


Customer analytics have never been more important, but effectively creating and managing them is not easy. The data that’s required to achieve visibility into all customer activity involves many applications and systems and it’s a challenge to ensure the data used is accurate and consistent. Even once data is assembled, organizations often struggle to apply analytics to create the metrics that...

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Topics: Customer Experience, Voice of the Customer, embedded analytics, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Collaboration, Data Governance, Data Lake, Data Preparation, Information Management, Contact Center, Data, Digital Technology, Digital Commerce, blockchain, natural language processing, Intelligent CX, Conversational Computing, collaborative computing, Subscription Management, agent management, extended reality, AI and Machine Learning


Ensuring that the sales organization contributes as fully as possible to the success of the organization — to revenue, growth, prof itability and the overall customer experience — requires not only dedication but effective strategy and planning. A well-developed strategy and plan to utilize current and future sales talent is essential for the best possible sales performance. To carry out this...

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Topics: Sales, Customer Experience, Office of Finance, Analytics, Contact Center, Data, Sales Performance Management, Financial Performance Management, Digital Technology, Digital Commerce, Predictive Planning, Conversational Computing, collaborative computing, mobile computing, Subscription Management, agent management, intelligent sales, AI and Machine Learning


The traditional office of finance has five main organs: accounting keeps the books; financial planning and analysis (FP&A) analyzes performance and manages the forward-looking activities of the company such as planning, budgeting and forecasting; corporate finance raises outside money; treasury takes care of the cash and bank accounts, and tax. The modern office of finance requires a sixth:...

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Topics: Office of Finance, Analytics, Financial Performance Management, Price and Revenue Management, Digital Technology, Operations & Supply Chain, ERP and Continuous Accounting, blockchain, robotic finance, Predictive Planning, Conversational Computing, revenue and lease accounting, collaborative computing, Subscription Management, AI and Machine Learning


Having effective analytics enables businesses to understand far better than ever before the data they’re collecting, and to do so in greater volumes and more forms. These new capabilities are especially relevant to sales organizations. When applied to sales data, analytics can help sales teams achieve quotas and forecast more consistently, as well as understand the impacts of incentives and...

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Topics: Customer Experience, Voice of the Customer, business intelligence, embedded analytics, Analytics, Collaboration, Data Governance, Data Preparation, Information Management, Internet of Things, Contact Center, Data, Digital Technology, Digital Commerce, blockchain, natural language processing, data lakes, Intelligent CX, Subscription Management, agent management, AI and Machine Learning



We are happy to offer some insights on Qlik drawn from our latest Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. Earlier this year we published the Ventana Research Value Index: Analytics and Business Intelligence 2019, the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts. We then developed three additional Value Indexes on Analytics and...

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Topics: Data Science, Mobile, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Digital Technology


We are happy to offer some insights on Microsoft drawn from our latest Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. Earlier this year we published the Ventana Research Value Index: Analytics and Business Intelligence 2019, the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts. We then developed three additional Value Indexes on Analytics...

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Topics: Data Science, Mobile, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Digital Technology


We are happy to offer some insights on Looker drawn from our latest Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. Earlier this year we published the Ventana Research Value Index: Analytics and Business Intelligence 2019, the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts. We then developed three additional Value Indexes on Analytics and...

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Topics: Data Science, Mobile, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Digital Technology


We are happy to offer some insights on Tableau drawn from our latest Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. Earlier this year we published the Ventana Research Value Index: Analytics and Business Intelligence 2019, the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. We then developed three additional Value...

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Topics: Data Science, Mobile, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Digital Technology


We are happy to offer some insights on Oracle drawn from our latest Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. Earlier this year we published the Ventana Research Value Index: Analytics and Business Intelligence 2019, the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts. We then developed three additional Value Indexes on Analytics and...

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Topics: Data Science, Mobile, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Digital Technology


We are happy to offer some insights on Salesforce drawn from our latest Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. Earlier this year we published the Ventana Research Value Index: Analytics and Business Intelligence 2019, the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. We then developed three additional Value...

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Topics: Data Science, Mobile, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Digital Technology


We are happy to offer some insights on SAS drawn from our latest Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. Earlier this year we published the Ventana Research Value Index: Analytics and Business Intelligence 2019, the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. We then developed three additional Value Indexes...

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Topics: Data Science, Mobile, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Digital Technology


We are happy to offer some insights on Yellowfin drawn from our latest Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. Earlier this year we published the Ventana Research Value Index: Analytics and Business Intelligence 2019, the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. We then developed three additional Value...

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Topics: Data Science, Mobile, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Digital Technology


We are happy to share some insight on Domo drawn from our latest Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. Earlier this year we published the Ventana Research Value Index: Analytics and Business Intelligence 2019, the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts. We then developed three additional Value Indexes on Analytics and BI...

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Topics: Data Science, Mobile, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Digital Technology


We are happy to offer some insights on SAP drawn from our latest Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. Earlier this year we published the Ventana Research Value Index: Analytics and Business Intelligence 2019, the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts. We then developed three additional Value Indexes on Analytics and BI...

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Topics: Data Science, Mobile, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Digital Technology


We are happy to share some insight on BOARD drawn from our Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. Earlier this year we published the Ventana Research Value Index: Analytics and Business Intelligence 2019, the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts. We then developed three additional Value Indexes on Analytics and BI...

