Business Intelligence

March 27, 2007

Four Flawed Business Intelligence Assumptions

In The Trial-and-Error Method for Data Integration, I discussed some common data integration mistakes. In this article I point out where companies tend to go wrong in […]
January 17, 2007

Marketing BI Solutions to the Business

Technical people often think that delivering great solutions is the key to satisfying business users. It is not. Delivering the solution users want is the key. […]
January 16, 2007

Communication Breakdown: The Achilles’ Heel of BI Projects

What we’ve got here is failure to communicate. – Captain in the 1967 film Cool Hand Luke What is the most likely cause of failed business […]
January 12, 2007

BI appliances: Disruptive technology or distraction?

Data warehousing (DW) appliances aren’t the only hardware appliances shaking up the industry. New on the scene are business intelligence (BI) appliances, which also have the […]
November 17, 2006

The best-in-class may not be the best-for-you

In the IT industry there is always a lot of discussion (and PR) regarding the best-in-class products. Ask any industry analyst, consultant or IT person who […]
November 15, 2006

Oracle User Group Survey: Achieving End-to-End Business Intelligence

It was interesting to read a recent article from DMReview.com “OAUG Survey Reveals Three Out of Four Enterprises Using Oracle Applications Still Use Spreadsheets for Business […]
November 9, 2006

A soccer coach’s musings on BI/DW

I was at a BI tool regional users group recently where we were discussing people who were long on BI but short on ETL experience. Afterwards […]
October 12, 2006

Which will become pervasive, CPM or BI?

Lately I have read articles and analysts’ reports discussing whether Corporate Performance Management (CPM) rather than business intelligence (BI) will become pervasive in the future. This […]
September 11, 2006

A Painless Introduction to Data Integration

Compliance, competitive business requirements and increasing data volumes are driving companies to rethink data integration strategies. My first podcast with SearchDataManagement.com gives a comprehensive overview of […]
September 5, 2006

Operational BI – Blurring the Lines

Before operational business intelligence (BI) came on the scene, classifying BI applications was simple: enterprise applications and BI/DW activities were clearly separate domains with their own […]
July 14, 2006

Should You Wait for Data Quality?

A couple of IT managers recently approached me with a thorny issue. The key business sponsor for their data warehousing effort asked them if they should […]
June 11, 2006

Boston-area Data Warehousing Training

For those in the Boston-area, or anyone else who feels like catching a Red Sox game after a day of data warehouse and business intelligence training, […]
June 7, 2006

Are BI Suites the Answer?

I was asked recently if I thought BI suites were a good idea. My answer: sometimes they are and sometimes they aren’t. How’s that for a […]
June 2, 2006

The Role of Data Integration in Providing Trusted Information

How trustworthy is the data that you provide? Not very, if it has quality problems. Data quality is one of the biggest roadblocks to trusting corporate […]
June 1, 2006

Data Integration Myth #2: Developing an information architecture is a waste of time, let’s just get on with building the data warehouse.

Been there, done that. That’s how we ended up with multiple data warehouses, data marts, and ERP, CPM and SCM solutions that need to be reconciled. […]
April 20, 2006

The data manager’s ransom note

Your data manager has a list of demands. OK, he isn’t actually holding anyone hostage, but still, take a minute to really listen to what he […]
February 12, 2006

Clear Communication – The Foundation for Successful Business Metadata Projects

In Align Metadata and Business Initiatives, we discussed the two types of metadata: technical and business. The fact that there are two metadata types may be old […]
January 12, 2006

Align Metadata and Business Initiatives

You don’t often hear “metadata management” and “business initiatives” in the same sentence. It’s time for that to change. Metadata management is the secret ingredient that […]
September 29, 2005

Training? We don’t need no stinkin’ training …

While data warehousing technologies and methodologies have evolved over the years, ideologies, in many cases, have not. Taking a narrow-minded approach to your data warehousing strategy […]
May 12, 2005

Hub-and-Spoke Redux

Religious wars. We have them in IT all the time. Everyone debates architecture. The “high priests” of our trade guard it. The approaches espoused by Ralph […]
May 12, 2005

Don’t be ‘tool myopic’

Much of the IT literature that you read focuses on tools and technology. That’s understandable, since product vendors churn out these materials to sell and market […]
April 12, 2005

Mitigating Meta Data Misery

The thought of meta data management doesn’t exactly inspire whoops of joy from the average IT manager. However, like flossing, it’s one of those things you’ve […]
August 12, 2004

The Impact of New BI Trends on Data Integration

This month, we explore the impact of several business intelligence (BI) trends on data integration. These trends include: business (or corporate) performance management (BPM or CPM), […]
July 13, 2004

Do You Need a Data Integration Center of Expertise (DICE)?

Reining in the proliferation of expensive, redundant data silos requires a methodical approach that includes establishing a data integration center of expertise. In their quest for […]
April 13, 2004

Technology and Product Standards Keep Us On Track

Too many companies have implemented the “software du jour” – frequently switching to different hardware; operating systems; databases; applications; programming languages; extract, transform and load (ETL) […]