In school I participated in a Poem contest. Although I didn’t win I found writing poetry to be fun. But as with many fun things you forget how important they are and after time you do not practice them at all. Instead we find other not so funny things more important, like work. Well, I found a great new way to combine both work and poetry on TedC blog: http://datadoodle.com/2008/07/28/bi-haiku-from-the-uk/ TedC started with combining the ancient Japanese form of poetry called Haiku with Business Intelligence. A haiku poem (ideally) consists of 3 line of 5, 7 and 5 syllables. I can’t wait to see your contributions. Here is one example (which does not 100% follows the rules of a Haiku – but rules are there to be broken – right?). Extract from your systems.

Leave overnight to churn.

Predict the future

 

Just imagine that your local hardware store gives you a hammer for each and every project you want to undertake. Paint the house? Here have a hammer. Fix the light? Here have a hammer. Build a shed? Here have a hammer. Actually, that last one made sense. In order to select the right tool you need to know a couple of basic things. One of the most important questions would be: where do you want to use it for? The same thing off course applies for BI tools. Giving a standard reporting tool to all user across the organization does not make sense. Some people might need a dashboard and other statistical data mining tools. Therefore the same question must be asked: where do you want to use it for? But who to ask this question? Do you know your Business Intelligence (BI) End-users? Are you wondering why your BI-applications are barely used? Do you think technology is enough? Do you want to want to get maximum benefit from your BI investments? During the next six months a scientific research project is conducted by a graduate student of Utrecht University to get an answer to these questions. The main goal of this research is to obtain insight into the factors influencing the fit between BI Solutions and BI End-users. Derived from the research goal(s), the following main question is formulated: “What are the major factors influencing the fit between end-users and Business Intelligence Solutions?” Results will be posted regulary at
www.intelligent-business.nl. Are you interested in helping him with his project? To validate the research project several semi-structured interviews will be conducted with BI-Practitioners (in English or Dutch). Please do not hesitate to contact him directly. Send an e-mail to Rick Tijsen or leave a comment in this post.

RT: There is a slowdown in the BI market (I think). The reason for this is that most organizations have some kind of BI solution in place. The next challenge will be information management. The problem is that we need a business case for this. IT is at a deadend if they cannot translate their house keeping in some kind of revenue versus costs calculation.  JH: I don’t know if there will be a slow down. BI is a slowly evolving system that needs constant attention and a incremental updates. RT: Organization need a BI house keeper. JH: New BI initiatives will probably slow down in the medium & large segment. Mainstream IT is on its way to be a commodity (like furniture). But BI is still such a specific type of IT with a lot of business involvement that it will remain a hot topic. Perhaps in a different shape than cubes and reports.  RT: Best in class companies can focus on tooling and information but all others have a data problem. JH: competing on data is tge nr1 challenge.  RT: We need a new subject at school! JH: Out with the CIO – long live the Chief Data Officer RT: Information Logistics RT: (CDO, see Yahoo)  JH: Are they doing this?  Smart of them to listen to the guru  JH: However if they are taken over by MS they are not as smart as I expected.  RT: lol, nice fight with NewsCorp, AOL, Yahoo, MS, Google … JH: Have to go – talk to you later RT: CU.

There is much talk about the impact of the (feared) recession on Business Intelligence. Most analysts are expecting a slowdown in customer spending and vendor revenues. I see their point and I am somewhat inclined to agree but there is another side to this. There is an expression that goes something like: you have to repair the roof when it’s not raining. In other words IT spending is obviously up during financial upturns. BI tends to benefit from this as well. But as the economic weather gets rough there is even more need for information. As the budget is cut back people are looking at smart things to save costs, recognize trends early, and identify the most valuable customers and so on. This is exactly what BI enables you to do. So my expectations are that an economic downturn will hit the general IT market much harder than it will impact BI.

