Infobright

Saw a great presentation on Infobright, column-oriented database last night. It looks like an inexpensive, low maintenance way to speed up BI queries.  Their KnowledgeGrid concept seems like it could provide blazing performance - especially if you’re smart about how you sort your data on the way in.

For years we at Dataspace have been saying that, rather than picking a corporate BI Standard, companies should pick standards for business-focused BI applications (e.g. Dashboarding, OLAP, Ad hoc query, online reports, GIS, etc.).  Interestingly, the Infobright speaker pushed the same concept for databases.  The point is that there isn’t a job like, “Database.”  Instead, there are jobs like high performance OLTP, BI and reporting, unstructured data, etc.  

It makes sense.  Think about automobiles.  You don’t buy a generic, “Auto”.  Instead, you buy a sedan, or a sportscar, or a station wagon, or a pickup truck, or a van, or an 18 wheeler…  Could you use a sedan instead of a pickup truck?  Sure, for some jobs.  Is it wise to buy a sedan if what you need is a pickup?  Probably not; After all, how many shovels full of compost do you really want to be carrying in the back seat & trunk of your Altima?

Anyhow, if you’re having BI performance issues, this technology is definitely worth a look.  Want to kick it around, let’s talk!

— Ben (btaub@dataspace.com)

Tying results to individuals

I was at a client this week and had the opportunity to present how a business intelligence solution using QlikView could provide needed insight to readily available, but difficult to analyze, supply-chain data.  The extract of sample data provided (we like to use real data from each prospect in our demos whenever practical) showed how a variety of products moved through the manufacturing supply chain, specifically, when an order was received, when it was sent to the factory for production, when it was scheduled for build, when it was completed, when it was shipped to the target market, when it was received at the port, when it was shipped to the dealer, and when it was sold.  By looking product line by product line, the total time from order to delivery can be easily analyzed.  Everyone understood the power in completing this type of analysis, as they had been struggling with a variety of home-grown macros in Excel to do this type of analysis.  During the dialog I picked up on a few points we’ll use in future discussions.

In this case, the people feeling the most pain were the ones that had to take flak from the dealers as to why their product took so long to arrive after the order was placed.  So, when I showed them how great our analysis was, how easy it was for them to see where the delays occurred, they responded with, “that’s great – but doing this analysis and addressing the delays is not our job.”  I picked up on that point and realized that when speaking with potential clients about the power of business intelligence, the benefits should be mapped as specifically to the user community as possible, not addressed in aggregate from an organization perspective.  The dialog progressed into how an empowered, independent group that could address delays across the supply chain would be of great value.

Further, concerns identified through analysis should be as closely tied to individual performance as possible.  If, for example, certain product lines took longer to ship from the factory to the market than others, and additional data such as shipping line and person who contracted with the shipping line could be added to the analysis, it would be easy to show that Product Line A that was Tom’s responsibility took, on average, 1.5x as long to transport as Product Line B, that was Keiko’s responsibility.  What gets measured gets attention, and what gets attention gets fixed.

When developing business intelligence solutions, look for data sources that tie the results of the analysis to individuals, and when talking about the benefits such analyses offer, make sure those benefits are relevant to each specific audience.

Selling Business Intelligence to the Business

Business executives already know our secret.  The best business intelligence systems are not about the system.  The best business intelligence systems are about the business.  Sometimes it’s up to us, as IT professionals, to remind ourselves of this reality.  When talking to a business executive, don’t use keywords like analytics, data mining or data warehouses.  Instead, talk to them about their business.

Ask them if they know which of their customers are the most profitable and which are actually draining resources.  Ask if they want to find ways to reduce the amount they spend in legal costs.  Ask if they want to be able to predict the future demand for their products and services, so they can match capacity and staffing levels accordingly.

As experienced IT professionals we know that the way to provide these answers is to use the data already being collected by organizations in their operational systems (like ERP, CRM) and present it in new, visually appealing ways, with Business Intelligence (BI) tools.  But, occasionally we need to remind ourselves that no matter how cool the technology (to us, even that first program we all wrote that displayed the words “Hello World” was really cool), that’s not what sells BI.

Executives appreciate technology, and many are quite savvy, but when it comes to how they spend their day, they’ve got problems to solve, opportunities to capitalize on, and stakeholders to please.  To them, the best systems are like dishwashers – tools that get a job done.  Executives are not interested in how the dishes get clean, just that they do get clean in a fast, reliable, budget-friendly way.

In other words, executives are interested in the benefits of BI, not how it gets delivered.  So, the next time you’re discussing BI with an executive, sell the benefits, not the tool.  Sell the value of sales force ranking, not the BI system.  Sell the patient volume forecast, not analytic algorithms.  Sell the ability to direct your valuable purchasing dollars to the lowest cost vendors, the ability to have your sales executives use their limited time to court the most profitable clients, the ability to gauge the effectiveness of your latest promotion… you get the idea.

I’ve gotten some great feedback on my Blog posts and I’d love to hear your input.  Feel free to add a comment or email me directly at btaub@dataspace.com.