The Essential Guide to BI @ SAP SAPPHIRE NOW
As a 19-year veteran of SAP BusinessObjects, I’m delighted to have the opportunity to be a “social ambassador” for business intelligence and analytics for SAPPHIRE NOW in Frankfurt. Whether or not you have any SAP products, and whether or not you’ll be attending the physical events, there’s going to be lots of great new information of interest to anybody involved with business intelligence and performance management. My job will be to help... [Read More...]
Nordic SAP BusinessObjects BI Butterfly Events
Next week sees the start of the Nordic SAP BusinessObjects BI Forums in Stockholm (April 13), Copenhagen (April 15), Oslo (April 27), and Helsinki (April 29). Join us for these free events to find out: “…how successful industry leaders turns data into insight-driven business decisions. Don’t miss out on this exclusive opportunity to learn from managers and experts how to optimize your business performance. This is the conference day of... [Read More...]
Istanbul SAP BusinessObjects BI Forum Keynote
Turkey is investing heavily in business intelligence. It was SAP’s 2nd-fastest growing region worldwide last year. Nine out of the top 10 Turkish banks use BusinessObjects, and 3 out of the top 4 telecom companies. I presented the keynote presentation at the SAP BusinessObjects BI Forum in Istanbul this morning, on the theme “The Clear Intelligence Future: Simple, Seamless, Social, and Strategic”. It covers the current trends in the... [Read More...]
How to Create and Deploy Effective Metrics
I’m trying to catch up on a big backlog of materials and documents and documents that I’ve found useful… Here’s an excellent best practices report from TDWI on “how to create and deploy effective metrics” (registration required). The introduction to the document explains the background: Performance metrics are a powerful tool of organizational change. The adage “What gets measured, gets done,” is true. Companies that define objectives,... [Read More...]
Who Cares About BI and Performance Management Market Share?
IDC recently released several reports on business analytics market shares, including business intelligence and performance management: Worldwide Business Analytics Software 2009 – 2013 Forecast and 2008 Vendor Shares, IDC #219383, August 2009 Worldwide Financial Performance and Strategy Management 2008 Vendor Shares: Market Consolidation Drives Domination, IDC #218656, June 2009 Worldwide Business Intelligence Tools 2008 Vendor Shares, IDC... [Read More...]
The Convergence of Business Intelligence, EPM, and GRC
According to Albert Pang of IDC, the current economic conditions are forcing organizations to not only better manage corporate performance but also increase business transparency: companies are under increasing pressure to conduct operations effectively, profitably, and ethically — and prove it. To achieve this, IDC advises companies to integrate EPM, GRC, and business analytics. The IDC paper, Helping Enterprises Succeed: Responsible Corporate... [Read More...]
It’s All About KPIs, Whatever You’re Trying to Achieve…
Here’s a quick selection of articles from just the last couple of weeks that show that performance management and key performance indicators are becoming mainstream in a variety of areas: SAP And Enterprise Support SAP has agreed a set of key performance indicators with its user group SUGEN, in order to measure the effectiveness of the controversial SAP Enterprise Support services introduced last year. And there’s real skin in the game: SAP has... [Read More...]
Is Your Company’s Strategy a Secret, Even to Your Employees?
I was recently in touch with a team implementing performance management in a large technology company. To their frustration, the project stalled when the company’s executive team refused to roll out the strategy maps to the rest of the organization on the grounds that it was "confidential"… Given this type of behavior, is it really any surprise that 95%* of a typical workforce does not understand their organization’s strategy?! To... [Read More...]
Bad Incentives
Effective performance management requires lining up incentives with desired outcomes. In practice, this is impossible — the best you can do is pick your problems. Today’s example, from the New York Times, “Paying Doctors to Ignore Patients“: “…the best way for a doctor to make money in his practice is not to spend time with patients but to use equipment as much as possible. That means moving the maximum number... [Read More...]
The Other EPM?
It turns out that EPM also stands for “experience and performance management”, and: A comprehensive EPM system captures and reports real metrics about application usage. Who is using which transactions? How long are they active? How long are they idle? EPM gives you the ability to pinpoint and analyze user adoption issues that are hindering the achievement of business results. As the article says, “ROI isn’t real until it’s... [Read More...]
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