Currently I am working for the BI competence center of Albert Heijn (supermarkets) in Zaandam (Netherlands). Last week this AH BICC won the Dutch Business Intelligence Award. Please read the full article (Dutch) on http://www.computable.nl/topic_artikel.jsp?rubriek=1277145&id=2456110

In a move that turns the heat up on Microsoft Excel, Google is partnering with business intelligence firm Panorama Software to develop a software-as-a-service (SaaS) analytics, reporting and data visualization tool for its free online Google Docs applications suite. The BI firm that handed Microsoft the original OLAP technology that’s now included in SQL Server database management system, is working with Google to push BI and data visualisation capabilities into Google’s Docs applications suite which mimics Microsoft Office with free online word processing, spreadsheet and presentation applications. At the same time rumors are surfacing that Microsoft in experimenting with an online office suite with codename Albany. This in an attempt to fend off competition like Google docs. The Panorama software, which has been released as a beta version this week, is offered as a free desktop gadget that works with Google Spreadsheets. It draws on analysis, reporting, dashboard, visualisation (charting) and data modelling tools that are part of Panorama’s NovaView BI suite. These elements combine to create Panorama Pivot Tables that can be embedded and manipulated in applications like Google Spreadsheets. This Google initiative perfectly fits into one of the BI megatrends for 2008: Integration. We have seen that Business Intelligence continues to integrate with operational processes. The preferred tool of choice in operations is still the spreadsheet (Excel). Microsofts ‘BI for the masses approach’ also boosts excel as their BI frontend. If Google wants to compete with Microsoft (in the BI area) then targeting the spreadsheet sounds like a well thought strategy. But if you compare the installed base of MS Office and Google Docs there is still a long way to go before somebody in Redmond looses sleep over this. Also we have seen a consolidation of BI vendors in 2007. This means that small(er) BI vendors will be looking for partners to survive (or create niche solutions). Again also sound strategy thinking by the guys and girls at Panorama. That they have been in bed with Microsoft before makes it even more exciting.  Finally the Vendor consolidation has created an renewed interest in open source software. Clients are afraid to be ‘owned’ by one mega vendor. Google may be perceived as a alternative. In conclusion, we could argue that the BI vendor consolidation has made the BI market more volatile by creating new chances for innovative parties even from a non traditional BI background.

I was asked by an IT magazine in the Netherlands to come up with a couple of practical tips on BI service delivery. In my opinion the most important element in service delivery is creating a optimal mix of all crucial elements. My submitted three practical tips cover design, build and implementation. However it is just a start. Please join me to create a top 10 in BI service delivery.  [1] When designing a Business Intelligence environment always consider target groups and type of usage.Target groups: Some users such as managers often have the need for a high level dashboards with little detail. However other users like analysts need lot of detail and powerful analysis tools. Every target group needs their own environment in form, function and frequency (of data refresh). Usage: There should be a mix of fast (ad hoc) and structural (more long term) BI solutions and products for the end user of a BI environment. [2] Excellent BI specialists are a scarce resource but are crucial for the success of the BI environment. Do not cut back on quality. Make sure you have a proper mix of ‘hardcore’ geeks as well as business architects or BI visionaries. In order to make the costs controllable consider outsourcing parts of your BI environment. A good starting point would be technical realization (build) and application maintenance.  [3] Don’t stop when it’s finished. After the technical realization of the BI environment the real work just starts. A critical success factor for this is the BI Competence Center. This center should mix IT and business components to ensure the optimal use of BI within the organization. It should be the BICC that pro actively supports the users in their daily work. In this phase it is no longer about high level sponsorship but more about working floor thought leadership.

What is the most annoying thing that can happen when you want to buy a carton of milk? That the milk is out of stock! As a customer this is very frustrating. As a consumer of a certain product of service you want to get what you need. The same applies for BI. Whether it is a report, cube or specific tool specialist. But who is the BI customer? This depends on the supplier perspective. In ‘our world’ there are two types of suppliers of BI products and services: Systems Integrators and the BI department within organizations. The SI supplies BI knowledge and capabilities to the BI department. That is their customer. The BI department supplies reports, cubes and so on to different departments within their organization. An example: A SI delivers a reporting consultant to the BI competence Center within a large supermarket organization. This BICC delivers reports to the replenishment organization within the supermarkets. The performance of the BI consultant will be done by the BICC. For example using a assessment report. The performance of the BICC will be evaluated with the replenishment organization. They will probably use a Service Level Agreement for this or the yearly Customer Satisfaction Survey. In both cases the accountability is a direct relationship between supplier and customer. However the true performance can only be measured by the customer of the customer. Or maybe even their customer. What do I mean with this? For example, from the perspective of the SI the customer is not the BICC but the replenishment organization. If they are happy with the reports the BI consultant did his job satisfactory. And from the supermarket perspective the customer are the clients in the local supermarkets. If they can find their carton of milk the replenishment department did their work as they should.  In conclusion, you could argue that the current system for evaluating BI performance is incomplete or even incorrect. By limiting the evaluation to the performance between the direct relationship between supplier and customer an incomplete picture is drawn. Therefore both SI as well as organizations with a BI department should find a different way of measuring performance going down the complete value chain of BI. What do you think? Should we evaluate the BI performance with the availability of the carton of milk?

