Writing by Jorgen on Monday, 1 of February , 2010 at 9:28 pm
Enterprise Data World is the business world’s most comprehensive vendor-neutral educational event about data and information management.
I am honored to be invited to speak on Trends in Business Intelligence. Please join me wednesday, March 17th at 11:00 am in San Francisco, USA. Information is crucial to fight challenges but also in trying to identify chances and possibilities. What are the major trends in Business Intelligence and how is it impacting your organization? Capgemini explains how you can make use of data in order to make the necessary decisions under these fast changing circumstances.
Category: BI Thoughts, Business Intelligence consulting, Business Intelligence solution, Business Intelligence strategy
Writing by Jorgen on Thursday, 21 of January , 2010 at 10:00 am
Whatever happened to CPM or Corporate Perfomance Management? Do you remember when it was on top of the hype cycle? Gartner defined it as “… an umbrella term. It comprises all the relevant methods and all the processes, metrics and systems that enterprises put in place to measure and manage business performance”. Performance Management main objective is to improve the organizations performance and finds its starting point in the corporate strategy. Based on this strategy plans are made, results are measured and evaluated and actions are defined. CPM can even lead to new plans or strategies.
If we take a look at classic Business Intelligence we find that it is focused on using company data to report and analyze the current (or past) performance of the organization (lag). However, the Return-On-Intelligence (ROI) increases as organizations use this data to take a proactive approach in their decision making (lead). A good performance management framework therefore often consists of both lead and lag measures.
Let’s break down the definition of CPM. Firstly, we take a look at “relevant methods”. This refers to such methods as the Business Balanced Scorecard (Kaplan & Norton), Lean or Six Sigma. Secondly, it’s about “processes”, or in other words a performance improvement process. The third element is “Metrics and systems”. Another, widely accepted, name for metrics can be Key Performance Indicator or KPI. The system to support this would be Datawarehousing & Business Intelligence. But all these afore mentioned elements are used to “measure and manage business performance”. And this means that CPM is focused on delivering a system with set of Key Performance Indicators to measure (by definition) past performance and use this to manage (or plan) future business performance.
So how is this different form the new number one on the hype cycle chart: Analytics? The main difference would be that analytics focuses not so much on measuring and managing but on analyzing data to gain insights and real understanding of (hidden) business performance. It is the next step in the evolution of Information Management. With CPM we can answer such questions as what happened and where (which we really need to know) but with Analytics we begin to understand the why. It will open up the road to not only making better decisions but maybe even the best decision.
Category: BI Thoughts
Writing by Jorgen on Tuesday, 19 of January , 2010 at 5:11 pm
A new book on BI will be published on January 26th during the Heliview Business Intelligence conference in FIGI ZEIST for which I wrote one chapter (On BI in Retail).
See also http://bi.heliview.nl/
The title of the book is: Over business intelligence. Data is zilver, informatie is goud (About Business Intelligence. Data is silver, information is gold).
The book can also be ordered for € 26,50 (excl. € 2,60 postage and packing) on www.uitgeverijtiem.nl.
You can also view the index and some summaries on this website.
Category: BI Thoughts, Business Intelligence consulting, Business Intelligence solution, Business Intelligence strategy
Writing by Jorgen on Monday, 4 of January , 2010 at 2:10 pm
How to mix Business Intelligence and Social Media to enable decision making
Children are constantly learning. First they crawl than they learn how to walk. And the same happens with playing. At first they start out doing this alone and they find it difficult to share toys with others. They want to keep those fun things themselves. But in time the children learn that playing together is more fun. And that playing together also means that you have to share your toys with others. This increases the fun and before you know it you have a new best friend. We have an expression in the Netherlands which goes like this: “Playing together is sharing together”. This Dutch rime helps children share their toys with other children while playing. As an adult the world looks pretty much the same. We also find it difficult to share our toys, let alone enterprise data or corporate analyses. However sharing can create enormous advantages and will increase your Return-On-Information. In this article we look at the role of corporate information (or business intelligence) and how social networks (or internet social media like twitter) can help decision making. Perhaps in the near future a manager will publish his or hers corporate data on the net with a $50 reward for the person that comes up with the best solution.