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Topics: Data Science, Mobile, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Digital Technology


We are happy to share some insights on Infor based on our latest market Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. Earlier this year we published the Ventana Research Value Index: Analytics and Business Intelligence 2019, the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts. We then developed three additional Value Indexes on Analytics...

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Topics: Data Science, Mobile, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Digital Technology


We are happy to share some insights about IBM drawn from our latest Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements.

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Topics: Data Science, Mobile, business intelligence, Analytics, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Digital Technology


We are happy to offer some insights on MicroStrategy drawn from our latest Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. Earlier this year we published the Ventana Research Value Index: Analytics and Business Intelligence 2019, the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts. We then developed three additional Value Indexes on...

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Topics: Data Science, Mobile, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Digital Technology


We are happy to offer some insights on Information Builders drawn from our latest Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. Earlier this year we published the Ventana Research Value Index: Analytics and Business Intelligence 2019, the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts. We then developed three additional Value Indexes on...

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Topics: Data Science, Mobile, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Digital Technology


Organizations’ use of data and information is evolving as the amount of data and the frequency with which that data is collected increase. Data now streams into organizations from myriad sources, among them social media feeds and internet-of-things devices. These seemingly ever-increasing volumes of devices and data streams offer both challenges and opportunities to capture information about a...

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Topics: business intelligence, embedded analytics, Analytics, Collaboration, Data Lake, Information Management, Internet of Things, Data, Digital Technology, AI and Machine Learning


It’s no secret that employees are overwhelmed. They’re having to use an array of systems and enterprise tools in the flow of work and deal with an explosion of email messages and other communications requiring some response or action and mountains of content to consume and retain. On top of these time demands, employees must try to keep up with a staggering amount of organizational change.

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Topics: Human Capital Management, business intelligence, Learning Management, Information Management, Workforce Management, Digital Technology, natural language processing, AI and Machine Learning


Identity management is an old problem that has taken on new dimensions in the digital world. In 1993, at the dawn of the World Wide Web (WWW), The New Yorker ran a cartoon featuring two dogs talking, one perched in front of a computer. The caption reads: “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.” The phrase quickly evolved into a meme highlighting the issue of identity uncertainty in the new...

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Topics: Human Capital Management, Office of Finance, Learning Management, Internet of Things, Data, Workforce Management, Digital Technology, ERP and Continuous Accounting, blockchain, candidate engagement, collaborative computing


The emerging internet of things (IoT) is an extension of digital connectivity to devices and sensors in homes, businesses, vehicles and potentially almost anywhere. This innovation means that virtually any appropriately designed device can generate and transmit data about its operations, which can facilitate monitoring and a range of automatic functions. To do this IoT requires a set of...

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Topics: business intelligence, embedded analytics, Analytics, Collaboration, Internet of Things, Data, Information Management (IM), Digital Technology, data lakes, AI and Machine Learning


Organizations now must store, process and use data of significantly greater volume and variety than in the past. These factors plus the velocity of data today — the unrelentingly rapid rate at which it is generated, both in enterprise systems and on the internet — add to the challenge of getting the data into a form that can be used for business tasks.

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Topics: Analytics, Business Intelligence, Data Governance, Data Preparation, Information Management, Internet of Things, Data, Digital Technology, blockchain, data lakes, AI and Machine Learning


About 10 years ago, social media tools like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn introduced a wave of collaborative analytics and BI capabilities. We saw chat streams associated with specific analyses that users could like or endorse. The number of contributions a user made to the community was part of his or her profile so others could accordingly weigh the importance of the input.

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Topics: Analytics, Business Intelligence, Collaboration, Digital Technology


I am happy to offer some insights on Qlik drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic representation of our assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. TheVentana Research Value Index: Analytics and Business Intelligence 2019is the distillation of a year of market andproduct research efforts by Ventana Research. We utilized a structured...

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Topics: Data Science, Mobile Technology, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Digital Technology


I am happy to offer some insights on Microsoft drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic representation of our assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. TheVentana Research Value Index: Analytics and Business Intelligence 2019is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts byVentana Research. We utilized a structured...

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Topics: Data Science, Mobile Technology, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Digital Technology


I am happy to offer some insights on Looker drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic representation of our assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. TheVentana Research Value Index: Analytics and Business Intelligence 2019is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts byVentana Research. We utilized a structured...

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Topics: Data Science, Mobile Technology, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Digital Technology, looker


I am happy to offer some insights on Tableau drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic representation of our assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. TheVentana Research Value Index: Analytics and Business Intelligence 2019is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts byVentana Research. We utilized a structured...

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Topics: Data Science, Tableau, Mobile Technology, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Digital Technology


I am happy to offer some insights on Oracle drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic representation of our assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. TheVentana Research Value Index: Analytics and Business Intelligence 2019is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts byVentana Research. We utilized a structured...

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Topics: Data Science, Mobile Technology, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Digital Technology


I am happy to share some insights gleaned from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic representation of our assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index: Embedded Analytics and Business Intelligence 2019 is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. Drawing on our benchmark...

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Topics: Mobile, embedded analytics, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Digital Technology


I am happy to offer some insights on Salesforce.com drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic representation of our assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. TheVentana Research Value Index: Analytics and Business Intelligence 2019is the distillation of a year of market and product research effortsby Ventana Research. We utilized a...

