College of Information and Computer Science, Long Island University
Published by October 5th, 2008
in corporations and business intelligence.
0 Comments
This article describes a business intelligence continuing improvement program that is based on Six Sigma concepts and methods. It includes a discussion of the Six Sigma breakthrough formula and how it is used. Six Sigma, in many organizations, means a measure of quality that is near perfection. Six Sigma is also a shorthand term for the disciplined, data-driven approach and methodology for eliminating defects in any process or product.
Read the full article here
Published by September 27th, 2008
in corporations and business intelligence.
0 Comments
Thanks to the misbehavior of a few individuals at Enron, MCI, and Tyco, many firms and individuals have become increasingly sensitive to ethical issues in the workplace. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act and other financial accountability regulations have made us all more aware of the need to address ethics as an important factor in organizational behavior and operations. Paying attention to ethics is good business. Most of us have read articles in the news about a business’ unethical behavior, and my guess is that we look poorly upon firms that exhibit it. What most people don’t realize is that ethical practices affect the very nature of an organization’s processes, products, and services. That is, how a firm behaves, the quality of its decision making, how it performs and delivers services, and the very essence of the products it produces all depend upon the intellectual capital of the organization and how it is manifested. Hence, if employees engage in unethical behavior, to think that the firm will somehow be unaffected is naïve.
Read the full article here
Published by September 21st, 2008
in business intelligence.
0 Comments
Consistent definitions for business intelligence concepts will help to insure compatibility between the requirements and the implemented architecture.
Read the full article here
Published by September 14th, 2008
in intranets, corporations, competitive intelligence and business intelligence.
0 Comments
Market intelligence portals are becoming more important to technology organizations, especially as Web 2.0 applications continue to change the way portals work and enable employees to collaborate, according to a new study from IDC. The study, “Market Intelligence Advisory Best Practice Series: MI Portals That Provide On-Demand Intelligence,” offers insight and case studies on the management of market intelligence (MI) portals, which are intranets or internal Web sites for market intelligence professionals that pull together primary, secondary and other types of research and information from various sources. The portals pull all that information into one place so market intelligence professionals, as well as other employees, can access it easily without having to go to several Web sites, said Laura Curtis, director of IDC’s Market Intelligence Advisory Service for the Executive Advisory Group.
Read the full article here
Published by July 19th, 2008
in business intelligence, software and iPhone.
0 Comments
Business intelligence and CRM software vendors are the most supportive of the Apple 3G iPhone. For those using their iPhones for business, software providers are increasingly allowing access to their offerings via the Safari browser, yet there are few native iPhone apps to choose from. Just 24 applications grace the business section in the App Store — out of a total of about 500 App Store offerings on iTunes — proving the iPhone remains largely a consumer device.
Read the full article here
Published by June 21st, 2008
in corporations and business intelligence.
0 Comments
In the past, business intelligence (BI) simply meant software designed to enable organizations to understand their business. Today it has evolved to become a term describing how organizations use and analyze information to make decisions and manage performance. It has moved from an application used on a limited project basis to multiple applications that can be utilized not just at a departmental or company-wide level but across an organization’s entire business network. BI technology is now much easier to use. Gone are the slow and archaic systems. Today’s BI tools are sophisticated and user-friendly, enabling companies to improve the way they do business; supporting top business goals, attracting and retaining new customers and creating new products and services. So it is no wonder that business intelligence is the number one technology priority for CIOs, according to a survey released by Gartner in January this year.
Read the full article here
Published by June 21st, 2008
in knowledge management and business intelligence.
