Business Analytics in Poland

It was the SAP World Tour in Sopot, Poland last week, and I had the honor of presenting a keynote session on business analytics. The three-day event kicked off with a evening on a tall ship in nearby Gdynia, with traditional nautical music and evening entertainment including hitting a large nail into a stump of wood(?!). The opening “run better” presentation was done as a panel discussion with Grzegorz Rogali?ski, the SAP country manager, and... [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...]

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...]

The Central Importance of Strategy?

Why do we put in place sales force automation systems? It’s not really to help individual sales people — it’s to help sales managers and executives get a global view of the pipeline and and ensure that vital customer information isn’t lost when the sales people move on to other roles. During a company takeover, why is there always a central resource center to store goals and plans? Because it’s vital to share information... [Read More...]

2008: From Business Automation to Business Optimization?

However you define the goals of your organization–whether it’s about profit, or saving lives–it’s all about the quest for performance. Today, 9 out of 10 companies fail to execute their strategies[1]. That’s a sobering statistic–and an opportunity for IT organizations everywhere. According to Gartner[2], business intelligence and enterprise applications are the #1 and #2 top priorities for CIOs in... [Read More...]