Great Examples of US Government BI Transparency
We’re clearly entering a new era in government transparency, and we can hope that allowing citizens to access information interactively through business intelligence functionality to spot inefficiencies and opportunities will be a big part of transforming the way the public sector works. In my previous post, I talked about how the American Recovery and Reinvestment act is perhaps the largest, most complex business intelligence application ever.... [Read More...]
Drink Dispenser Analytics: Coca-Cola Goes Freestyle, With Help from SAP BI
Mary Hayes Weier of InformationWeek recently published a great article, Coke’s RFID-Based Dispensers Redefine Business Intelligence. Coca-Cola has introduced a new RFID-enabled drink dispenser called Freestyle. It provides mass customization with 30 flavor cartridges (sodas, teas, flavored waters, etc.) that can be mixed to make more than 100 different drinks (out of the more than 3,000 that Coca-Cola sells around the world). Starting this... [Read More...]
Scandalous Financial Benchmarking?
I just stumbled across an old post of mine, and couldn’t help reposting some of it in the light of recent events. All those financial wizards were making a fortune based on the money they were “creating” — money that has since turned out to be largely fictitious. Top hedge fund managers were earning more in the time it took for an average New York City cab ride (8 minutes) than the average American made in a year. As I said with... [Read More...]
SAP Dashboards at Microsoft?
According to the Treasury & Risk site, Microsoft is a keen user of SAP dashboards, at least in conjunction with their treasury needs: Ed Barrie’s first daily task as group manager of treasury at Microsoft is opening up his treasury workstation from SAP and taking the pulse of its financial health. “The dashboard is great for horizontal processes like general ledger, accounts payable and managing our cash positions,” Barrie enthuses from... [Read More...]
BI in Bahrain
I was in Bahrain this week, presenting as part of a keynote with José Duarte (President and CEO of SAP Europe) at the SAP Users Group Middle East & North Africa (SUG-MENA) 2009 event in Bahrain. There was a good turnout, and lots of interest in the SAP BusinessObjects solutions, although several attendees mentioned the relative lack of local expertise available in the products. Coverage in the Gulf Daily News: IT investment push in Mideast... [Read More...]
SAP’s Collborative Sustainability Strategy
SAP recently announced its sustainability strategy, including aggressive carbon reduction targets, a new cross-functional sustainability organization, and sustainability solutions for customers. More information is available on SAP’s sustainability pages. What is Sustainability, Anyway? Sustainability means different things to different people — the UN Commission on Sustainable Development lists over 40 issues that it can cover, including... [Read More...]
Alternative Dashboards?
After a previous post on early cardboard dashboards, I was offered some alternatives by my Twitter-mates (@timoelliott). Enjoy! Barry (@meneerharmsen): “Good post, but I thought dashboards like Xcelsius had their roots here:” Andy Bitterer (@bitterer): “I’d say this guy is working with a dashboard. A bit earlier.” “And this is the real dash board:” Anybody else out there have some good early dashboard images to share? Technorati... [Read More...]
The Very First Version of Xcelsius?
It turns out that dashboards like Xcelsius have their roots all the way back in 1939 — in cardboard, at least! (Click on the image to get a bigger version) Thanks to Modern Mechanix blog: “Yesterday’s Technology, Today!” Read More →
Where Was the Best Place to Work in the US in 2008?
I forgot to post this last year — better late than never… Click on the image below to see survey data from Computerworld’s Best Places to Work 2008 survey in an interactive Xcelsius dashboard. (I believe that SAP doesn’t appear because it’s not a US-headquartered company.) Read More →
If Europe Could Vote in the US Elections?
Some fun with Xcelsius, using polling data gathered by the Economist. Click on the different countries to see the percentages. Use the slider to see how many times more votes McCain would need to have a chance of winning such an election… Download a model as a PowerPoint slide Read More →
I was the eighth employee of 
