ticipate what is coming next separates tomorrow ’ s winners from the also-rans .

It ’ s likely that in the future , businesses will compete on the quality of their data and ability to make decisions based on more intelligent algorithms as much , or perhaps more , than their ability to reduce costs or create new products .

It ’ s impossible to discuss analytics and business intelligence without segueing into a discussion about big data . But , as we said in the November / December 2012 issue , we are quickly moving to a time where the term ‘ big data ’ will cease to regular extraction of data from corporate systems . These extractions were then rendered into data cubes that were used for retrospective reporting and analysis .

Joe Collins , from CAMMS , says ,“ There ’ s a driving force to connect BI components to impacting directly how organisations are run . There ’ s a much stronger emphasis in driving execution of strategy and much closer alignment with the budget process and long-term financial planning .”

Businesses are spending significant amounts of money on better data col-

BUSINESS THAT AREN ’ T ABLE TO LEVERAGE THE UNSTRUCTURED DATA ARE “ JUST GOING TO LOSE ”.

Business intelligence - it almost sounds like the punchline to a bad joke when you say it out loud . But nothing could be further from the truth . In the data rich environment today ’ s corporations operate in , the capacity to understand what is happening around them is an important weapon . In the post-GFC world , where market volatility is still an everyday concern , the ability to an-

exist - everything will just be data . Data from multiple sources , arriving faster with little or no discernable structure , will be the norm and not the exception .

“ Depending on your view of what big data represents , there ’ s a layer of complexity on that that a lot of organisations are wrestling with ,” says Mark Sands from QlikTech . “ Fundamentally , that comes back to a huge emphasis from the IT community , and vendors in particular , who are driving this ,” he added .

Guy Harrison , from Dell Software , says , “ I think it ’ s pretty clear that over the last five years , there was at least one big shift in the BI software market . That was the emergence of self-service BI , sometimes called agile BI .”

Before this , business intelligence and analytics were largely based around the

lection , collation and analysis tools . Interestingly , Michael Pain , Accenture Australia ’ s Analytics Lead , said , “ Return on investment that they ’ re seeing , it ’ s fair to say , is mixed . There are a range of reasons for that . One of them is the idea that a lot of organisations , when they invest in analytics , don ’ t start with the right questions .”

This is a key . Business analytics require the business to have some idea of the outcome they are trying to achieve . Analysis for its own sake or because everyone else is doing it is not a good reason for investing .

Although it ’ s important for businesses to have solid plans for deploying analytics and business intelligence tools , there needs to be a balance . “ In analytics , we believe a business case has to have a balance between clear and proven outcomes

This issue is sponsored by — Kyocera Document Solutions — www . KyoceraDocumentSolutions . com . au

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