September 12, 2008
BI Theory
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Globalization has traditionally been viewed as the west taking advantage of economically advantageous market resources in the East. This has forged collaboration in product design and manufacture, with ready access to low cost labor and proximity to huge new markets.
However, the balance of power of globalization is no longer tipped towards the West. Pockets of global advantage such as eastern markets China and India are embracing their resource advantages and making their presence felt in the ranks of global corporations.
This is forging a type E global market: competing with everyone, from everywhere for everything.
Rapidly developing economies with low wage rates were previously engaged in outsource models to manufacture goods and ship them back to the West; and receiving from the West luxury goods not available locally in their developing nations.
The new emerging global conglomerates are posing significant threats to mature multi-national companies, playing on the global stage and gaining global brand presence through mergers and acquisitions. Many existing companies are failing to recognize this new order and in doing so are not only taking steps to protect their turf, but are not open to recognising the new opportunities presented by this changing marketscape.
It comes back to our discussion is a recent previous post – if you are not scouting out over the horizon and monitoring spikes for change you are likely to be too late to intercept any forces impacting your performance.
August 6, 2008
BI Theory
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Microsoft has announced the release of MS SQL Server 2008 with vast improvements in the development tools and wizards.
SQL Server 2008 promises “trust, productivity, and intelligence”. The main focus of the capabilities are in accessing data across any source using the data warehousing capabilities of SQL Server 2008 then using powerful new wizards and new design tools to build integration, reporting, and analysis solutions in a single environment.
The end result = actionable insight through a rich, personalized user interface. All with the familiar style of Microsoft Office 2007.
To learn more about MS SQL Server 2008 download a trial [search for SQL Server 2008 or go Servers > SQL Server 2008] or attend an upcoming PASS event.
June 10, 2008
BI Theory, Data
1 Comment
Retail and consumer companies are reviewing customer loyalty programmes as economic conditions threaten profit margins. Analysis as to whether the retailers are getting a good return on the schemes is being undertaken before retailers commit to signing up for a further agreement term with the program provider.
Retailers who subscribe to programs that are up for renegotiation are reevaluating the merits of such schemes.
Overall, it appears that such loyalty program are still performing but analysis has found that some customers who are not profitable are being rewarded under some schemes and that some retailers are carrying a high cost of retaining. Loyalty programs need to be managed correctly to gain the full return of their value.
Some programs – such as the petrol discount vouchers issued by supermarkets are not strictly loyalty programmes but a short-term inducement to customers.
The decision for retailers is in either accepting loyalty programmes as a business overhead or dropping them at the risk of losing business.
In spite of direct marketing being somewhate expensive, data extracted from loyalty programs allows client microsegments to be identified faster and cheaper.
March 6, 2008
BI Theory
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Ten years ago ‘The Intelligent Enterprise’ was deemed one that provided for collaboration of knowledge. But sharing knowledge is but one very small step towards true BI. From there the Intelligent Enterprise has evolved through:
- Retention of knowledge – wikis and collaborative portals
- Extracting insight from historical knowledge – to gain a sense of why an action did or did not create the desired result
- Using extracted insight to predict future events and outcomes – a more advanced form of analytics
- Integrating process – providing clear action based on insight
- Pervasive BI – fully integrating BI into every part of the organisations processes, where logic based decisions are made.
- Technical integration of analytic capability – moving from a data warehouse + data mart + BI tool……to Active Data Warehouses where the analytics are contained within the same environment as the data, wrapped in a logical layer through which the user interfaces with the data
This evolution has taken place in a relatively short time span, inside a business environment where the sheer volume of data expands exponentially each year, and the complexity of data is starting to divide industry players into two streams – those that utilise the power of BI and those that don’t.
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