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Topics: Data Science, Mobile Technology, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Digital Technology


Analytics and business intelligence (BI) play an instrumental role in enabling an organization’s business units and IT to utilize its data in both tactical and strategic ways to perform optimally. To accomplish this, organizations must not only access the data, generate and apply insights from analytics, and communicate the results, they also must ensure that the analytics are presented in a way...

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Topics: embedded analytics, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Digital Technology


Roughly half of my more than 30-year career in human capital management was spent as a line manager responsible for HR technology strategy, selection and deployment. I learned a number of lessons during these years — some just in time, some after the fact. If I had to identify one common thread that unites these insights, it would be that inadequate attention to change management is an ROI-killer...

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Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning Management, Analytics, Workforce Management, Digital Technology, Artificial intelligence, Total Compensation Management, Continuous Payroll


I am happy to share some insights gleaned from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic representation of our assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index: Mobile Analytics and Business Intelligence 2019 is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. Drawing on our benchmark...

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Topics: Mobile, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Digital Technology


For analytics to be effective, they need to be available to line-of-business personnel as needed in their normal course of conducting business, which today means providing rich mobile access to analytics through phones and tablets to support a mobile workforce seeking to conduct business in any location at any time. Workers today expect these mobile capabilities, which means organizations must...

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Topics: Mobile, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Digital Technology


I am happy to offer some insights on SAS drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic representation of our assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index: Analytics and Business Intelligence 2019 is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. We utilized a structured...

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Topics: Data Science, SAS, Mobile Technology, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Digital Technology


I am happy to offer some insights on Yellowfin drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic representation of our assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. TheVentana Research Value Index: Analytics and Business Intelligence 2019is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts byVentana Research. We utilized a structured...

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Topics: Data Science, Mobile Technology, business intelligence, Analytics, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Yellowfin, Digital Technology


I am happy to share some insight on Domo drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic representation of our assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements.  The Ventana Research Value Index: Analytics and Business Intelligence 2019 is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. We utilized a structured...

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Topics: Data Science, Mobile Technology, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Domo, Digital Technology


I am happy to offer some insights on SAP drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic representation of our assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index: Analytics and Business Intelligence 2019 is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. We utilized a structured...

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Topics: Data Science, SAP, Mobile Technology, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Digital Technology


IBM’s THINK conference, just held this February in San Francisco, is IBM's annual user conference. THINK is designed to showcase upcoming product updates and releases from IBM, along with provide best practices on a wide range of topics. While many technologies were on display, there is one topic in particular I wanted to cover this year: Blockchain.

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Topics: Office of Finance, IBM, Financial Performance Management, FPM, Digital Technology, blockchain


I am happy to share some insight on BOARD drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic representation of our assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index: Analytics and Business Intelligence 2019 is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. We utilized a structured...

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Topics: Data Science, Mobile Technology, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Digital Technology, BOARD International


I am happy to share some insights on Infor based on our latest market Value Index research, which provides an analytic representation of our assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index: Analytics and Business Intelligence 2019 is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. We utilized a structured...

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Topics: Data Science, Mobile Technology, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Infor, Digital Technology, Infor Birst


I am happy to share some insights about IBM drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic representation of our assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index: Analytics and Business Intelligence 2019 is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. We utilized a structured...

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Topics: Data Science, Mobile Technology, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Digital Technology


I am happy to offer some insights on MicroStrategy drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic representation of our assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index: Analytics and Business Intelligence 2019 is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. We utilized a...

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Topics: Mobile Technology, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Digital Technology


I am happy to offer some insights on Information Builders drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic representation of our assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index: Analytics and Business Intelligence 2019 is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. We utilized a...

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Topics: Data Science, business intelligence, Mobile Intelligence, Analytics, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Digital Technology


I am happy to share some insights gleaned from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic representation of our assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index: Analytics and Business Intelligence 2019 is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. Drawing on our benchmark research,...

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Topics: Data Science, business intelligence, Mobile Intelligence, Analytics, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Digital Technology


Ventana Research provides unique insight into the analytics and business intelligence (BI) industry. This is important, as its processes and technology play an instrumental role in enabling an organization’s business units and IT to utilize its data in both tactical and strategic ways to perform optimally. To accomplish this, organizations must provide technology that can access the data,...

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Topics: Data Science, business intelligence, Mobile Intelligence, Analytics, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Digital Technology


Learning management technology, either as part of a larger HCM software suite or as a standalone niche solution, has evolved from its classroom-based, instructor-led origins. Modern systems deliver information the way many employees learn best, through informal social learning that is personalized and engaging. Some of these new, often mobile-enabled approaches deliver education via short (three...

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Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning Management, HRMS, Workforce Management, Digital Technology, Work and Resource Management, Machine Learning and Cognitive Computing, Artificial intelligence, employee experience, Chatbots, Personalization, Predictive HCM


This year, Teradata rebranded the Teradata users conference from "Partners" to "Analytics Universe", and there is a reason for it. For decades, Teradata has represented the high end of the analytic database, but new innovations and technologies are adding flexibility to Teradata's licensing as they compete. For the full breakdown of Teradata's Analytics Universe 2018, and my analysis of all the...