From bearskin suits to intelligent use of information
We used to learn this in school during history lessons. The first inhabitants of the Netherlands were fishers, hunters and collectors. They wore bearskin suits and chased after mammoths. But after a while they started working the land and established small towns and villages. This urbanization allowed them to split their roles and tasks. The cow gave milk to the farmer which he used to buy bread from the baker. The industrial revolution ended these small scale economic (trading) activities. The modern time demanded mass production and oil and steel were the new, o so crucial, cows.
The next big break was the information revolution. The introduction of the computer was just the beginning. Everything bit of information was changed into bits and bytes. Information became the new oil and is the lubricant for today’s economy. Data or information has become an essential production factor just like labor or capital. But the information revolution came to us in waves. First, information was broadcasted by one source for the benefit of many. Think about mass media like radio and television. But the internet has changed this model for ever. The net maybe started out somewhat one dimensional with website after website where all possible interest known to mankind was broadcasted. But soon after that it became possible to react on the sender’s opinion thus creating some kind of dialogue. The next step was sharing information or creating a dialogue between larger groups of congenial persons. Communities were being formed.
The importance of information has been recognized by many. Information has become an economic factor of production and therefore it is one of the things that enable enterprises to achieve competitive advantages. For example, by knowing trends and other developments before others. It has given rise to a field of expertise where collecting information to improve performance has become important: Business Intelligence (BI). Intelligence, not by coincidence, reminds is of the CIA. An organization that also values information. Only the BI field has been dominated by IT. As a result there is a focus on the technology with regard to information supply instead of using information to increase business opportunities. BI is mainly engaged with opening up enterprise data to get insights in the corporate performance. Social media are also engaged with information collection. Only the platform is not the corporate IT systems but the internet.
Oil is scarce, information is abundant
In time commodities like oil and steel are going to run out. With information it’s exactly the other way round. There is an abundance of information available. From every corner comes data or information. From our systems like cash register, book keeping, HR or the ERP system. But also from external sources like internet. This information can take on different shapes and forms. Sometimes it’s a comment placed in an online forum, or a picture, but it can also be a pdf file containing market analyses or a press release. The challenge is to find the famous needle in the haystack, or rather in football fields filled with haystacks.
A first step is finding or locating data that can be useful, in other words: where is it? The next step will be controlling the data. To make heads and tails of it. For example by capturing it in a model to create insight. The central question here would be: What is it? After that we have to look at the value of the captured information. Is it indeed relevant? Does it have some sort of economic value? What can I do with it? The last step is an interpretation of the data. By giving the data some kind of rating or importance. In other words: what can I do with it?
The World is continuously in motion and freezing an existing situation is therefore not smart as the value of information decreases directly. Above mentioned steps are therefore not suggested as a well managed linearly process. Especially for social media controlling information can only be done up and until the process of interpretation. For classical BI the process might be a bit more linear and controlled but still some phases will melt together, as pictured in the information cloud example below.
Locate: Where is it?
Business Intelligence (BI) is still very traditional in retrieving or finding information. Most information comes from the organizations own systems. In every organization IT systems are being used for capturing data, such as ERP systems, Cash Registers or HR. This data capture is needed to support the operational process. For example, in HR we need to know what the employees name is, how long he has been working for the company and so on. Also we need to know how much we have sold and to who or where. All this data is being stored in the operational systems. But the data can also change in time or even be deleted. Historically this is why we have built datawarehouses. It allows us to capture all the data in time and create a historical view of facts and dimensions. For BI the datawarehouse is often the information or data source of choice. Its limitation is that it often offers only internal data. The type of data is also often static, meaning that is consists of number, tables. Retrieving information from a datawarehouse can be done with BI tools which build reports or list. Often these reports are developed by the IT department based on user requirements. All and all it takes a lot of steps before information can be retrieved.
Locating data or information on the internet is not necessary anymore. Any which way you use the net, you are constantly surrounded with information, coming from WebPages or our own social network. The internet is like an array of millions of datawarehouses that all can possibly contribute to your information supply. For example, this is the first year that computer generate more data than people do. Every minute, ten hours of video is added to Youtube. Every week over ten billion pieces of content are added to facebook. Service like lazyfeed and DailyPerfect can, based on some criteria (or topics), retrieve all the information that can be of relevance. They can do this much faster and more elaborate than any human could have done. Data is everywhere when you are on the web. It is on websites, in RSS feeds, in your social network or hidden within a simple Google query. Data is more than available, rich in content, from many sources and better still, easy to find.
