August 22, 2009
BI Market, BI Solutions, Cloud Computing, on Demand BI
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A new partnership recently announced between four open-source and proprietary vendors heralds a big step forward along the BI Cloud roadmap. Vendors Jaspersoft, Talend, Vertica and RightScale have formed an alliance to lead the integration stack of open source BI into cloud environments.
- Jaspersoft – open-source BI
- Talend – data-integration technologies
- Vertica’s – analytic database
- RightScale’s – management software for cloud-based application deployments.
At first light it appears the integration is at the technical and sales levels only. Customers will have to form form contractual agreements with each vendor; each vendor naturally responsible for supporting their own technology. This signals a hiccup in such a fast paced IT integration society.
But the good news is that customers will be able to use the pay-as-you-go pricing model integral in cloud computing. The offer is expected to be attractive to smaller enterprises that do not have a full developed BI capability and to smaller resellers or consultants who will add their domain expertise.
Cloud is also used by larger enterprises for periodic BI projects or experimental analytics outside their enterprise analytical framework.
June 28, 2009
BI Market, BI Solutions, SaaS, on Demand BI
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If rumors are true, it is sad to see pioneering BI on Demand provider LucidEra shutting down their service, however in attempt to recognize their value to the ongoing development of BI on Demand, let’s look at what we can learn from their demise.
LucidEra has been a strong evangelist for why, who and where BI on demand had a valuable role to play:
- Why – on-demand can be a faster, lower cost, and more effective option
- Who – especially small and mid-size, having a solution that can be rapidly deployed on a user by user basis may be the only affordable, and technologically viable choice.
- Where – LucidEra also understood the significant value BI contributes at the front lines, such as the sales team and support centers.
Like any pioneer, the disadvantages are that the market has insufficient experience to determine what they want, what they need and how they want it delivered. In particular, BI customers want:
- Fully featured BI – not simplified applications. Many early BI on Demand offerings were constrained by a standardized data model approach and standardized reports. This meant customers had to adapt their business problem to the LucidEra solution, rather than the ideal of the solution fitting their particular business needs.
- Ability to Integrate Multiple Data Sources – To simplify deployments and deliver quickly, LucidEra started off focusing on Salesforce.com data only. However, many customers wanted to combine salesforce.com data with information from other systems, such as marketing, finance, and operational systems.
- Power of true BI – a system is powerful enough to answer spontaneous business questions or identify and address unusual trends as they arise
- Scalability – a system that will grow with them as their needs grow.
Did LucidEra make the mistake of assuming that customers would be willing to sacrifice power and flexibility for speed and low cost? If so, they are not alone, as many onDemand applications could be said to fall into this category.
In spite of the demise of LucidEra, this does not signal the downfall of BI on Demand applications. It merely serves to indicate as a painful way for one vendor to learn what the customer wants or needs before they build a service to meet that need. There are other BI on Demand vendors out there doing just that, having learnt from the experience of early BI pioneers and early BI adopters.
November 12, 2008
BI Market, BI Solutions, on Demand BI
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Just yesterday, I also attended a presentation by Oracle on their upcoming CRM Release 16. Gone are the days when CRM was just a contact management tool with a few nice pipeline management tools. Such tools failed to live up to expectations, being largely dependent upon the entry of data by sales persons. This entry rarely happened, and the value of the tool declined in popularity. Just as web services reinvigorated ASP hosted applications into the realm of on demand Software as a Service, so too has web 2.0 spurned a new perspective on CRM tools.
Oracle have embraced the social networking world as not so much a nice to have – but accepting that this is the way the new generations communicate. Whilst many organizations still shudder at the thought of lost productivity due to personal indulgence in instant messaging tools and social networking sites; those who dared to indulge their staff have been surprised that the change in productivity has in many cases been on the positive side of the curve, and not the downside.
From an application value-add perspective, one cannot fully appreciate how social media features will integrate into business processes. But with a free 30-day trial on offer, Oracle are providing a place to play, without pay. Often, the mere fact that the solution ‘appeals’ to the normal habits and values of the users will help overcome the adoption issues around early CRM. Just how much this will be viewed as another ‘build and they will come’ is anyone’s guess, but Oracle must be given credit for jumping ahead of the curve and taking ownership of social media CRM. I for one certainly use sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn to find out about corporate personnel and mutual connections that may help smooth a business conversation – with Oracle CRM, such links are fully embedded into the CRM tool. Such linking can also include referral contact information and networks.
Another gem was the shared media library. For those of you who regularly build PPT presentations, you know how agonisingly time consuming they can be to put together. Using the media library in a Windows Vista looking environment, the user can identify presentations by subject using social tagging – then simply extract slides from multiple presentations to form the foundation of a new presentation in a tighter niche. This can then be shared back to the media pool.
Being a strong advocate of software as a service tools, the concern that such tools would be limited in functionality has not borne true. Earlier versions provided merely a basic skeleton of functionality and limited dashboard and reporting configuration. Not so with todays versions. Oracle CRM has added core BI functionality along with new functionality to support Prospecting, Campaigns and Media sharing.
At the communications interface, the mobile assistant currently deployed on Blackberry is being fully optimised to take advantage of the innovative media features of iPhone.
Oracles offering has also expanded at the infrastructure layer. Overcoming a common complaint in early SaaS models, where performance may be compromised by the running of long scripts by another party sharing the same server, Oracle has expanded the SaaS model into the dedicated server model. Even further, should a client feel they have sufficient security and QoS onsite, CRM R16 can be rolled out in the client environment.
So whilst the expanded functionality makes CRM R16 a very good tool for small businesses, it has not forgotten the large corporates with unique compliance needs.
This application actually looks fun! And I will certainly be eagerly awaiting case studies with feedback on how these new integrated social features perform. I expect some surprisingly positive results.