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Topics: Big Data, Data Warehousing, Teradata, Analytics, Data Governance, Data Management, Data Preparation, Information Management, Data, Digital Technology


The early days of my career were spent in HR and payroll systems inside brokerage houses and investment banks. The first CHRO I reported to thought the best way to develop a plan for automating payroll management was for me to run the function’s day-to-day operations. I had no previous experience in payroll but it was a good call, as the trenches of any operations area typically reveal a...

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Topics: Human Capital Management, HRMS, Workforce Management, Digital Technology, Work and Resource Management, Machine Learning and Cognitive Computing, Payroll Optimization, Artificial intelligence, Total Compensation Management, RPA, employee experience, Chatbots, Personalization, Predictive HCM


Dreamforce has become the largest enterprise software event for businesses in the United States, and it is evident why when looking at it this year. With over 170,000 business and IT professionals attending, Salesforce came to show off upcoming product announcements and innovations. This year's biggest focus was on Einstein Voice (a personalized and intelligent conversational assistant),...

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Topics: Salesforce.com, Customer Experience, Machine Learning, Marketing, Voice of the Customer, CRM, Dreamforce, Sales Performance Management, SPM, Digital Technology, Digital Marketing, Robotic Process Automation, AI, natural language processing


In 2017 Strata + Hadoop World was changed to the Strata Data Conference. As I pointed out in my coverage of last year’s event, the focus was largely on machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI). That theme continued this year, but my impression of the event was of a community looking to get value out of data regardless of the technology being used to manage that data. The change was...

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Topics: Big Data, Data Science, Machine Learning, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Data Governance, Data Integration, Data Preparation, Information Optimization, Digital Technology, Machine Learning and Cognitive Computing


All too often, software vendors view analytics as the end rather than the beginning of a process. I’m reminded of some of the advanced math classes I’ve taken in which the teaching process focused on a few key aspects of a mathematical proof or solution, leaving the rest of the exercise to be worked out by the students. In other contexts, you may hear people say the numbers speak for themselves.

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Topics: Data Science, Machine Learning, business intelligence, Analytics, Collaboration, Data Governance, Information Optimization, Digital Technology, collaboration for business


Over the last two years, investments in digital technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) by nearly every major provider of HCM systems and tools have transformed the HR technology landscape. Many of the investments have gone into developing distinctive product capabilities, particularly capabilities that rely on machine learning technology.

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Topics: Human Capital Management, Learning Management, HRMS, Workforce Management, Digital Technology, Work and Resource Management, Machine Learning and Cognitive Computing, Payroll Optimization, Total Compensation Management, employee experience


Employee engagement has been a dominant theme in both human capital management (HCM) and the systems to manage it in recent years; lately (though not necessarily appropriately) it is a topic often equated with the notion of the employee experience. On a related point, Gallup’s annual employee engagement survey has consistently found the majority of today’s workforce to be disengaged, defined as...

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Topics: Big Data, Data Science, Human Capital Management, Machine Learning, Learning Management, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, HRMS, Workforce Management, Digital Technology, Workforce Optimization


We now are well beyond the year depicted in 2001: A Space Odyssey, a cinematic perspective on the future of artificial intelligence in which HAL 9000, a computer, is able to simulate human behavior and control machines. Anyone reviewing the past two years of marketing around AI in the business technology industry can be forgiven for believing that we have arrived at the futuristic state Stanley...

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Topics: Big Data, Data Science, Mobile, Customer Analytics, Customer Engagement, Customer Experience, Machine Learning, Mobile Technology, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Customer Service, Data Governance, Data Integration, Data Preparation, Internet of Things, Contact Center, Information Optimization, Digital Technology, Machine Learning and Cognitive Computing, Cybersecurity, Billing and Recurring Revenue, Workforce Optimization, collaboration for business


Blockchains are attractive because their built-in security and trust factors make them useful for almost all business interactions involving organizations and individuals. Blockchains have two basic functions. One is as a method for handling transactions involving property such as land deeds, trademarks or other assets. The second involves exchanges of data such as identities of individuals or...

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Topics: Big Data, Data Science, Mobile, Marketing Performance Management, Office of Finance, business intelligence, Analytics, Cloud Computing, Data Governance, Data Integration, Data Preparation, Internet of Things, Digital Technology, Digital Marketing, Digital Commerce, Operations & Supply Chain


We are have arrived at the May 25, 2018 date when the European Union’s General Data Privacy Regulations (GDPR) become enforceable, following what has been a two-year transition period. Companies were given this time to put in place reasonable measures and the systems necessary to support the legislation’s wide-ranging personal data privacy requirements, which apply to any organization with more...

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Topics: Big Data, Data Science, Mobile, Sales, Customer Analytics, Customer Engagement, Customer Experience, Marketing, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Data Governance, Data Integration, Data Preparation, Internet of Things, Contact Center, Digital Technology, Digital Marketing, Digital Commerce, Cybersecurity, Billing and Recurring Revenue, collaboration for business, mobile marketing



Our benchmark research into next-generation customer engagement finds that three-quarters (77%) of organizations participating in the research said it is very important to improve the way they engage with customers. The two main drivers behind this are improving the customer experience (cited by 74%) and improving performance of the customer service organization (70%). This is important because...