Where BI is focused on retrieving structured data from corporate systems or datawarehouses, social media do not need to focus on data retrieval. The information is just there. This makes BI very internally focused and Social Media externally focused. The internet is just an array of datawarehouses filled with an inexhaustible amount of information. But where to find the relevant information? Search engines can help here, just as web services or having a network of trusted people and websites. Both worlds (BI & Social Media) are complementary. By combining BI and Social Media both structured as well as unstructured data is captured. But it is also a combination of internal and external data. The real value is in taking either an inside out approach of better still an outside in approach to enrich already existing information. Finding the right combinations is the final challenge.
Control: What is it?
Controlling the information from datawarehouses is done with a BI tool in the form or reports, list. Sometimes even OLAP cubes are introduced. These are larger datasets where the facts or measures can be analyzed from different dimensions like date, customer or product. It looks a bit like a pivot table in Excel. Modeling information in a datawarehouse is difficult and often a challenge. Reproducing this data in reports or cubes is even more difficult. The biggest challenge here is getting the definitions right and the same across the whole organization. If this is not done everybody can interpret the data the way they want it. That way there will always be multiple versions of the truth. Too many meeting have been spent on discussing the validity of the figures instead of using them. Controlling internal data might remain difficult, but when done correctly offers a multi dimensional view across the entire organization. With this one version of the truth comes a great return on intelligence.
Controlling data is also a big issue for Social Media. There is so much data, that if you want to read it all, this is impossible. So you need to filter and make choices in what you need. This is often done by working with trusted feeds, people and topics. By selecting a number of websites, data feeds or subscriptions to trusted source you can easily control your dataset. You can also use your social network to get information. Some people are part of your network because you trust them or because they can add value. You can also choose to subscribe to certain topics. Services like Google Alert of Lazyfeed scramble the internet for you. This way you can create a controllable dataset, without drowning in the sea of information that is available online. Also by working with trusted feeds, people and topics you know that the information you receive probably hold value for you. It is not just static or a waste of time.
In order to control the information BI uses data models. Data is captured, clarified and distributed using reports or cubes. The information is there, relevant or not. But it does provide one stable version of the truth. BI often models this information in line with the organization operational processes (finance, sales, and logistics). This makes these processes explicit and the supporting data known. The added value of this that you can create insight into your own performance: it is looking inside.
Controlling information in Social Media is impossible. This means that you have to filter. By using trusted feeds, people, sources or topics. It is about limiting the dataset. If it is not relevant it does not exist. Therefore a dynamic version of the truth exists. The social media often model the information based on trust. This is done based on your gut feeling, so often implicit. The added value of this is that you can create insight into the performance of others: it is looking outside.
BI and Social Media are complementary as they allow for looking inside and outside. BI on its own is not enough. The same applies for Social Media. But together they offer a 360 view. Just think about the sales director that explained a decline in sales for Region X based on a newspaper clipping he found on the internet that a megastore was opened by the competition.
Value: Can I use it?
The gap between business and IT seems to grow every day. This makes sense as each party has its own tasks, responsibilities and interests. But at the same time this causes problems, because as long as business and IT do not work together, the BI competence will face many challenges. A BI Competence Center where business and IT work together and align their activities is still considered to be the best practice. So why does this gap still exist?
IT is focusing on operational excellence. Their aim is to get a minimum of changes, defects or incidents. In their struggle with a declining budget they are constantly striving to reduce the total cost of ownership. But how can we reduce the costs of BI? The simplest solution is reduce the amount of changes. That means less resources and releases. The result of this is a decline in the information supply. On the other hand business is focusing on a concept we call business excellence. They are confronted on a daily basis with many questions and they need answers fast. They need to reduce the amount of uncertainty by increasing the amount of information. If IT cannot supply this to them they will take control themselves. The rise of all kind of (managed) self service reporting is exemplary. Information does not only reduce uncertainty it can also create competitive advantage. By knowing things first the competition is put at a disadvantage. This means that the demand for information will increase. In conclusion, data supply by IT is down and data demand by business is up. This will lead to higher value of the information. The problem here is how to value this information? Because it is not only the information but also the experiences of people using this information, their skills and attitude. BI can help structure data which leads to explicit information. However its real value is made possible through implicit interactions. Humans add value to the information, for example by making decisions or taking actions. But why limit something a powerful as that to only one person?
