Recession reactions: hunkerers and builders
There are the hunkerers and the builders. Those are the two basic reactions to the recession that Jill Dychè observes. She’s a principal down at Baseline Consulting, and she reports seeing more builders. The hunkerers “are using the economy as an excuse for a fair bit of inertia,” she emails. But the builders are using [...]
Recession: value of alert messaging resonates
KnowledgeSync automates the kind of routine tasks that skilled staff disdain: issuing simple invoices, inquiry followups, low-inventory alerts, etc. It’s a BI specialty that cuts cost fast. VP of sales and marketing Don Farber says that, considering the economy, he’s pleased with just a five- to seven-percent dip in sales this year. The benefits are [...]
Recession: Government workers say one thing’s for sure
Members of the “large government organization” my secret source addressed on Thursday are sure of one thing: One day, someone with authority is going to walk in and demand records, complete records, on where how they used the Troubled Asset Relief Program money. These visitors will ask to see where money went and how it [...]
BI terms that mean something
What a radical idea: break business intelligence down by the types of work to be done — financial intelligence, human-resources intelligence, risk intelligence, etc. — instead of by the technology — data warehousing, data integration, dashboards, etc. “If I put my feet in the shoes of a business person listening to someone pitching ‘business intelligence,’ [...]
Also “not BI”
From a reader who identified with “That’s not BI“: His product has performed BI functions for many years, though it still goes unacknowledged except by users. “Sometimes the looking down the nose from the cognoscenti gets to you.”
Just-in-time training at the desktop
There’s a new way to learn BI skills — at the desktop. eLearningCurve launched May 15. Former TDWI education director Dave Wells directs the program.
A new game for BI
We shake our heads at news of would-be data analysts who, instead of asking why or what if, ask only, “Why bother?” Have they no curiosity? Is BI proliferation doomed? Maybe it’s not their fault. With our heads stuck in the data, we’ve overlooked what the success of a few BI tools seem to suggest: [...]
What’s an SaaS vendor to do?
SaaS vendors who also sell on-premises versions have a tricky little problem, Claudia Imhoff says. How do they sell both at the same time? A few people from SaaS vendors who attended Claudia’s Tuesday session mentioned two strategies: One is to separate the sales forces, with one selling the on-premises version, and another selling the [...]
Less than meets the ear
Last week, SAS Institute did what few other rearrangers of jargon have done: They got attention — in the way fashion hounds do. They’d like to replace “business intelligence” with “business analytics.” Why? Because “business intelligence is not “where the future is.” Last year’s styles are never next year’s. Sooner or later, all clothes, cars [...]
Big BI, meet Big Ag
Swap out a few terms in a recent New York Times story about farmers’ attempt to split California, and you might see the IT vs. business saga.
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