Business Intelligence Journal | Vol. 21, No. 1
TDWI Member Exclusive
March 11, 2016
In today’s competitive marketplace, you can’t accept the status quo. If your enterprise isn’t always looking for better ways to do things, digging for deeper insights, or exploring what your data tells you about your customers, you won’t move or stay ahead. In this issue of the Business Intelligence Journal we look at companies and the moves they’re making, as well as moves you can make in your own environment.
Senior editor Hugh Watson and co-author Matt McGivern explain why data governance is not just the right thing to do but a cost of doing business. They offer several ways your enterprise can get started with this discipline. As a side benefit, adopting such governance will align IT, BI, and business closer. Stephen Swoyer looks at IT’s transforming role in data governance, from a gatekeeper denying access into an active, accommodating force making data more consumable.
Are you ready to make the move to Hadoop? Our panel of experts—Rob Armstrong, Scott Barnes, Joey D’Antoni, Tracy Ring, and Srinivas Varanasi—explain best practices for getting started. Linda Briggs’ case study examines how one company made the move to liberate data from IT and provide employees access to its rich data sets. It was quite a move.
Briggs also discusses the results of a new research project with expert and regular TDWI contributor David Loshin that revealed some interesting outcomes for companies adopting newer technologies. Speaking of technologies, what has social media taught us that we can incorporate into our own business intelligence? Troy Hiltbrand takes a look at how social media methods are used to effectively relay business information where he works.
David Teich looks at the changing nature of what it means to be an “enterprise” when considering enterprise BI solutions. “The democratization of powerful technologies,” he notes, “means even smaller companies can access disparate data and visualize analytics as larger enterprises do.” Geoff Roberts looks at another change: the rise of actionable BI. “Future business users will face increasing pressure to analyze data and make rapid, informed decisions.” Roberts looks at the changes enterprises must make to be ready for these new demands.
With big data moving to the forefront, Michael J. Handley tackles a tough analytics problem as he looks at how to find a suitable aggregation strategy to handle all that data.
Sometimes things don’t change; Ted Cuzzillo explains that ideas in a two-year-old book seem as relevant as ever. As fancy new tools go unused, it’s time to rely on a more important resource: people.
We welcome your comments at [email protected].
James E. Powell
Editorial Director
Business Intelligence Journal
IN THIS ISSUE
- Getting Started with Business-Driven Data Governance
Hugh J. Watson and Matt McGivern
- What Makes BI “Enterprise”?
David A. Teich
- Rise of the Actionable BI: From Paper Binders to
Mobile Dashboards and Beyond
Geoff Roberts
- Stream Intelligence: Taking Tips from Social Media
Troy Hiltbrand
- BI Case Study: BI Tool Helps IT Liberate Data
Linda L. Briggs
- Survey: Users See Challenges, Benefits in Move to New Technologies
Linda L. Briggs and David Loshin
- BI Experts’ Perspective: When It’s Time to Hadoop
Rob Armstrong, Scott Barnes, Joey D’Antoni, Tracy Ring, and Srinivas Varanasi
- Aggregate Deceptions: Finding Suitable
Aggregation Strategies and Appropriate Functions
Michael J. Handley
- Data Fluency: How to Speak Data Like a Native
Ted Cuzzillo
- IT’s Evolving Role in Data Governance
Stephen Swoyer