And what is the value of information that you have retrieved from trusted feeds, people and topics. How do you determine which information is important to you? To determine the value is something very personal. What some people consider valuable others might throw away. All information you received is by definition subjective. The information differs in value based on the subject or source you retrieved your data from. Some sources are more valuable than others. This is based on past experiences, known expert knowledge of the sources or because the source was recommended by a trusted person.
But there are also some semi-objective measures to rate the value of information. Semi-objective because every opinion is a group result and groups needs some conditions to come to a sound conclusion (diversity, independency, specialization and the ability to aggregate various opinions according to James Sorowiecki in his wonderful book Wisdom of the Crowds). Possible way to quantify the value of information is to look how many social bookmarking sites have acknowledged a certain website, how some article are rated on social news sites (like DIGG) or what the Google Pagerank is, or how many people subscribe to a certain RSS feed.
Netflix
Netflix is a company that rents out movies on DVD, Blueray as well as online streaming. Its customers can use a recommendation engine (relevant suggestions based on content) which was improved by using social media. Netflix published a set of anonymous data and ask ‘strangers’ if they could improve their recommendation engine by 1%. The person with the best improvement could earn one million dollar. The final result was an improvement of their engine of 10%. This leads to much higher revenue and the costs of the competition were easily compensated. Also these kinds of improvement if done by their own IT could not have been done or would have cost them more than the 1 million dollar. It was much cheaper to just give the data to the social network.
In conclusion, it can be said that the value of information is increasing and it is the human being that decides the real value. Classical BI has a somewhat carefully, safe way of using data. It source is often trusted (own corporate system or datawarehouse). Social media are completely different. They use a multitude of sources. Also the safety or reliability cannot always be guaranteed. But in order to come to an optimal performance it is not always black or white. Business Intelligence can create a foundation for decision making, it can formulate a thesis, and social media can serve as some kind of standard deviation. They can make or break the thesis, confirm or reject it, but always enrich it.
This article was written together with Rick Mans - Social Media evangelist at Capgemini
Category: BI Thoughts
Writing by Jorgen on Friday, 4 of December , 2009 at 6:54 pm
There is a new hype on Twitter: bashing BI trends. This is so much fun. Since everybody is making their BI trends list for next year, let’s all do something else. Let’s find out which trends are real and which are BS or let me rephrase that editorials from the marketing department. The winner of the best bashing of the most repugnant, far away, non inspired BI trend of 2010 will receive many thanks and perhaps a small price.
Category: BI Thoughts
Writing by Jorgen on Thursday, 19 of November , 2009 at 10:46 am
At the last Microsoft BI conference in Seattle project “Gemini” was annouced. Gemini is now available as Powerpivot (see also www.powerpivot.com). Powerpivot (inspired by pivot table?) allows users to analyse the data within the comfort of their Excel 2010 interface. In my experience however 99% of the data contained in an Excel sheet is often a datadump from operational systems or a datawarehouse (like) environment. Nothing wrong with that by the way. It allows users to play around with the data. But my point is that the data comes from the companies own operational systems. As most of us know (except perhaps the deaf and blind) the majority of data is to be found outside our own organizations. If you can find some way to combine your own data with relevant information from the net your quickly on your way to making smart decisions. As Rick Mans and I wrote in our recent article Samen Spelen (We are working on a English translation) the challenge is first to find the right information and than to make it manageable. So we want the slicing and dicing we do in BI classic on the web as well in combination with search. Well, Microsoft must have read our minds because they are working on something called Pivot (www.getpivot.com). It uses collections of large groups of data with a similar item and uses visualizations to find hidden patterns. Take a look at some of the demo’s and in your mind replace datasets like dogs, cars and playing cards with mortgages, prepaid customers or dairy products. I think Microsoft has taken a first step in the direction of mixing structured and unstructured data. Too bad it is still in two seperate worlds. Who knows what can happen if you mix it together. This leaves one final question. How to call such a product? Power Pivot Plus?
