Data Warehousing

data management / shutterstock

Frequently, folks confuse the function and purpose of Master Data Management with Data Warehousing. I suspect the core of the problem is that when folks hear about the idea of “reference data” or a “golden record”, they have this mental picture of a single platform containing all of the data.[read more]

business skillset / shutterstock

Employees with technical skills are critical to enable an analytics program, but the ability to communicate, relate and navigate throughout an organization—so called “softer skills”—are especially needed to propagate analysis and communicate the impact of data-driven decision-making.[read more]

What's your data story? 

My colleagues and I had the opportunity to represent Attivio at the recent Tableau 8 Roadshow as a partner vendor. Unlike some BI events I have experienced over a number of years, the Tableau 8 Roadshow attendees were very much user-based rather than IT-focused.[read more]

BI evolution

Operational analytics is making headlines in 2013. But why is it important? And why is it more likely to succeed now than in the mid-2000s, when it was called operational BI, or the mid-1990s when it surfaced as the operational data store (ODS)? Let's see what has changed.[read more]

SaaS / shutterstock

Data stored in SaaS applications is often inaccessible to BI tools. This is a major headache to early adopters of SaaS applications. With on-premise applications, IT departments can bypass the application and access data directly from the underlying database.[read more]

Hadoop toolbox

Hadoop and Big Data have almost become synonymous. But Hadoop is not just Hadoop now. Over time it has evolved into a big herd of various tools, each meant to serve a different purpose. But glued together they give you a powerpacked combo. Here's my short intro to some very useful tools.[read more]

Predictive analytics for retail (Image Source)

Here's a true business success story that sheds bright light on the awesomeness of big data. It substantiates the notion that you should store every last iota of data – because you don’t know every pattern [read: opportunity] that might be found or explored.[read more]

the original data warehouse / shutterstock

I was thinking about the traditional notion of data warehousing as the increasing accumulation of data, distributing information across the organization, and providing the knowledge necessary for business intelligence. But is an enterprise data warehouse the Enterprise Brain?[read more]

business intelligence / shutterstock

By now, most decision-makers have probably heard some success stories regarding business intelligence. But many organizations are struggling to achieve those same results, largely because of impediments like inaccurate reports and a lack of data visibility.[read more]

Big Data & CRM / shutterstock

In November of 1998, when the IT revolution in Enterprise Solutions was about to take off and companies had started investing in ERP or CRM systems in a major way, I thought it was just a matter of time before Predictive Analytics went mainstream. I was wrong. Is 2013 the year?[read more]

Business Intelligence

How do you assess the overall health and maturity of your Business Intelligence Initiative? This article is the first in a series that reviews the topics to be considered when reviewing the current status of a traditional Business Intelligence initiative.[read more]

Big Data blunders

The technology hype cycle, which reminds me of The Wizard of Oz, is a contributing factor in blunders made by businesses initiating their first Big Data projects. I’ll suggest, based on my experience helping clients, why enterprises make these blunders.[read more]

grain of salt/shutterstock

For every successful case study listed in Harvard Business Review, Fortune or the like on “Big Data” success, there are likely thousands of failures. Hidden behind all these “success stories,” there is a figurative graveyard of big data failures that we never see.[read more]

I attended the Gartner Business Intelligence and Analytics Summit last week in Barcelona. As usual, it was a great conference, and it was great to catch up with analysts, colleagues, customers, and competitors. One takeaway: BI and Analytics is again the number one technology priority for CIOs in 2013.[read more]

Conversation about “big data” often leads to more questions than answers. Where does big data begin and end?Business process management (BPM) helps moves companies away from silos; big data, too, is about breaking down silos for a cohesive view of information.[read more]