07.23.08
Posted in Business Intelligence (BI), Data Management, Publications at 2:31 pm by irusgroup
Although we enjoyed reading our quarterly issues of BI Review, we were not surprised to see its demise and fold back into DM Review. Here’s an email we received from the editors recently.
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Many of you have asked us why you have not received your latest issues of BI Review. Well, we’ve been working for some time on changes at both BI Review and DM Review that we feel will better serve our loyal readers. As of July 24, 2008, we will combine the brands under the DM Review name and Web site to create a single source of information about all things relating to information management, business intelligence and data warehousing. While the BI Review brand will disappear and we will no longer mail our quarterly print edition, you’ll find all the content you are used to and more — fresh case studies, profiles and columns — posted in new content areas at our updated Web site DMReview.com.
‘Why did you make this change?’
Business/IT initiatives have progressed to the point that we no longer feel the need to serve these audiences separately. And, simply put, we felt that our new Web platform, with its extra resources, content and search features provide a more comprehensive and timely experience for readers of BI Review. The Internet also allows us to support many more readers at DMReview.com than we could in print.
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05.03.08
Posted in Business Intelligence (BI), Data Management, Internal IT at 9:51 am by irusgroup
BI analyst Lyndsay Wise published a fairly provocative piece that we agree with in large part. She investigated whether it’s wise for a company’s IT organization to be responsible for BI application implementation. She says:
Realistically, most organizations deploying BI use the traditional model of internal IT staff to manage and develop the data warehouse as well as to develop reports and front-end tools that can be deployed organization-wide. For IT departments to deliver value and create applications that extend beyond the super user, it becomes essential for IT to understand the business units, business needs and problems. Unless data is transformed into information that is valuable for the end user to make informed decisions, the full value of BI may not be harnessed or accessed at all.
Boy do we agree. Everyone agrees that one reason why many BI systems fail is because the systems aren’t effectively tied to the business objectives and in a sense simply become another piece of shelfware. We work with our clients to ensure that everyone understands the business purpose we are all trying to achieve and have found that by starting from that perspective, the possibility of success greatly improves. We’re not always sure that our corporate IT partners look first from a business perspective, so we put key meters in place to ensure that’s we’re all working to achieve the same goals.
It’s transforming data into information into knowledge that leads to better business decisions.
Read the rest of the article here.
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04.24.08
Posted in Business Intelligence (BI), Data Management at 5:16 am by irusgroup
Here’s a good article by Michael Overturf of Pitney Bowes that the challenges we face with the tons of unstructured data (emails, etc.) in most systems and the opportunities that business intelligence can provide once the data is normalized. Most of our engagements entail a large degree of data normalization, in fact our tagline originally was “we make sense of your data.”
The foundation of any successful business intelligence (BI) project rests on accurate, clean data. In fact, data quality tools should be a precursor to any BI exercise. The challenges that companies continue to face regarding data quality are mostly around free-form or unstructured data. Unstructured data - from such sources as forms, email or documents -contains a great deal of information that can be usefully employed in a BI system, but first it must be accurately captured and cleansed.
The rest of the article can be found here.
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03.21.08
Posted in Business Intelligence (BI), Data Management, Gartner at 11:43 am by irusgroup
To cope with a tightening economic environment, businesses should prepare now for cutting IT costs, and the data management discipline is one area that affords numerous opportunities for reducing and controlling costs, according to Gartner, Inc.
“When aiming to optimize costs in data management and integration initiatives, it is critical to know what steps to take and where significant savings can be realized while maintaining success in these projects,” said Ted Friedman, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. “In most cases, the cost of implementing the steps will be far outweighed by the savings that can be realized.”
Gartner identified nine key areas in which CIOs can significantly reduce costs during 2008 as they continue to support data management and integration-related initiatives:
- Perform Operational Database
- Optimize Data Integration Tools Licensing
- Leverage Established Data Structures and Data Integration Process
- Perform Data Mart Consolidation
- Enforce Standards to Foster Reuse and Agility
- Defer Replacement of Custom-Coded Architectures
- Explore Open Source Licensing
- Renegotiate Services Contracts
- Defer Low-Priority/Limited Benefit Projects
Gartner analysts will further discuss data management and integration issues at the Gartner Business Intelligence Summit being held April 1-3 at the Hyatt Regency Chicago.
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