Category: BI Thoughts, BI Tools, Business Intelligence tools, Microsoft
Writing by Jorgen on Wednesday, 18 of November , 2009 at 11:24 am
Samen Spelen, Samen delen. Het lijkt een bezwerend mantra om de lieve vrede op de crèche te bewaren. Maar er is meer. Kinderen zijn eigenlijk continue aan het leren. Kruipen, leren lopen. Later spelen ze met lego, kralen of blokken. Het liefst doen ze dat alleen en zijn ze nog niet goed in staat om te delen. Ze houden liever alle leuke dingen voor zichzelf. Langzamerhand ontdekken kinderen echter dat spelen ook kan met andere kinderen. Maar dat betekent ook speelgoed delen. Dat gaat eerst nog gepaard met tranen maar later ontdekken kinderen dat samen spelen goed kan samengaan met samen delen. Sterker nog, het wordt steeds leuker zo samen. En voor je het weet, heb je een beste vriend of vriendin. Als volwassene is de wereld niet vaak niet veel anders. Wij vinden het ook soms moeilijk om ons speelgoed te delen. Laat staan bedrijfsgegevens of vergaande analyses. Maar ook hier blijkt weer groot voordeel te behalen. In dit artikel wordt ingegaan op de rol van bedrijfsinformatie (of business intelligence) en welke rol externe sociale netwerken (Internet Social Media) kunnen spelen bij het nemen van beslissingen. Wellicht zal een manager in de toekomst niet veel meer hoeven doen dan interne data te publiceren op het net en $50 te bieden voor de beste synthese.
DOWNLOAD DE REST VAN HET ARTIKEL
Samen Spelen, Samen Delen
Category: BI Thoughts
Writing by Jorgen on Monday, 2 of November , 2009 at 11:20 am
IT budgets are down. That’s a fact that nobody can deny. At the same time the need for relevant information has increased considerably. That is another fact. As a result IT is reconsidering its position whilst the business is waiting for the much needed report or analysis. This need for faster time to information and less IT involvement has given rise to something that is often called Business or Self Service Reporting (SSR). Traditionally BI reports are created by the IT department. SSR allows business users to do this for themselves.
This might sound like a radical new way of delivering information but it is nothing new. Gartner for example has always placed the Report writing function in the business part of the BICC. What is different now is that the tools have become more intuitive and easy to work with. Business users, albeit power users, can build their own reports with a relative ease. IT responsibilities for SSR are limited, or should I say focused, on delivering the quality data on time. Which is not bad considering the lower budgets. Another great thing about letting business user build their own reports is that it improves the quality of the requirements (no more misunderstandings) and the setting of priorities (they will probably build what the need the most first). So it really sounds like a win-win situation and often it is just that. But… there is a down side to this as well.
By spreading the report function across various lines of business a dilution of knowledge arises which is often strengthened by the information silos that are created. In a way it is back to the old days with the business (intelligence) silos across the company. Did I hear somebody say: single version of the truth? But the IT department has also a hard time in monitoring the use of the report function and keeping the performance on an acceptable level.
So how can we do something to solve these problems? One way is to make the SSR a little bit more IT monitored by setting up a ‘managed’ self service environment. That is something Microsoft has done. Another solution would be to create an organization structure to support these changes. This would be something like a BICC but more business orientated. Let’s call it a BI Service Center or BISC. A third possibility would be to limit the SSR to a certain kind or reporting. When there is a need for fast time to information or when there is a high need for business involvement SSR is the way to go. All other reports are created in some sort of central function. A hybrid solution can even arise where personal or self service reports become centrally maintained standard reports in time, thus solving the single version challenge.
Self Service Reporting can be a great thing. It will decrease the time to information for many people which is much needed in these roaring times. However SSR must always be implemented and positioned in a way that its benefits will not create concerns for others involved. Always keep the impact of SSR on your information architecture in mind while seeking for quick solutions.