0 Comments
What is the relationship between knowledge management and business intelligence? Many confuse knowledge management (KM) with business intelligence (BI). According to a survey by OTR consultancy, 60% of consultants did not understand the difference between the two. Gartner clarifies this by explaining business intelligence as a set of all technologies that gather and analyze data to improve decision making. In business intelligence, intelligence is often defined as the discovery and explanation of hidden, inherent, and decision-relevant contexts in large amounts of business and economic data. Knowledge management is described as a systematic process of finding, selecting, organizing, distilling and presenting information in a way that improves an employee’s comprehension in a specific area of interest. Knowledge management helps an organization to gain insight and understanding from its own experience. Specific knowledge management activities help focus the organization on acquiring, storing and utilizing knowledge for such things as problem solving, dynamic learning, strategic planning and decision making. Conceptually, it is easy to comprehend how knowledge can be thought of as an integral component of business intelligence and, hence, decision making. I argue that knowledge management and business intelligence, while differing, need to be considered together as necessarily integrated and mutually critical components in the management of intellectual capital.
Read the full article here
Published by May 26th, 2008
in business intelligence.
0 Comments
Many companies see the need for effective communication for business intelligence professionals, but they often fail to provide the opportunities to focus on the skills required to achieve it.
Darren was furious! Bob had committed to finishing the business requirements by Tuesday, and as of Thursday, it still wasn’t done. In their meeting with their CFO and her staff, the financial analysts had specifically requested the reports for the Board meeting on the first of December. Darren was dependent on Bob so he could complete the reports that were due on Monday. So, Darren did what many competent business intelligence professionals do; he vented to a third person on the team, Ron.
Read the full article here
Published by March 16th, 2008
in corporations and business intelligence.
0 Comments
Oral history attempts to extract business value from the recollections of an organization’s key leaders and top performers, and it is a potentially useful resource for business intelligence.One of the key considerations we use to determine whether something can be classified as business intelligence (BI) is whether it is useful in terms of making decisions. If we can put information to use in choosing courses of action, clearly it is business intelligence. Usually we look for business intelligence by analyzing structured data in our data warehouses and data marts, or we use data mining software and neural nets to look for hidden patterns in large volumes of data. The goal: to uncover actionable information and/or insights about our business. Even so, there is another potentially useful resource for business intelligence that we have not yet looked at in any rigorous way: the oral history of our enterprises.
Read the full article here
Published by March 3rd, 2008
in corporations and business intelligence.
0 Comments
Widespread use of business intelligence applications and tools has been the rallying cry of BI vendors for more than a decade, and yet we’re nowhere close to making that a reality. On average, only 25% of workers use BI, according to a survey of 513 employees that I did with Intelligent Enterprise for my book, Successful Business Intelligence. The tools themselves are partially to blame for lackluster adoption, along with company cultures that encourage gut-feel decision making, allow information hoarding, or let IT departments keep data locked away. Blame also rests with a failure to convey the value of BI to business execs, some of whom are confused about how it differs from the ERP system reports and manual spreadsheets they use now.
Read the full article here
Published by February 25th, 2008
in corporations and business intelligence.
0 Comments
More and more companies are learning the hard way that business intelligence (BI) business requirements are a different breed of cat. After paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in consulting fees for generic BI requirements, or after spending months and months generating traditional report requirements and functional specifications, major companies in many different industries have discovered that these approaches suffer from three primary deficiencies: 1) They don’t provide the basis for a compelling business case that business leaders buy into – one that clearly articulates how business intelligence will be used within specific business processes to improve business performance.
Read the full article here
Published by February 9th, 2008
in corporations and business intelligence.
0 Comments
“Dynamic” is one of those words that can have both a positive and negative connotation. Definition number one: powerful, energetic, forceful. You have a dynamic boss, she has a dynamic personality, they work in a dynamic organization. Definition number two: marked by continuous activity or change. We live in a dynamic economy, they have a dynamic mortgage payment, your paycheck is dynamic. Is dynamic a good thing or a bad thing? What does it mean to create a powerful, energetic, forceful BI team that will grow and change as the business changes?
Read the full article here
Published by February 5th, 2008
in corporations, competitive intelligence and business intelligence.
