BI Workspaces: BI Without Borders

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 13:37:00 -0700

For years, traditional business intelligence (BI) technologies have provided tools for reporting, analysis, and visualization of information. While these technologies continue to remain the core staples of enterprise-grade BI solutions, Forrester recognizes an emergence of newer technologies and approaches to analyzing data. One such approach is the "BI workspace," where power users, especially power analysts, can explore data without their IT departments imposing any limitations or constraints, such as fixed data models, security, and production environment schedules. Information and knowledge management (I&KM) professionals should consider adding workspace capabilities to the list of BI functions that are necessary for leading-edge BI environments.

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Market Share: Business Intelligence Platform Software, Worldwide, 2007

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 08:22:09 -0700

2007 was the year of heavy consolidation, which changed the business intelligence landscape forever. This report looks at how those changes have manifested themselves by examining BI platform market shares by vendor and region, along with embedded and stand-alone views.

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Leading Analyst Firm's Report Recognizes Symphony Metreo's Pricing and Profitability Capabilities as Important in Evolving Sales and Operations Planning Market

Mon, 19 May 2008 13:12:27 -0700

Symphony Metreo well-positioned to help companies embrace new integrated business planning processes for superior operational performance.

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Survey Reveals Key Motivators for Selecting Business Vendors & Partners

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 13:11:36 -0700

In the 2008 Key Motivators Business Survey, 93.4% of respondents report that a company’s reputation is “very important” when choosing a vendor or business partner, 65.2% cite references as “very important” and 41.5% say proof of results are “very important.” Conducted by Porter Positioning in April 2008, the survey of US business professionals was completed by 214 people in a variety of industries and professions. Click here for survey details.

Software AG Ranked as a Market Leader in Application Infrastructure and SOA by Current Analysis

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 12:59:16 -0700

Software AG, a global leader in business infrastructure software, recently announced that it was recently recognized as a ‘Market Leader’ for the Application Infrastructure market1 by Current Analysis, a leading independent research firm. Software AG was also ranked as a ‘Market Leader’ in the research firm’s accompanying analysis of the Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) market2. Only four vendors were identified as ‘Market Leaders’ in both of these sectors.

“Software AG combines global reach and financial strength with a demonstrated commitment to performance, innovation and time-to-benefit. This has allowed us to establish a significant leadership position within the business infrastructure software market, where we serve as the clear, ‘no compromises’ alternative to the status quo,” said David Mitchell, President and Chief Operating Officer of the webMethods business division and member of the Software AG Executive Board. “We are extremely pleased with this most recent recognition for our success and market leadership. Having established aggressive goals for ourselves in 2007, I’m proud to say that we delivered fully upon these objectives. This sets the stage for an even bigger and better 2008.”

Current Analysis defines the Application Infrastructure market as covering “…technologies which provide the infrastructure necessary to build and run an enterprise application. Often called ‘middleware,’ it includes not only run time environments, but also integration technologies that allow an application to communicate and exchange information with back-end systems. It also includes technologies used to generate user interfaces to applications built upon this middleware. This market focuses primarily on three distinct yet often overlapping markets, service-oriented architecture, integration software and services as well as application and data delivery. These segments fully encompass the software and professional services necessary to integrate disparate systems, create cross-business and cross technology communications, deliver rich, internet-based applications and build software that is highly visible, optimized and reusable.”

In their assessment of the overall Application Infrastructure sector, Current Analysis identified Software AG as one of five overall ‘Market Leaders’. Furthermore, Software AG earned the highest possible ‘Positive’ grade for its overall ‘Market Position’, ‘Vision’ and ‘Momentum’. In terms of maturity, Current Analyst classified Software AG as an ‘Established’ vendor operating within the industry’s ‘1st Tier’ of providers.

Software AG was also ranked as a ‘Market Leader’ in Current Analysis’ assessment of the SOA market, one of three underlying components of the Application Infrastructure market. In this analysis, Software AG received the top grade of ‘Positive’ for its overall ‘Market Position’, ‘Vision’ and ‘Momentum’. Software AG was also classified as an ‘Established’ vendor in terms of overall maturity and was viewed to be amongst the industry’s ‘1st Tier’ of providers.

Software AG also earned ‘Positive’ rankings for its ‘Market Position’ within the Application and Data Delivery3, and B2B Integration Software and Services4 sectors. Within both of these markets, Software AG was ranked as an ‘Established’ vendor in terms of maturity.

Forrester Research named QUMAS as a leader in the "Forrester Wave: Enterprise Governance, Risk and Compliance Platforms, Q4 2007"

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 13:52:52 -0700

The report is available in its entirety on the QUMAS website by clicking here.

8 KEYS TO SUCCESSFUL PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 13:33:20 -0700

Effective performance management initiatives enable workers to execute scientifically-generated success strategies in a consistent manner across entire organizations. Companies that have excelled at performance management are more likely to enjoy an enhanced understanding of their customers and their marketing initiatives, leading to better products and services and increased profitability.

As part of the extensive research program, the eight articles at this link identified key points that companies must understand to overcome the obstacles and exploit the opportunities offered by an ideal performance management environment.

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It's Time To Reinvent Your BI Strategy

Thu, 15 Nov 2007 09:13:58 -0700

Business intelligence (BI) sits at the top of the IT priority list for many enterprises. Enterprises that haven’t paid enough attention now see a need to act, and those that have kept up with BI want to consolidate their siloed implementations. The promises of BI attract any organization, but how do you get started? Enterprises face multidimensional choices, and they cannot start with vendor selection. Tasks like data governance, matching requirements with logical architectures, and picking an experienced architect and implementer should be at the top of the list.