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Topics: Mobile, Customer Analytics, Customer Engagement, Customer Experience, Customer Feedback Management, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Customer Service, Internet of Things, Contact Center, Digital Technology, Omnichannel, Customer Journey Maps, Billing and Recurring Revenue


If we look at the focus of technology vendors for analytics and business intelligence or business applications providers deploying these capabilities in the last five years, we see that they have elevated the importance on the value of visualization and dashboards. These promotions might be understandable, but will they make business and the people using them more intelligent?

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Topics: Big Data, Data Science, Mobile, Machine Learning, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Information Optimization, Digital Technology, Machine Learning and Cognitive Computing


I recently attended the MicroStrategy World conference, which was held in Washington, D.C. and it celebrate its 20th anniversary, which is why MicroStrategy hosted the event near its headquarters. Over the past 20 years, the market and technology for business intelligence and analytics have significantly changed, and in several changes, MicroStrategy has been at the forefront. Now is a good time...

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Topics: Big Data, Mobile Technology, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Digital Technology


The importance of analytics for sales organizations is clear and, as I pointed out in my recent analyst perspective on the next generation of sales analytics, these capabilities optimize revenue potential. However, utilizing sales analytics requires a set of data skills that most organizations still find challenging and are thus not fully prepared to support. The efficient access and preparation...

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Topics: Big Data, Sales, Machine Learning, Office of Finance, Analytics, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Product Information Management, Sales Performance Management, Digital Technology, Digital Commerce, Sales and Operations Planning, Machine Learning and Cognitive Computing, Sales Enablement and Execution, Sales Planning and Analytics


In tracking Genesys for several years I have seen it grow through a series of product developments and acquisitions – from predominantly selling call routing and computer/telephony integration (CTI) software to providing a suite of products that manage inbound and outbound, assisted and digital channels of customer engagement. Continuing this expansion Genesys recently acquired Interactive...

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Topics: Mobile, Customer Analytics, Customer Engagement, Customer Experience, Office of Finance, Analytics, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Customer Service, Internet of Things, Contact Center, Digital Technology


Cloudera provides database and enabling technology for the big data market and overall for data and information management. As my colleague David Menninger has written, the big data and information management technology markets are changing rapidly and require vendors to adapt to them. Cloudera has grown significantly over the last decade and now has approximately 1,000 customers and provides...

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Topics: Big Data, Data Science, Machine Learning, business intelligence, Analytics, Cloud Computing, Data Governance, Data Integration, Data Preparation, Internet of Things, Cognitive Computing, Information Optimization, Digital Technology


Business process reengineering was a consulting fashion in the early 1990s that spurred many companies to purchase their first ERP systems. BPR proposes a fundamental redesign of core business processes to achieve substantial improvements in market and customer responsiveness, productivity, cycle times and quality. ERP systems support business process reengineering by guiding the step-by-step...

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Topics: Big Data, Data Science, Mobile, Customer Analytics, Customer Experience, Machine Learning, Office of Finance, Wearable Computing, Continuous Planning, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Data Integration, Internet of Things, Financial Performance Management, Digital Technology, Digital Marketing, Digital Commerce, Operations & Supply Chain, Enterprise Resource Planning, Machine Learning and Cognitive Computing, ERP and Continuous Accounting, Sales Planning and Analytics


In tracking NICE for a decade I have seen the company grow, through a series of acquisitions and product developments, from a vendor largely of workforce management systems to one that offers a full suite of workforce optimization products. It is now advancing what I call a customer experience platform that builds on top of my last coverage of it advancing its efforts. This includes systems to...

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Topics: Big Data, Customer Analytics, Customer Engagement, Customer Experience, Mobile Technology, Analytics, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Customer Service, Contact Center, CRM, Digital Technology


I am happy to provide my personal perspective on the potential of sales organizations, processes and technology to supercharge business activity in 2017. The sales processes of organizations – whether they involve digital commerce or direct or indirect physical selling – should be part of continuous optimization efforts to reach maximum results. To do this, the people leading and running sales...

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Topics: Big Data, Sales, Machine Learning, Mobile Technology, Office of Finance, Analytics, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Product Information Management, Sales Performance Management, Digital Technology, Digital Commerce, Operations & Supply Chain, Sales and Operations Planning, Machine Learning and Cognitive Computing, Sales Enablement and Execution, Sales Planning and Analytics


The Internet of Things (IoT) is a technology that extends digital connectivity to devices and sensors in homes, businesses, vehicles and potentially almost anywhere. This advance enables virtually any device to transmit its data, to which analytics can then be applied to facilitate monitoring and a range of operational functions. IoT can deliver value in several ways. It can provide organizations...

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Topics: Big Data, Wearable Computing, Analytics, Internet of Things, Digital Technology


Kofax offers Kapow, robotic process automation (RPA) software used to acquire information from a range of sources without human intervention and without having to write code. These sources include websites, applications, unstructured documents, data stores and desktop spreadsheets. RPA software does repetitive, low-value work that otherwise may be performed by person. It saves time in these...

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Topics: Office of Finance, Operations, close, finance, banking, Digital Technology


Today’s rapid changes in technology have left many companies behind in the digital transformation that is shaping the future of marketing, sales, commerce and client engagement. At Ventana Research we have seen this change coming, having been close observers and analysts of technological shifts for almost 15 years, providing continuous research and guidance to the technology industry. Now the...