Category: BI Thoughts
Writing by Jorgen on Monday, 26 of October , 2009 at 4:46 pm
Should I shave it off or not? Should I keep the beard or loose it? Voting is now open on linkedin: (http://polls.linkedin.com/p/63040/xcgat). Extensive Data Analysis reveals that younger people and females say SAVE IT. However Older people and men say SHAVE IT. So the question now is which group to focus on? For now I have decided to keep it at least until thursday (Nationale BI Event in Leiden).
Category: BI Thoughts
Writing by Jorgen on Friday, 16 of October , 2009 at 9:32 am
PLEASE NOTE: THIS IS WRITTEN WITH SANDER HOOGENDOORN - PRINCIPTAL TECHNOLOGY OFFICER AND AGILE EVANGELIST @ CAPGEMINI.
I was asked the question: “Is Agile the correct development method for Business Intelligence?”. An interesting question. According to me any development method that takes BI characteristics in mind is better than a method that does not. Therefore I would say that Agile is better than most waterfall based methods.
So, what are some of the BI characteristics that we have to take in account while using any development method? First , BI projects almost always have some sort of business purpose. For example, sales insight or call center performance improvement. But the business case is not always clear upfront. So the BI contribution to the bottom line is often unknown as well. Another thing is that the business requirements are also often not very precise. At the start of any BI project getting the detailed and finalized requirements from future information product users is a challenge at best. Finally, the whole development process is pretty much linear. We get data from the source, we ETL it to our warehouse, fill the data model, ETL it to our data marts and build the reports. So before any user sees the final result 80% of the work is already done. The biggest challenge for BI development methods is to deal with the ‘advancing understanding’.
Agile can contribute to this as it works with: small iterations, used cases, fast and frequent releases, much interaction with the client, integration of testing in the development cycle and so on.
The key question that remains: “Are agile methods being adopted and used in the BI world?”. The answer to that is very simple: Agile is all in the mind. The question is not if Agile CAN be used, the question is if BI people WANT to use it.
Category: BI Thoughts
Writing by Jorgen on Tuesday, 22 of September , 2009 at 2:25 pm
Is BI going to be a commodity?
A commodity, according to wikipedia, is a bulk product where supply and demand determines the price. What is often meant is that is something is no longer distinctive. When examining BI as a whole there are some tools that may have reached commodity such as reporting or OLAP as evidenced by the rise of the self service tools as an indication for this. As a result the commoditization of BI will certainly change the way IT is executed, and the implementations will change the paradigm so that IT is viewed as a supplier of data. Despite this change the full potential of BI is still untapped. Above and beyond the traditional factors of production such as labor and money, the most significant factor is information or knowledge (the knowledge economy), which is a critical component of the equation. As a result there is a shift in focus from technique towards added value of information. People, process and technology are all interconnected by the use of information. This is an aspect that is sometimes ignored in the world of IT, the owners of BI. Now is the time to bring the “I” back in IT. At this juncture this is especially relevant given the unusual circumstances in the economy which have led to higher demand for information to reduce uncertainty. Companies that have traditionally survived with limited information have come to realize that a lack of intelligence can lead to a single wrong decision that has a ripple effect of magnitude that may put their business at risk. Simultaneously, IT information supply has been reduced to lower cost or as a result of lower budgets. Viewing this through a microeconomic lens this appears to be a scenario of more demand, less supply, and hence a scarcity of BI and an increase in the value of BI.
Which role will BI play for the mega vendors?
One of the trends in BI is the integration of BI with the business process, essentially that any KPI, dashboard, report is completely integrated to a decision or operational process. To accomplish an information centric organization information supply is crucial. BI is no longer limited to a specific breed of highly evolved knowledge workers but part of every day work. Terms like Pervasive BI or information democracy (BI for the masses) are often used to describe highly evolved organizations. . Integration with operational processes leads to an integration with operational systems or ERP platforms. What we have seen is that large platform vendors have started acquiring BI vendors to add them to their (operational) platform. This is likely borne out of the gap of large ERP implementations that are left with a significant gap in reporting, analytics, and information. Because both world (operational versus informational) are so different this has led to many challenges. Also as they have often bought two or more of the same flavor there are enough decisions to make a new BI suite. The result of this consolidation is the death of innovation.
Is BI getting less generic?
Customers are being very clear in their demand, and there is a very common conversation that is occurring between IT and the business.
The business is asking: “How can I save money or create new opportunities by leveraging BI?
