Every year, our annual Teradata PARTNERS gathering brings together the sharpest minds in data warehousing and enterprise analytics. For five days, users get one of the best educational experiences in gaining value from enterprise analytics through a full dose of insight from keynotes, sessions and panel discussions by leading experts. In total, there are more than 200 sessions, ranging from innovative best practices to partnership stories and executive challenges.
This year’s PARTNERS Conference will be held in Washington, D.C. on October 18 through 22. The customer committee that guides the conference, the PARTNERS Steering Committee, is planning to go deep and wide into the conference theme of “Accelerating Insight.” I look forward to the smart discussions and to some of the world’s best education from leading-edge experts with enough user energy to power a city for a week.
“Accelerating Insight” is a theme that makes you think because it can have more than one meaning. I’d say it most obviously relates to today’s need to get to insights faster. In today’s economy, we can no longer afford to wait even a couple of days for the analytics needed to make critical decisions – that era is long gone. The theme also suggests the accelerating pace of today’s business – the need to get data and analysis to the right people at the right time.
The idea of businesses – and governments! – needing to accelerate insights is also part of a bigger dialogue going on in the IT industry. Take, for example, a recent McKinsey Quarterly article titled, Five trends that will shape business in 2009. One of the trends predicts that regulators will require more from IT. In the U.S., the article says “in the future, policy makers and regulators will probably demand that IT systems capture more and better data in order to gain greater insight into and control over how banks manage risk, pharma companies manage drugs, and industrial companies affect the environment.”
As everyone knows, at Teradata, we live and breathe data and analytics and we’re also aware that many great ideas come from great customers. That’s why we look forward to hearing about those great ideas in submitted papers, which the steering committee will be accepting until March 16, 2009. So, bring on your best practices in using your Teradata system – we want the best real-world uses of data warehousing and analytics! You can find more information online at http://www.teradata.com/teradata-partners/
One of our newer traditions, the Computer World Enterprise Intelligence Awards, will be back for a second year. Based on innovation, business impact and the financial returns, awards will be presented in these categories: Integrated View of the Business, Industry Innovation, Excellence in BI and Analytics, Performance Management, and Customer Intelligence and Management.
So, package up all those great ideas and bring them on!
Darryl McDonald
CMO, Teradata