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Topics: Customer Experience, Marketing, Marketing Performance Management, Mobile Technology, Analytics, Cloud Computing, Digital Technology, Digital Marketing


The annual Oracle OpenWorld user group meeting provides an opportunity to step back and take a longer view of business, industry and technology trends affecting the company. Last year, after listening to Larry Ellison’s and Mark Hurd’s vision for the future of IT, I wrote that Oracle had to continue shifting its focus to business applications because the accelerating shift to cloud computing...

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Topics: Big Data, Performance Management, SaaS, ERP, Office of Finance, Analytics, Cloud Computing, PaaS, Digital Technology


Actuate, a company known for powering BIRT, the open source business intelligence technology, has been delivering large-scale consumer and industrial applications for more than 20 years. In December the company announced it would be acquired by OpenText of Ontario, Canada. OpenText is Canada’s largest software vendor with more than 8,000 employees and a portfolio of enterprise information...

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Topics: Big Data, F-Type, OpenText, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Information Applications, Operational Intelligence, Digital Technology


SYSPRO is a 35-year-old ERP vendor that focuses on products for midsize companies, particularly those in manufacturing and distribution. In manufacturing, SYSPRO supports make, configure and assemble, engineer to order, make to stock and job shop environments. The company attempts to differentiate itself through vertical specialization and its years of ongoing development, which can reduce the...

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Topics: Performance Management, Supply Chain Performance, ERP, Human Capital Management, Office of Finance, Reporting, cloud ERP, container, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Dashboards, Financial Performance, Supply Chain, SCM, S&OP, Digital Technology


Mobility continues to be a hot adoption area in business intelligence, according to our research across analytics and line of business departments. Nearly three-quarters (71%) of organizations said their mobile workforce would be able to access BI capabilities in the next 12 months according to our next generation mobile business intelligence research. Roambi, a provider of mobile business...

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Topics: Mobile Business Intelligence, Sales Performance, flow, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Information Applications, Roambi, box, Digital Technology


I recently attended Vision 2013, IBM’s annual conference for users of its financial governance, risk management and sales performance management software. These three groups have little in common operationally, but they share software infrastructure needs and basic supporting software components such as reporting and analytics. Moreover, while some other major vendors’ user group meetings...

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Topics: Planning, Reporting, Budgeting, closing, XBRL, Analytics, Business Performance, Data Management, Financial Performance, IBM, CFO, Financial Performance Management, FPM, SEC, TM1, Digital Technology


This is annual report season, the time of year that a majority of European and North American corporations issue glossy paper documents aimed at investors, customers, suppliers, existing and prospective employees as well as the public at large. (Some countries have different conventions; in Japan, for instance, most companies are on a March fiscal year.) In reviewing some of the annual reports...

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Topics: Office of Finance, extended close, US-GAAP, XBRL, Analytics, Business Performance, Financial Performance, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), CFO, compliance, financial reporting, SEC, Digital Technology


Data is a commodity in business. To become useful information, data must be put into a specific business context. Without information, today’s businesses can’t function. Without the right information, available to the right people at the right time, an organization cannot make the right decisions nor take the right actions, nor compete effectively and prosper. Information must be crafted and made...

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Topics: Big Data, Analytics, Business Analytics, Cloud Computing, In-Memory Computing, Information Applications, Information Management, Information Optimization, Strata+Hadoop, Digital Technology


I was discussing the United States Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) mandate with a former head of investor relations at a Fortune 100 company. His take on it is much the same as that of everyone else involved with corporate reporting: it doesn’t produce much value and costs a bundle to comply. I related to him my thoughts on the lack of...

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Topics: Office of Finance, Reporting, extended close, US-GAAP, XBRL, Analytics, Business Performance, Financial Performance, CFO, compliance, financial reporting, FPM, SEC, Digital Technology


To mark the fourth anniversary of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) interactive data mandate, Columbia Business School (my alma mater) and its Center for Excellence in Accounting and Security Analysis (CEASA) published a review of the current state of eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) that notes the manifold issues that plague this promising technology. From its...

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Topics: Office of Finance, extended close, US-GAAP, XBRL, Analytics, Business Performance, Financial Performance, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), CFO, compliance, financial reporting, SEC, Digital Technology


Business analytics has become the highest ranked technology innovation, according to our benchmark research on business technology innovation, but a lack of trained resources and inefficient technology have hampered the best of organizations when they attempt to roll out analytics. Our benchmark research on business analytics in 2012 found that the majority of analysts in organizations spend more...

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Topics: Big Data, Sales Performance, Social Media, Supply Chain Performance, Narrative Science, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, CIO, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Information Applications, Information Management, Workforce Performance, Expert Systems, Digital Technology


Mobile technology continues to advance weekly, with new software releases and new versions of devices. Though it has been in the headlines frequently in recent weeks, can Microsoft really change the mobile technology dynamics in the business world?

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Topics: Microsoft, Sales Performance, Google, Microsoft Windows Phone, IT Performance, Operational Performance, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Information Applications, Information Management, Workforce Performance, Digital Technology


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...

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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


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.

