We couldn’t have said this better ourselves (though we may have tried in the past year) so please read the two articles in the current issue of IT Foresight from Booz & Co. focusing on the emergence and importance of in-memory analytics and extracting the most value from Business Intelligence systems.
One article also explains how CIOs can best make the case for this new toolkit at the business level. IT Foresight is a monthly must-read from the IT practice at one of the world’s foremost consulting firms. Merging the operational and analytical views of a business will significant improve the ability to ask complex questions and answer them with real data – not projections – and react more quickly to market or client conditions.
In the second paper, “Beyond the Dashboard” , consultants Kenny Kurtzman and Adam Michaels identify some valuable ways BI and data analytics can drive strategy, performance and profitability when the data is used as more than just a number. Choosing metrics wisely and aligning internal teams, external partners and engaging people in hitting goals makes the numbers work FOR you.
A key statistics they cite: “Gartner Inc. predicts that through 2012, 35 percent of the top 5,000 global companies will regularly fail to make insightful decisions, owing to a lack of information, processes, and tools.”
Both articles reinforce what we’ve been saying for awhile now:
Better business intelligence, at a lower cost, delivered in real-time to in-office and remote site workers is a powerful change in doing our daily work. The potential for unusual new levels of customer interaction and quicker feedback can accelerate business, making today’s CRM seem downright pokey. And if the enterprise is prepared to weather some shifts in how workflows and data are used, then the payback is rapid and offers a competitive edge, according to these experts.
Of course, we can provide some Spotfire experts for a second set of opinions.
