Business Intelligence Journal | Vol. 20, No. 4
TDWI Member Exclusive

December 7, 2015

Getting in while getting it right. That’s the focus of this issue of the Business Intelligence Journal.

Thinking about starting a BI consulting practice? Senior Editor Hugh J. Watson goes beyond an explanation of the first steps of a discussion about how to grow your business. He explains the keys to long-term success—and how to recognize when it’s time to close your consultancy.

Think you know how to read a chart or graph? Most users say they know how to read a chart, but do they really? Are they getting the right message? Dr. Simon Wakeling, Dr. Paul Clough, James Wyper, and Amy Balmain’s research into graph literacy may surprise (and concern) you.

Are you doing it right? When you want to get the greatest insights from unstructured data, where do you start? Seth Redmore suggests that rather than starting with an examination of the data, you start instead from the question to determine what unstructured text you need for your analytics.

Is capturing information and transitioning from information to insight a major challenge for your enterprise? Oliver Halter and Ritesh Ramesh understand. In fact, in a 2015 PwC survey, most respondents understand that data and analytics create value but are faced with a chasm between data and decisions. The authors explain how you can cross that chasm.

Once your data warehouse or BI project is implemented, what’s next? Pedro Cerqueira assures you there is life after development and deployment, and he understands the most common difficulties enterprises face post-implementation. He shares ideas for making production support successful.

Our BI experts—Rob Armstrong, Sandeep Gupta, Brian Valeyko, and Srinivas Varanasi—offer advice to questions from a BI director trying to cut through the hype of big data, understand the “gotchas,” and get a big data project started. Finally, Donald Soares answers the question: Why do big data initiatives fail in retail? He looks at the data challenges to retail e-commerce and explains a NoSQL value proposition.

Questions? We welcome your comments at [email protected].

James E. Powell

Editorial Director
Business Intelligence Journal


IN THIS ISSUE

  • BI Consulting Firms: Starting One and Being Successful
    Hugh J. Watson
  • Graph Literacy and Business Intelligence: Investigating User Understanding of Dashboard Data Visualizations
    Simon Wakeling, Paul Clough, James Wyper, and Amy Balmain
  • Start from the Question—A Guide to Unstructured Text Analysis
    Seth Redmore
  • Ushering in the Next Generation of Information Architecture
    Oliver Halter and Ritesh Ramesh
  • Lessons Learned Supporting a Large-Scale, Real-World Production Data Warehouse/Business Intelligence Environment
    Pedro Cerqueira
  • BI Experts’ Perspective: Handling the Hype
    Rob Armstrong, Sandeep Gupta, Brian Valeyko, and Srinivas Varanasi
  • E-Commerce and NoSQL in Retail
    Donald Soares


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