SAPPHIRE NOW: The Human Face of Big Data
SAPPHIRE NOW in Orlando was packed with examples of how Big Data affects all our lives. SAP Executive Steve Lucas was the host of an Intel-sponsored Big Data special interest group meeting at the conference. He kicked off the session by explaining that he considers himself to be an example of the human face of new data technologies. As a type 1 Diabetic, he wears a device that measures his blood sugar once a second, and communicates it to a hand-held... [Read More...]
New SAP Lumira: See The Light
As announced last Friday, SAP Visual Intelligence has been renamed to SAP Lumira (you can find the announcement and full FAQ here) Why Did We Change Another Perfectly Good BI Product Name? We know that this decision is likely to be met by some eye-rolling from our faithful customers who are still recovering from previous name changes. The bottom line: we know that there are downsides to such a change, and despite the inevitable disruption it may... [Read More...]
SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1 Release to Customers
Just before the SAPPHIRE NOW conference, SAP announced the Release to Customer (RTC) of SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1, Edge BI 4.1 and Crystal Server 2013. What’s New in BI 4.1 BI 4.1 is one suite for all insight, one place for all information and on standard for enterprise BI. Here are the highlights of the new release – or you can skip to the end of the post to get a detailed technical presentation of the new features. The features in this latest... [Read More...]
What is The ROI of Ignorance?
It’s easy to say “you shouldn’t do a business intelligence project without an ROI case.” It is possible to build BI ROI cases (typically involving estimates of percentage improvements in part of a business process thanks to better information). But (beyond simple efficiency savings) they will always involve a certain leap of faith – because you don’t know what you don’t yet know. But choosing not to know... [Read More...]
The BI ROI Conundrum
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The Top 10 Trends In Analytics 2013
I’ve been passionate about analytics for over twenty years – but my head is still spinning with the amount of change currently going on in the analytics industry. Here’s my quick personal view of the ten top trends in Business Intelligence and Analytics for 2013 — what did I miss? [Note that a version of this post originally appeared on the SAPPHIRE NOW area of the SAP Community Network] 1. Analytics And Business Intelligence... [Read More...]
Building an ROI Case for BI? Step 1: Get the Data (Oops)
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Why You Need An In-Memory Action Plan
This is a third post of a series based on a SAP-sponsored breakfast meeting organized in Sydney earlier this year with speaker Donald Feinberg, Gartner VP and Distinguished Analyst explaining the “Nexus of Forces”: social, mobile, cloud and information. In the first two posts, Donald covered why in-memory is disrupting everything, and why every organization will be running in-memory in 15 to 20 years time, and the business impacts of the new in-memory... [Read More...]
Cartoon: Coming To A Keynote Near You
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L’Oréal: Turning Data Into A Customer Experience
George-Edouard Dias, head of Digital Business for L’Oréal gave a great example of digital business transformation during his interview at SAPPHIRENOW Madrid at the end of last year. By combining analytics, social, mobile, and the cloud, the company aims to create new customer experiences. Summary L’Oréal’s big transformation is to have moved from marketing planned in advance to real-time marketing. The company wants to simplify the life... [Read More...]
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