Social CRM: Business Intervention Requires Extra Capabilities!
Customer Relationship Management solutions have sadly been misunderstood by many. Normally they are defined as the system for managing customer data, but in reality it should be so much more; the core process by which the corporation manages all its interactions with customers and prospects. When you add social media into the corporate domain then [...]
Financing the BI Project: Custom or Packaged? Which Solution is Best?
This series has to date been looking at various options that exist for implementing your Business Intelligence solution. Today we look at some insights on which type of solution is best. For Business Intelligence which type of solution is best will ultimately depend on individual business circumstances. The solution type assessment that has been discussed [...]
Starting your BI Project: Suitable Analytical Applications
This is the fifth article in a series about funding the Business Intelligence project. The analytical application can potentially be seen as the fun part of the project – it is after all the tool that the business community will be using for a significant time into the future. In this context the adoption of [...]
BI Project Decisions: Ready Made Database Options
There are broadly two types of ready-made Data Warehouse available, these are: A full data model, usually linked closely with an operational application. SAP, Peoplesoft, Siebel and other software suppliers provide Data Warehouses linked with their ERP and CRM applications. An industry ‘template’ that provides a basic model Data Warehouse relating to the industry sector [...]
Analysis: Continuing to Involve our Collaborators
It has always been clear that the process of defining application requirements has always been a collaborative process, not simply involving IT people, but a whole raft of people across the business. So for such a collaborative process why do we tend to document the results in a private way? What I mean here is [...]
Wish List for new Outlook Contacts Management Capabilities
Of all of the tools used on a daily basis by the business community that is most out of date is Outlook’s Contacts section. Important segments of this are probably now at least ten years out of date. Here is a reminder of the sorry state of affairs of the current application: For me the [...]
Applications – The Need for Speed
Throughout my career in IT there is one constant that I have seen demanded over the years is the need for speed in everything on the computer. This is a complex issue. The part that no-one wants to hear when a person complains about application performance is the comparison between what they have now and [...]