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The Forrester Wave: ANZ SOA Consulting And Integration Services, Q3 2007

Fri, 27 Jul 2007 12:37:55 -0700

Forrester evaluated leading SOA consulting and integration services providers across 50 criteria and found that IBM and Accenture have established early leadership thanks to their strong technical capabilities and clear focus on business outcomes. BearingPoint and Infosys are Strong Performers. Although constrained by their smaller size or lack of business focus, their offerings are competitive and both have good client references. A number of emerging providers that are currently developing SOA capabilities will provide more competition to the existing market leaders and strong performers over the next few years. Included in this report is an interactive provider comparison tool that includes detailed evaluations and customizable rankings.

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Social Computing Strategy For Life Sciences Firms

Thu, 26 Jul 2007 12:31:14 -0700

Like it or not, Social Computing is coming to the life sciences industry. If you don't believe us, check out the YouTube video of a purported Eli Lilly sales rep dishing ZYPREXA's side effects or read the passionate consumer comments on GlaxoSmithKline's AlliConnect blog. Harnessing social media promises big benefits like improving consumer trust in brands, but it also brings formidable risks like adverse event reporting complexity driven by consumer comments in forums and blogs. To navigate the unknown waters of social media safely, life sciences firms must take four steps: 1) educate executives and legal; 2) identify internal innovators and existing learning; 3) build a task force; and 4) anticipate organizational change and internal resource demands to arrive at a sensible strategy.

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European Mobile Operators' Cross-Channel Experience, 2007

Wed, 25 Jul 2007 12:27:47 -0700

Consumers rate good customer service as one of the top three purchase decision criteria when choosing an operator. Forrester applied its Cross-Channel Review methodology to four leading mobile operators in Europe — O2, Orange, T-Mobile, and Vodafone — to evaluate their services across channels. We found that the customer experiences they offer across channels have many flaws, but they also demonstrate some best practices. To get better — and improve their profitability — firms should investigate the desired paths to purchase of their target audience and turn this information into a seamless cross-channel experience.

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Electronics Retailers' Cross-Channel Experience, 2007

Tue, 24 Jul 2007 07:00:00 -0700

As part of an analysis of 16 firms, Forrester evaluated the customer experiences delivered by four large consumer electronics retailers — Best Buy, Circuit City, RadioShack, and Wal-Mart. Overall, the retailers ended up with the highest average score compared with other industries, but the firms still delivered poor experiences in IVR systems, email, and channel transitions. But while each of the electronics retailers suffered from a different set of problems, our analysis also uncovered a number of good practices, such as Circuit City's product recommendation tool and RadioShack's phone agents who proactively directed users to Web self-service.

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Building Better Online Brand Experiences

Mon, 23 Jul 2007 12:19:26 -0700

Firms spend millions of euros on building their brand through advertising, site design, and online branding. Our heuristic evaluation of 16 large brands in the UK, however, reveals that only one brand creates a consistent experience across different media with a useful and usable Web site. Customer experience professionals must get basic site usability principles right before trying to differentiate through the online experience.

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Continued Innovation In Business Intelligence: Data Discovery Accelerators

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 15:42:13 -0700

Business intelligence (BI) has been around for a long time in one shape or form — as long as 30 years — but contrary to popular opinion, it's still not commoditizing. Even the data integration layer of the BI "stack," where most practitioners agree that some commoditization may be occurring, is experiencing a wave of innovation from a set of emerging vendors that provide automated data discovery or data discovery accelerators. Watch this important trend, as data discovery and integration are usually the most complex and resource-intensive parts of a typical BI initiative — and where many BI initiatives fail.

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The Forrester Wave™: Customer Service Management Software, Q2 2007

Tue, 29 May 2007 13:22:16 -0700

Forrester evaluated leading customer service management software vendors across approximately 180 criteria and found that Entellium, Microsoft, Oracle Siebel CRM, Oracle Siebel CRM On Demand, salesforce.com, and SAP are Leaders for customer record-centric products; eGain, KANA Software, RightNow Technologies, and Talisma are Leaders for customer interaction-centric products; and Graham Technology, Onyx, and Pegasystems are Leaders for business process-centric products. Within the customer record-centric category, Infor, Maximizer Software, NetSuite, Oracle E-Business Suite, Oracle Peoplesoft Enterprise CRM, SageCRM, Sage SalesLogix, and SugarCRM are Strong Performers. Among interaction-centric products, ATG, FrontRange Solutions, KNOVA, and Numara Software are Strong Performers. Amdocs and Chordiant are Strong Performers within the process-centric category. Differing requirements within an individual company necessitate a careful evaluation of the specific capabilities and individual strengths of each product and probably require the use of more than one tool to solve the full range of customer service management needs.

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Industry Research

BI Workspaces: BI Without Borders

Market Share: Business Intelligence Platform Software, Worldwide, 2007

Leading Analyst Firm's Report Recognizes Symphony Metreo's Pricing and Profitability Capabilities as Important in Evolving Sales and Operations Planning Market

Survey Reveals Key Motivators for Selecting Business Vendors & Partners

Software AG Ranked as a Market Leader in Application Infrastructure and SOA by Current Analysis

Forrester Research named QUMAS as a leader in the "Forrester Wave: Enterprise Governance, Risk and Compliance Platforms, Q4 2007"

8 KEYS TO SUCCESSFUL PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

It's Time To Reinvent Your BI Strategy

The Forrester Wave: ANZ SOA Consulting And Integration Services, Q3 2007

Social Computing Strategy For Life Sciences Firms

European Mobile Operators' Cross-Channel Experience, 2007

Electronics Retailers' Cross-Channel Experience, 2007

Building Better Online Brand Experiences

Continued Innovation In Business Intelligence: Data Discovery Accelerators

The Forrester Wave™: Customer Service Management Software, Q2 2007