0 Comments
To formulate an effective corporate strategy, it’s essential to understand two basic questions: What is your company doing, and what are your competitors doing? You may have a handle on what’s going on under your own roof, but developing a detailed picture of your competitors’ activities usually requires some sleuthing. Competitive intelligence is a field of strategic research that specializes in the collection and analysis of information about rival firms. Don’t worry: This doesn’t require Dumpster diving or shady tricks. Instead, competitive intelligence is about adhering to a strict ethical code by collecting bits of information that are available either in the public domain or from other players in the marketplace. The goal is to amass enough data to make meaningful comparisons between your firm and your competitors — and to make better-informed strategic decisions as a result. Here’s how to get started.
Read the full article here
Published by February 5th, 2008
in corporations and business intelligence.
0 Comments
Over the past decade, more and more companies have adopted the balanced scorecard (BSC) as a key framework for managing their businesses. In addition to being a strong tool for communication of key strategies, the BSC provides clear linkages between strategies, the business processes by which the strategies are executed, and the key performance indicators (KPIs) that measure business performance. From a performance management perspective, the BSC provides the baseline for performance measurement; and, according to industry research, many companies who adopt the BSC are satisfied with the method and plan to continue its use. And whether you call it enterprise performance management, business performance management, or corporate performance management, there is no denying that the ability to measure performance from financial, customer, operational, and learning perspectives is valuable
Read the full article here
Published by January 20th, 2008
in business intelligence.
0 Comments
Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) SMEs do not have deep and endless pockets like the large corporations; they cannot afford even small mistakes. They need to keep innovating to remain competitive at all levels. To fuel innovation within the organization, it’s necessary to have a sound enterprise intelligence strategy in place. This makes Business Intelligence (BI) a very important tool in today’s continually changing market scenario. BI solutions help organizations to transform information into intelligence which in turn can fuel innovation and help organizations to leap frog their competitors. BI is increasingly viewed as strategic initiatives for businesses to step change their performance. As SMEs have to continuously maximize productive efficiencies for survival and growth or to face acquisition/consolidation by conglomerates especially in the background of increasing cost of inputs (manpower, commodity, etc), these challenges make BI very important for them, says Deepak Pahwa, Group Chairman Pahwa Enterprise.
Read the full article here
Published by January 20th, 2008
in corporations, search and business intelligence.
0 Comments
Hoover’s announced the latest edition of “The Hoover’s Index,” a free, proprietary monthly index of the leading public and private companies, non-profits, and associations which represent the brand leaders, up-and-comers and “buzz” creators driving the U.S. and international economies. Based on a proprietary algorithm that takes into account the search trends of business professionals, including both organic and internal searches on Hoover’s site, as well as business searches conducted via major search engines, The Hoover’s Index company list is a valuable resource for business executives, financial analysts, mutual fund managers and investment advisors in gauging which companies are capturing the interest of the global business community.
Read the full article here
Published by January 12th, 2008
in corporations and business intelligence.
0 Comments
Six Sigma business intelligence (BI) is a customer-focused, measurement-based approach to improving business intelligence. Six Sigma refers to a better and smarter way of managing business. Six Sigma means putting the customer first and striving for a product that is near perfection. Six Sigma principles have been used in the business world for years and have produced significant and frequently amazing results. In the late 1990s, Jack Welch at GE demonstrated just how successful Six Sigma can be. From 1996 to 1998, GE went from costs of $200 million and returns of $150 million to costs of $400 million and returns of more than $1 billion. Jack Welch was a Six Sigma convert who led his company in changing the way they did business. From his unique position, he transformed his company by focusing on customer needs and working smarter using Six Sigma principles and processes. Despite continued success in the business arena, Six Sigma principles and methods have not been freely translated over into information technology. Business intelligence is an excellent place to begin and the time is now.
Read the full article here
Published by January 12th, 2008
in corporations, competitive intelligence and business intelligence.