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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


On the heels of the release of his new book, The Mobile Wave, Microstrategy’s CEO Michael Saylor delivered an interesting keynote at Microstrategy World in Amsterdam this past week. Unlike other keynotes we’ve seen at various supplier conferences, the presentation was not a sales pitch. There was no reference to the fact that the company was simultaneously launching MicroStrategy 9.3, a major new...

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Topics: Microsoft, MicroStrategy, Mobile, Sales Performance, Google, IT Performance, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Information Applications, Nexus 7, Surface, Digital Technology


The demand for business information on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets continues to increase, while the technology to support it has not. In our benchmark research on information applications, only 11 percent of organizations said they are very satisfied with their ability to provide such information, and their top two complaints with existing technologies are that they are too...

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Topics: Mobile, Sales Performance, Supply Chain Performance, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, CIO, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), Information Applications, Information Management, Location Intelligence, Workforce Performance, Digital Publishing, Roambi, Digital Technology


The mandate by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that requires its filers to apply eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) tags to their financial statements has been in effect for several years. (XBRL is a core element of our Office of Finance Research Agenda for 2012.) One of the most important ideas behind this “interactive data” requirement was to make it as simple as...

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Topics: Office of Finance, extended close, US-GAAP, XBRL, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Financial Performance, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), Information Applications, Information Management, CFO, compliance, financial reporting, SEC, Digital Technology


Salesforce.com made a surprising announcement of its agreement to acquire Rypple, a software company that defines its product as a social goals application. I call this a surprise because although Salesforce has been extending its reach beyond sales and customer service to IT in providing a platform, tools and a database for building applications and storing data in the cloud, until now it has...

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Topics: Sales Performance, Salesforce.com, SAP, Supply Chain Performance, Human Capital Management, Marketing, Operational Performance, Business Performance, Business Technology, Chatter, CIO, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Information Management, Oracle, Workforce Performance, Business Applications, CFO, COO, CRM, HR, SalesCloud, Service Cloud, SFA, Talent Management, Digital Technology


I attended the annual SAP Influencer Summit (Twitter #SAPSummit), at which executives from SAP meet with analysts and customers from around the world to discuss the company’s direction. Pointing out that in 2012 SAP will reach its 40th anniversary of operations, chief communications officer Hubertus Kulpus and chief marketing officer Jonathan Becher kicked off the summit, then passed the...

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Topics: Mobile, Sales, Sales Performance, SAP, Social Media, Supply Chain Performance, Sustainability, Human Capital Management, Smart Phones, Business Technology Innovation, IT Performance, IT Research, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, 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, Location Intelligence, Operational Intelligence, Workforce Performance, Business Applications, CFO, COO, CRM, HR, Sybase, Tablets, Talent Management, Digital Technology


QlikTech recently introduced QlikView 11, the latest version of its business intelligence (BI) software, which emphasizes new collaboration features as well as enhancements to its user interface. In an about-face, though, in its approach to mobile access, the company has moved away from its native iPad application to a browser-based app using HTML5 technology.

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Topics: Mobile, QlikView, Sales Performance, Social Media, Supply Chain Performance, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Collaboration, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Workforce Performance, Digital Technology


Fulfilling its intention to make it easier to access and use analytics and business intelligence, IBM released its Cognos Mobile application natively for the Apple iPad. Of course IBM is not the first to release a native application for the tablet, and many might say that it is late in doing so, but in reality the market for dedicated applications on tablets is just heating up. The adoption rate...

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Topics: Microsoft, Sales Performance, Supply Chain Performance, Google, Playbook, RIM, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Mobility, Business Performance, CIO, IBM, Mobility, Workforce Performance, Cognos, Digital Technology



Oracle made several announcements at its recent Open World event demonstrates its strengths in the business computing market but also that it is standing on the shoulders of giants. The company has developed the expertise, processes and market share to scale out the ideas and innovations of others. Don’t get me wrong: That statement is not an indictment. Large organizations often have challenges...

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Topics: Big Data, Sales Performance, Social Media, Supply Chain Performance, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, NoSQL, Oracle, Workforce Performance, Strata+Hadoop, Digital Technology



The HR Technology Conference and Expo in Las Vegas that begins today will showcase an array of new business technology innovations for human capital management and talent management. The business technology to help human resources professionals is evolving dramatically, and this is a place for HR and workforce management professionals to find new methods that help increase productivity and...

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Topics: Mobile, Performance Management, Social Media, Human Capital Management, Metrics, Recruiting, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Mobility, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Financial Performance, Workforce Performance, Compensation, Talent Management, Workforce Analytics, Digital Technology


The HR Technology Conference and Expo in Las Vegas that begins today will showcase an array of new applications for talent management. The array of applications and advancements to help human resources professionals is evolving dramatically, and this is a place for HR and workforce management professionals to find new methods that help increase productivity and optimize business outcomes. The...

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Topics: Mobile, Performance Management, Social Media, Human Capital Management, Metrics, Recruiting, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Mobility, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Financial Performance, Workforce Performance, Compensation, Talent Management, Workforce Analytics, Digital Technology


The HR Technology Conference and Expo in Las Vegas that begins today will showcase an array of new applications for talent management. The array of applications and advancements to help human resources professionals is evolving dramatically, and this is a place for HR and workforce management professionals to find new methods that help increase productivity and optimize business outcomes. The...