IT is asking: “How can I reduce the costs of BI projects and software?”
For both the business and IT there are some answers to their questions, but to answer these questions in a way that both audiences are satisfied becomes a much trickier problem to solve. For example IT can reduce the cost of labor using outsourcing, volume deals or service models. IT can also achieve price optimization during delivery process through industrialization and using accelerators and agile development techniques. Another cost out option is through introducing new architectures (applications) or the good old rationalization of the BI tools. The answers for the business are significantly different as the value is in the use of information, such as analytics. As many projects are caught in a current focus on technology, it is inevitable that a significant shift is going to take place. As a result one can expect that BI will become increasingly more business specific and require the intersection of IT and business to provide maximum value. This will certainly transform the role that IT plays into an infrastructural hero and a supplier of data. But their business days might be numbered.
Is BI getting more vendor specific?
The consolidation of vendors into large agglomerates is not only happening in the BI domain but all over the world of business and IT. This means that many companies face a quilt of IT systems to manage. In order to easily integrate new systems in their organization there is an upcoming demand for standardization and service oriented architecture. Often there is a platform vendor specific unless policy or functionally specifically dictate another vendor is required. As both the informational and transactional systems become more tightly integrated the technical BI challenges can be limited to that one vendor. However it is an illusion to think that all data sources will be limited to that one vendor, as there will always be enough challenges within IT for BI through innovation or niche products. Certainly the most important challenge for BI will be in fast access to and insight in relevant information that is truly actionable.
What will be the role for the surviving parties?
Given the significant acquisition history it is expected that the large platform vendors will be focusing their product development efforts on the technical integration of the acquired products in their operational systems. Also their roadmap towards a new BI suite will be full of choices balancing legacy products and choosing the best of breed products for the future.
The business is asking: “Which tool will be the new standard if you have three perfectly fine tools for the same area of expertise, say CPM or OLAP and dashboarding.
From a communication and strategic planning perspective current and new customers must be visited to inform them about the potential of this new platform. Partners, System Integrators, and shared services organizations also need to accommodate the changes as well as the integration opportunities. These all take a lot of time, effort and money that will not be focused on innovation. The remaining smaller BI vendors must find their niche and come with innovative solutions. Most obviously there are significant opportunities in the field of advanced analytics, advanced visualization, right time intelligence and sharing data. It is more than possible that these vendors or their solution will be bought up by the platform vendors in time.
What is the future of the BI market?
The use of as a service like solutions will increase as they appeal to ease of use and less cost. Conceptual solutions like cloud are still to vague to be understood by most. Not unlike SOA was or is. The current focus is still very much on technology which provides opportunities for data warehouse appliances but also modeling techniques like data vault.
On the whole the IT spend is down and BI is no different. There are fewer projects even if they have a solid business case. IT continues to pursue projects, primarily leveraging the increased demand for outsourcing. The large system integrators are the ones that profit from this as business expects a long term solid partner that have long term viability rather than small BI consultancy firm (boutiques). All of the players in the system integration ecosystem must work together or go bankrupt (so consolidation continues). An example in the Netherlands is BI United where freelancers have formed a union like entity to face the future more together than ever before.
What is the future of BI?
We see six mega trends in BI. There is an increase in the size, speed and impact of BI. There is more insight due to analytics and visualization. Integration with operational processes and systems continues as well with other types of data (like unstructured internet data). The interactivity between man and machine is on the rise. Also we see a more industrialized approach in BI delivery (build and run). Finally, BI is getting more Business and less IT. This has implications that are summarized in three major areas: increased performance (focus on speed), useful insight (focus on analytics and visualization) and information relevance (focus on business rules, filters and alerts).
The future of BI is fast access to and understanding of relevant information. This means BI will be much more part of an overall Business Information Management strategy than a standalone field of expertise.
Category: BI Thoughts
I am honored to be invited to speak on Trends in Business Intelligence. Please join me wednesday, March 17th at 11:00 am in San Francisco, USA. Information is crucial to fight challenges but also in trying to identify chances and possibilities. What are the major trends in Business Intelligence and how is it impacting your organization? Capgemini explains how you can make use of data in order to make the necessary decisions under these fast changing circumstances.