The beginning of the year is always a period to look back but even more important to look forward. On the radio I hear a lot of commercials from different training institutes urging people to add their specific course, study or lecture to their 2008 curriculum. I expect that employees are now running towards their management requesting training in new features of tool XYZ and so on. Business Intelligence (BI) is a field of study that has been dominated by a strong technical driven focus. Business Intelligence supports better decisions, by making a strategy, objective or process – accountable, adjustable or adaptive. Shapiro has developed a knowledge management pyramid with three layers: data, information and knowledge. Unlocking data and transforming this into information will lead to more knowledge and insight. Professor Weggeman defines knowledge as: Information * Experience and Attitude (K=I * EVA). He states that hard facts, information or explicit knowledge can only lead to benefits when combined with implicit or tacit knowledge. Only when something is done with the information, such as sharing, comparing or merging with something else will lead to performance improvement. Choo adds another element to the mix. On top of explicit and tacit knowledge he adds cultural knowledge. Those are the beliefs and values that exist within an organization. Therefore it is safe to conclude that when it concerns performance improvement or strategy alignment the real barriers are: communication, culture and change management. BI from a technical point of view is just an enabler. So why is our community still so much focused on technology. Why is it that instead of subscribing to for example a course in business spirituality we choose the “database administration 2.1” or “Advanced SQL 3.2”?

Perhaps you can find some inspiration in these lyrics: http://www.oldielyrics.com/lyrics/supertramp/school.html

Almost all human beings, except for the blind or visually challenged, are by nature visually orientated. Our eyes constantly monitor our surroundings searching for things that are out of the ordinary. This real time interface between eyes and the visual cortex of the brain has helped the human race survive by quickly recognizing danger. The great thing about this is that we are also able to filter out all the noise. For example, if you want to mail a letter and during the trip from your home to the mailbox you see every little detail, you probably never get there. So we ignore the stuff that we already know or looks the same all of the time. Only the things that look different get our attention. At the present time this ability to quickly spot dangerous animals or other threats is most often used for other purposes: shopping! Store owners, website builders, they all try to grab our attention using visual stimuli. Recently I was at the new Starbucks coffee shop at Schiphol airport in the Netherlands. My eyes quickly spotted a new Ready To-Go coffee tumbler. It was different from the normal ones because it had some kind of holiday season appearance. Being a collector of Starbuck Coffee Tumbler (I know this is a bit geeky…) I bought it on the spot. For Business Intelligence it is not so much different. As we are confronted with an enormity of data we try to find ways to interpret it. We try to find the information or even knowledge in this overload of data. Therefore we use Business Intelligence. But this information is presented to us in more or less the same manner, shape or form. Therefore we are quickly bored with it. Knowing this and the fact that our eyes and brains have this great ability to recognize patterns and trends we need effective visual communication of data that changes its shape or form to grab our attention when needed and allows us to quickly asses if the information presented holds some kind of pattern of interest. We need visual business intelligence that makes use of our intuitive skills. Just take a look at the work of Stephen Few (http://www.perceptualedge.com/) one of the evangelists of visual Business Intelligence or tools like Gapminder (http://www.gapminder.org/) to see what I mean.

Detailed insight into crucial data and events is a necessity for organizations that want to navigate a constantly changing, information-rich environment. Organizations that know how to connect the use of data to their strategic objectives are more intelligent: they become ‘Intelligent enterprises’, constantly reading, analyzing and reacting to information inside and far outside the companies’ boundaries. Information thus becomes a corporate asset, which infuses itself into all strategic and operational parts of the business. As a result it’s only natural that more and more organizations want to start a Business Intelligence initiative.  However BI initiatives cost money. This is often an inhibiting factor for many companies. At the one hand they need BI to face the business challenges of today’s market but at the other hand they need some kind of justification before they can start. This justification can take two shapes or forms.  The first and most well known is the business case. Basically this is a quantitative analysis of all expected costs versus the expected yield or profit resulting into a return-on-investment. The business case involves calculations on lower costs, more effective processes or less manpower. Those are all very tangible and well defined attributes. Business cases are often made by business departments in order to obtain a budget.   The other is less known - probably far more difficult - but with a higher yield. It involves a non quantitative analysis based on vision. Driven by thought leadership an ideal or goal is formed. Unlike the business case there are no tangible attributes. The advantages or benefits can be things like qualitative better decisions or accessing unknown data sources. Often these initiatives are considered to be vague or soft. There is a promise of profit not a proof of profit or like I call it: return-on-intelligence. This vision based justification is often made on an organizational level in stead of departmental. In my opinion, in this day and age a company can not allow it self to remain without business intelligence and survive the increased competition. A BI environment is a necessity just as much as a LAN or transactional business applications. Therefore they need BI initiatives even without a cold business case. I encourage all companies to take this vision based approach. Not only will it lead to more commitment from your employees, it will also support the execution of your strategy. And in the long run – there is proof enough for that – it will also pay back on its investment.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2227695,00.asp

