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James Taylor

I will use this blog to discuss business challenges and how technologies like analytics, optimization and business rules can meet those challenges.

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James is the CEO of Decision Management Solutions and works with clients to automate and improve the decisions underpinning their business. James is the leading expert in decision management and a passionate advocate of decisioning technologies – business rules, predictive analytics and data mining. James helps companies develop smarter and more agile processes and systems and has more than 20 years of experience developing software and solutions for clients. He has led decision management efforts for leading companies in insurance, banking, health management and telecommunications. James is a regular keynote speaker and trainer and he wrote Smart (Enough) Systems (Prentice Hall, 2007) with Neil Raden. James is a faculty member of the International Institute for Analytics.

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Some Thoughts on Pushing BI Beyond Business Managers

TDWI had an interview with Michael Corcoran of Information Builders recently - Q&A: Pushing BI Beyond Business Managers: TDWI in which he had a great phrase:
"Information can have a dramatic, positive behavioral effect when it is directly available"
I am not familiar with the WebFOCUS platform - if anyone from Information Builders wants to set up a briefing for me that would be great - but from what Michael says it seems to me that a platform like WebFOCUS would get companies well down the road to managing operational decisions.

The keys to success would be a couple of things:
  • Can you identify the decisions that matter and focus on them?
  • Can you change your thinking from "this is the data I have, who needs it?" to "these are the decisions we must improve, what data would help?"
  • Can you integrate analytic insight with regulations and policies - put business rules and analytics together, in other words?
  • Can you focus you analytic effort on predicting the future not reporting on the past?
  • Can you automate as much, or as little, of the decision as makes sense?
If you can then I, like Michael, think your information can have a dramatic and positive effect. Decision management is about putting your data to work and it seems to me that Michael is focusing on that same objective.

Posted April 8, 2009 10:00 PM
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