About UsThe Decision Factor offers insightful comments and observations on analytics—from views on new technology approaches and market dynamics to the latest industry trends driving demand for faster, smarter information analysis. This blog contains personal views, thoughts, and opinions from SAP employees, mentors, and friends working in the area of analytics. It’s not endorsed by SAP nor does it constitute an official communication of SAP. |
Posted by: Kaan Turnali April 30, 2013  Today, organizations face multifaceted problems and need to quickly realize the value of their technology solutions whether it’s for business intelligence (BI) or other technology implementations. Business challenges have become more complex and are often riddled with ambiguity that makes it harder to address using traditional methodologies in analytics and beyond.
As a result, to answer the most pressing business questions, we’re still left with an age—old problem—balancing functionality against scarce time and resources. Rapid deployment solutions (RDS) can provide an alternative method …
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Posted by: Patricia Saporito April 29, 2013  Everyone is talking about “Big Data,” but what they really want are “Big Insights.” To realize significant insights requires an effective analytic strategy.
Many companies believe they have an analytic strategy when what they actually have is an architecture, which is important but certainly not all you need. An analytic strategy requires continuous strategic and tactical business alignment, defining and updating your analytic strategy in view of your business goals and objectives, and analyzing and updating your current analytic roles, analytic skills, business processes and …
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Posted by: Lance Holbert April 25, 2013  Business analytics has evolved dramatically from its humble beginnings in core data warehousing more than 30 years ago. It’s evolved from simple, decision support solutions to advancements in business intelligence (BI), enterprise performance management (EPM), and, most recently, intelligent data concepts and predictive analytic applications. Companies have embraced the value of analytics – solutions that combine data and analysis to drive insights – to help them differentiate, become more competitive, and make better business decisions.
A Pervasive Culture of Analytics
Almost everyone in your company can benefit from …
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Posted by: Kaan Turnali April 24, 2013  In my post “Mobile BI” Doesn’t Mean “Mobile-Enabled Reports” I articulated the importance of developing a mobile business intelligence (BI) strategy. If designed, implemented, and executed effectively, mobile BI will not only complement the existing business intelligence framework, but it will enable organizations to drive growth and profitability.
For the next ten weeks, I want to chart a course that will highlight the key questions you need to ask before embarking on a mobile BI journey. This is …
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Posted by: Scott Jeffries April 23, 2013  In the first two blogs of this series, we discussed the three key activities to drive value through analytics—gaining control of your data, delivering the right information to the right people, and enabling real time and predictive analysis. Today, I want to delve deeper into the second activity.
It’s not enough for an organization to simply have consistent data. It also must agree on how to use and deliver that data – preferably at a …
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Posted by: Bruce McCuaig April 18, 2013  I am trying to anticipate the impact of in-memory processing on governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) activities. What will it mean to risk, compliance, audit, and other GRC professionals when we have the ability to scan and analyze millions of pieces of data almost instantly? How will professional practices change? How will our reports and their content adapt? How will predictive analytics help us plan?
How Will In Memory Processing Impact GRC?
To get a glimpse of the future of GRC, I think it helps to consider live …
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Posted by: Kaan Turnali April 17, 2013  In my post “Mobile BI” Doesn’t Mean “Mobile-Enabled Reports” I highlighted two main areas that affect how organizations can go about realizing the benefits of mobile BI: enterprise mobility and BI maturity. Today I want to focus on the latter and outline high-level strategies that require different avenues of focus, time, and resources.
Before an organization can execute these high-level strategies, it must have the following:
An existing BI framework that can be leveraged Current technology (hardware and software) used for …
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Posted by: Kouros Behzad April 16, 2013  There are many presentations and discussions about how analytics and “Big Data” can improve decision making—a simple Google search on the terms returns close to 8 million results. Organizations find their workforce analytics especially challenging as human resources (HR) departments attempt to grow beyond creating reports for the sake of reporting. When you think about it, on any given day, HR gets many questions about your workforce that data could address or improve. But which do you try to answer?
Sales, marketing, …
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Posted by: Scott Jeffries April 11, 2013  In part one of the series, I introduced you to three key activities to drive value through analytics. Today, we’re going to explore the first activity—gaining control over your data.
Gain Control Over Your Data
Since the advent of the internet, information resources available to businesses have exploded due to increasingly sophisticated information technology. This creates a terrific opportunity to support business decision-making with a very rich data set, but first, companies must be able to assimilate all relevant information—whether structured …
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Posted by: Kaan Turnali April 9, 2013  In my post “What Is Mobile BI?”, I discussed the definition of mobile business intelligence (BI) as well as its importance and relevance in today’s business climate. However, if mobile BI is going to enable organizations to drive growth and profitability, it requires, as with any other technology initiative, an integrated strategy. Moreover, organizations must deliver the power of mobile BI through innovation and without disruption.
Just as we know that mobile isn’t just about one or two sexy apps, the step to …
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