Find out more about Oracle BI here.
November 5, 2008
BI Market, BI Strategy
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There are those who believe that business intelligence driven selling and marketing is leading towards a more depersonalised style of selling – yet in reality, the opposite is true.
The old mode of selling was very much a tactical pipeline of script speak designed to lead a prospect into firstly feeling discomfort with the status quo, framing up a mental solution, aligning that solution to a product the sales person wishes to sell, overcoming objections and closing the sale. The script was very much crafted around raising the needs that directly aligned with the solution proffered, rather than the real needs of the client.
Business intelligence provides evidence of actual needs of the client, often before the client actually recognises that need themselves. It then provides a basis of configuring customised solutions for individuals, rather than whole market sectors. In this way, BI technology provides a more interactive and collaborative style of selling focused on the customer, rather than the product.
This is more in line with the current market values of participation and collaboration, rather than the more confrontational modes of selling used in the past. BI provides revolutionary insight into the lifestyles and buying habits of individual customers. It helps businesses integrate into the customers’ mode, rather than expecting the customer to align with the business mode.
The outcome of this change of focus from the solution to the customer provides far more value to the customer than ever before. And that increases personalisation rather than depersonalises the sales process.
October 17, 2008
BI Infrastructure, BI Market, Cloud Computing, IT Strategy
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Gartner has released its Top Tech list for 2009, and BI sits at #9. This years top strategic technology is very much based at the infrastructure, rather than the application level with Virtualization, cloud computing, computing fabric, web-oriented architecture and unified communications. This has somewhat overpowered the strategic value of BI, but is significant to BI in that it focuses attention to the underlying capability that BI requires to perform at its best.
To be included on Gartners list, the technology must possess more than just inherent features and funcitonality. It must be capable of being applied across multiple platforms and have real value to business.
Virtualization – is transforming corporate IT infrastructure at both the server and desktop level.
Cloud Computing - is the buzz phrase in IT today, so it is no wonder that it hit the strategic list at number two. Cloud computing will have a signficant impact on the way technology is deployed in organizations and will add support to SaaS models in all application fields.
Comuting Fabrics – at number 3, [#8 in 2008] server technology ‘Computing Fabrics’ combines server technology resources to enable them to be dispensed with their underlying pools of small, medium and large servers. Blade servers have some computing fabric capability – being able to move memory and processor capability.
Following the top three are:
4. Web-oriented Architecture – impacting the SOA model for services delivery, this architecture uses Web standards, identifiers, formats and protocols.
5. Enterprise Mashups - up from #6, applies the wizardary of contentmashups to allow users to employ public APIs to quickly combine various services and capabilities; extending the flexibility business users have to combine data inside and outside the enterprise.
6. Specialized Systems - new to the list, includes all those specialized appliances for Java, data warehousing and other processes. Not quite sure where this one will end as it is a dumping ground for all the less significant technologies, that when applied together become significant.
7. Social Software and Social Networking – up from #10, these tools extend collaboration efforts across organizations.
8. Unified Communications – aligned to number 7 above, and down from the second spot last year, Gartner anticipates a major consolidation of communications vendors through unified communications.
9. Business intelligence – new to the list, although surprising it hasn’t made it in the past. However, the reality of BI has dawned with the increase in computing power making BI tools more effective and efficient. The focus on BI has moved from core analytics as a distinct function to operational BI, embedded into business processes supporting automated decision making and exception management.
10. Green IT – the top contender in 2008 has lost ground to the bottom spot but has not diminished in importance. Sustainability is now woven into the fabric of IT strategy and as such is no longer seen as a separate capability but an inherent requirement of all corporate operations and technology.
April 24, 2008
BI Market
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Microsoft is expanding its channel activities in three key moves:
- Hosting of Dynamics CRM
- The bundling of software and services by other large providers – Comcast will bundle services from Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 and Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 for free to its business Internet customers.
- Hosting of Exchange Online and SharePoint Online – marketing them directly to “businesses of all sizes.”
This move is causing some concern amongst many channel managers, many seeing the move as Microsoft encroaching on their territory. Having spent many years building strong understanding and relationships within the small and medium-sized business (SMB) environment, MS could be seen as undermining their superior customer:product knowledge. This is something that large software vendors don’t and can’t do.
Microsoft’s role in the past as been one of a ‘tools provider’, whereas partners work with the customer’s needs to provide a ’solution’.
Is this a real concern, or are channel partners pre-empting problems that just will not arise. It is no secret that the entire software industry is moving towards an on-demand SaaS environment, where current channel vendors will need to adapt their cultures and sales models to suit anyway.
Microsoft could be seen as doing no more than most other large software vendors are doing, and making a splash in the Software as a Service market. As they are unlikely to want to build the one on one relationships as established between channel partners and vendors, there is little to suggest that channels have any more to concern themselves with than natural evolution.
The big bang enterprise solutions pay out is dying under the pressure of ‘pay as you go’ models…in 2004, it was guestimated that by 2010 80% of software will be sold on this basis.
So just what is Microsoft to do……wait until every other tool provider has made the jump, and risk being a follower rather than leader.
Sorry, but that really isn’t Microsofts culture.
Smart vendors will see these moves for exactly what they are, and no more. A move towards in line with natural technology and commercial evolution.
In the future, the channel game will depend on having a breadth of products and services to offer to an increasing number of clients. This is the only way for channel businesses to grow. This will certainly test the value of a partner-customer relationship.
As for some parting advice:
- Grow
- Continue to demonstrate the value of your company, as trusted advisors.
- Expand your portfolio of products and services.
- Educate yourself in new SaaS commercial and sales models.
Don’t sit back and expect change is not going to happen!