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Topics: Mobile, Performance Management, Social Media, Human Capital Management, Metrics, Recruiting, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Mobility, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Financial Performance, Operational Intelligence, Workforce Performance, Compensation, Talent Management, Workforce Analytics, Digital Technology


Oracle kicked off its Open World 2011 conference with the announcement ofExalytics, a new data warehouse appliance specifically for business intelligence (BI). Three years ago when Oracle introduced the Exadata product line it was based on hardware from Hewlett-Packard. Since then it has acquired Sun Microsystems and replaced the HP components in Exadata, assuming complete control over the...

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Topics: Sales Performance, Supply Chain Performance, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Customer & Contact Center, Exalytics, Financial Performance, Oracle, Visualization, Workforce Performance, Digital Technology


Improving worker/manager collaboration becomes a top priority as organizations realize the impact of such collaboration on workforce productivity and profitability. One way to enhance that collaboration is to make tasks such as scheduling, time and attendance and task management accessible through smartphones and tablets. The management team at Dayforce has experience with workforce management...

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Topics: Mobile, Performance Management, Social Media, Human Capital Management, Metrics, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Mobility, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Financial Performance, Workforce Performance, Compensation, dayforce, Talent Management, Workforce Analytics, Digital Technology


The largest cloud computing conference, Dreamforce 2011, operated by Salesforce.com, is now upon us. This year attendance is estimated to be over 40,000, and there will be more technology- and developer-focused attendees and dialogue than marketing material. Unlike past years, I expect marketing professionals to be a small percentage of attendees, so I thought I would offer them a guide through...

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Topics: Sales Performance, Salesforce.com, Social Media, ExactTarget, HubSpot, Manticore Technology, Marketing, Marketing Automation, Marketing Planning, Marketo, Pardot, Revenue Performance, Sales Force Automation, Operational Performance, Business Collaboration, Business Mobility, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, IBM, CFO, CMO, CRM, Demand Generation, Eloqua, SFA, Unica, Digital Technology


I recently got an update on mobile applications and strategy for smartphones from ADP, the $9 billion provider of applications and services in human resources, payroll and benefits. By acquiring and partnering with organizations, ADP has become the largest provider in this segment while focusing on providing added value and new offerings to its customers. For some companies, being such a large...

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Topics: Big Data, Performance Management, Human Capital Management, Mobile Applications, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Mobility, Business Performance, Cloud Computing, Financial Performance, Workforce Performance, Talent Management, Workforce Analytics, Digital Technology



At this year’s Information Builders Summit, the company’s annual conference for users and analysts (Twitter: #Summit2011) in Dallas, the long-time supplier of business intelligence and information management software showed how it has been able to sustain double-digit revenue growth thanks to highly accessible and scalable software that operates on a variety of platforms and data sources. Its...

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Topics: Sales Performance, Social Media, Supply Chain Performance, Sustainability, Google, Playbook, RIM, Business Technology Innovation, IT Performance, IT Research, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Mobility, Business Performance, CIO, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), Information Applications, Information Builders, Information Management, Location Intelligence, Mobility, Operational Intelligence, Uncategorized, Workforce Performance, Digital Technology



To maintain a productive workforce, businesses need to be able to put information in front of users at every level, from executives to front-line managers. Mobile technologies such as smartphones and tablets can provide analytics and business intelligence (BI), but so far this market niche has been dominated by publishing dashboards and reports that conform to the limits of mobile platforms....

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Topics: Sales Performance, SAP, Supply Chain Performance, Sustainability, Google, Smart Phones, IT Performance, Operational Performance, Analytics, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Mobility, Business Performance, CIO, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), Information Applications, Information Management, Mobility, Workforce Performance, Roambi, Sybase. Mobile Industry, Tablets, Digital Technology


At the SAPPHIRE NOW annual conference, (Twitter: #SAPPHIRENOW) the advantage of the mobile technology SAP gained through its acquisition of Sybase is becoming evident. In a blog before the conference I touched on the importance of mobility to the company’s future. From walking around, assessing keynotes and sessions and talking to companies using SAP, it seems that the big bet that SAP made on...

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Topics: Sales Performance, SAP, Social Media, Supply Chain Performance, Google, Smart Phones, IT Performance, Operational Performance, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Mobility, Business Performance, CIO, Cloud Computing, Customer & Contact Center, Financial Performance, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), Information Applications, Information Management, Mobility, Workforce Performance, Sybase. Mobile Industry, Tablets, Digital Technology


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,...

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


The demand for access to business information and applications through mobile technologies such as the Apple iPhone and iPad, devices running Google Android or using RIM Blackberry is surging as consumer preferences and behavior spill over into the business workforce. The massive growth of adoption of these technologies around the world as consumers seek instant access to information has many...

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Topics: Mobile, IT Performance, Operational Performance, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Mobility, Digital Technology


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,...

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


The demand for access to business information and applications through mobile technologies such as the Apple iPhone and iPad, devices running Google Android or using RIM Blackberry is surging as consumer preferences and behavior spill over into the business workforce. The massive growth of adoption of these technologies around the world as consumers seek instant access to information has many...

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Topics: Mobile, IT Performance, Business Intelligence, Business Performance, Mobility, Operational Intelligence, Digital Technology


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