Reuters wrote on December 4th: ´Shares in software maker SAP extended gains and hit the day’s high on Monday as traders cited market talk of bid interest from Microsoft. SAP declined comment”. If this is true it would be an interesting wave in the latest developments in the BI vendor consolidation tsunami. I asked Ron Torrico, the Microsoft BI Guru Online within Capgemini, for his opinion. Here are his two cents. He expects there will be a clash of cultures, therefore he suggests operating the companies as two separate entities. In his opinion SAP can benefit from the technology know how within Microsoft. But SAP has been investing in integration with IBM Websphere, which is not the core-competence of the guys in Redmond.On the business side, positioning Dynamics for the small, medium business and SAP for the Enterprise level sounds like a good plan. You can be sure that Larry (Oracle) will be pissed off. It may also encourage SAP to be more open. So again, as many of the recent acquisitions, it seems that market share is again the major driver behind this and not so much the technology.

This is the second part of my posts about the ‘universal truths in business intelligence’. Check out what Frank Buytendijk thinks at: http://blogs.oracle.com/frankbuytendijk/2007/12/04#a95 4. BI projects need high level sponsorship. The reason for this is that we want to introduce Business Intelligence in the organization. It is all about creating awareness and enthusiasm. So do we really need a high level sponsor or manager for this? Perhaps in a very rigid hierarchic organization you do. But we Dutch do not deal well with a top down approach. The real innovation comes from the work floor, we think. I think organization can benefit much more from a highly committed thought leader.  3. BI development should be done incrementally. What would be the opposite of that? Probably some kind of big bang approach where all the functionality can be delivered in one single release. That sounds nice but often this is not possible for BI. To start with I find that when users start to interact with the new BI system they come up with new insights followed by change requests. A successful incremental approach focuses on the identification and prioritization of the most beneficial increments or slices. This should be based on the priority of the objective (is this a key process, is it in line with our strategy?). Other qualifying criteria can be availability and quality of the data. Each slice should be a complete solution. BI projects – just as in real life – should have a first things first approach. Delivering incrementally – keeping the long term view in mind – allows for faster speed to value. So I agree with this truth.  2. BI projects require a business driven approach. Any BI project or program should have business value. Creating a business intelligence environment without a goal is a mission impossible. We do not need data warehouse projects. We need project that can create more sales or reduce churn. A data warehouse or business intelligence project can support this goal. However I do not think that it is should necessarily be the business user who initiates such a project. IT can play an important role in taking the lead by showing what is possible. Especially by creating a prototype. See also my other post on IT push or pull (http://www.biguru-online.com/2007/12/04/active-push-or-passive-pull-role-for-it/).   1. BI needs one version of the truth? Has anyone of you ever played bullshit bingo? It was one of the sources of inspiration for this post. You take 10 of the most used words and cross them out during a meeting when used. Single version would be on the top of that list. I hope that from this day forward no one will ever use this expression again. This was born out of fear for multiple version in spreadsheets across organization. And frankly, I cannot stand the expression anymore. Also I totally disagree with it. Understanding is always determined by its context! And all communication should differ for each target group. Creating a single version – let alone the office politics involved in that – is an utopia. Instead let us focus on a single version of the facts (data quality, lineage and so on). To me the focus should be on the definitions or meta data. As long as the definition is clear you can have different version per context. So are there any ‘truths’ that we missed in our top 10? We would appreciate your suggestions. Also if you disagree with what I said (or agree for that matter) please post a comment. Remember this blog is all about the possibility to be an online BI guru yourself. It is a platform for an open discussion about BI – not just a floorshow for my thoughts.

Everything is BI, but what is BI and what is happening in the BI world with all the vendor consilidation?

In this pdf file you can find an article (I was interviewed for this) published in channelworld about the subject.

ARTICLE IS IN DUTCH