0 Comments
Kurt Neubauer doesn’t wear disguises or sift through a company’s trash hunting for secret information. But he is involved in corporate espionage. Rather than calling himself a spy, however, Neubauer’s job title is competitive intelligence analyst. Everything he does is legal and ethical, he says, and his services increasingly are sought by mid-size and large firms that spend an estimated $ 1 billion a year for inside dope, a figure predicted to grow tenfold by 2012.
Read the full article here
Published by December 22nd, 2007
in business intelligence.
0 Comments
Over the past decade or so, business intelligence (BI) has been adopted by major corporations and government entities around the world, delivering essential business information, advanced tools for analyzing complex business situations, and structured decision support techniques that have allowed enterprises to improve performance of their core business processes and create value for their stakeholders. Business intelligence is used in a wide range of industries for a variety of key business processes. With this as context, when the authors work with their clients to develop a BI strategy and business case, they are often asked to weigh in on their business intelligence budget and provide guidance based on what other companies are doing. Some of the factors they consider are detailed in this article.
Read the full article here
Published by December 22nd, 2007
in web 2.0 and business intelligence.
0 Comments
The use of Web 2.0 techniques and technologies in enterprise systems (usually referred to simply as Enterprise 2.0) is changing the way organizations create, integrate, explore, analyze, and deliver information. Used wisely, Enterprise 2.0 can significantly improve the productivity and effectiveness of business users. Inappropriate use of Enterprise 2.0, however, leads to stagnant technology-driven projects, rather than dynamic business solutions that help organizations work smarter and become more competitive. This series of articles examines the use of Enterprise 2.0 in business intelligence (BI). It looks at Enterprise 2.0 from seven distinct perspectives: information collaboration, information exploration and analysis, information integration, information syndication and delivery, user interface, Web-oriented architecture (WOA), and open source solutions. This first article presents the business case for using Enterprise 2.0 in BI, and also provides a brief overview of each of the seven dimensions.
Read the full article here
Published by December 9th, 2007
in business intelligence.
0 Comments
The business intelligence (BI) team was working long hours. They were frustrated and tired. Tasks had fallen through the cracks, and now they were scrambling to make sure someone picked up the ball. Fingers were pointed back and forth. Whose responsibility was this? Wasn’t this part of your role? Why didn’t they do what they were supposed to do? Unclear roles and responsibilities are a common issue among BI teams. There are typically three reasons why this confusion exists. First, some of the confusion stems from the fact that team members fulfill multiple roles in a BI initiative. Second, confusion stems from our assumptions about roles and our history of what those roles may have meant in a previous organization. Third, confusion stems from the dynamic nature of BI initiatives.
Read the full article here
Published by December 1st, 2007
in internet, business intelligence and Wikipedia.
0 Comments
Professional librarians and researchers will tell you that the Web has many unexplored opportunities for finding more information on business topics. Pursue these six techniques to improve your research results:
1. Use Search Engines and Wikipedia to Find Quality Research Sources - Search engines are a good place to begin. It makes sense to start at search sites like Google, Yahoo and Ask.com, and to see if there’s an article on Wikipedia. But use them to carry you to better places.
Read full article here
Published by November 20th, 2007
in business intelligence.
0 Comments
Business intelligence tools aren’t just limited to analyzing financials or vetting trial witnesses. Savvy law firms are also using competitive intelligence for business development: to prospect for new clients, profile client companies and to target opportunities in new industries. Although many firms and lawyers use subscription services, such as LexisNexis atVantage or Thomson Corp.’s West Monitor Suite, there is an abundance of online resources where you can get competitive intelligence for free. Here are some of the available tools.
Read the full article here
Published by October 7th, 2007
in business intelligence.
0 Comments
Many information technology executives in the United States and the United Kingdom think business intelligence reports do not help them much, according to a SeeWhy Software-commissioned study by Dynamic Markets. More than three-quarters of IT executives surveyed found themselves forced into positions where they had to make decisions before all the information they needed was available. More than six in 10 respondents said that BI reports ended up being simply reference documents to justify decisions that had already been made.
Read the full article here
