The Function of Rewards Programs
Discount cards, air miles, and reward cards are examples of various schemes for building customer loyalty. These schemes have been running for many years, primarily with large national retailers. They serve three purposes: firstly to drive repeat business, second to reward the customers, and thirdly to collect data about the customer and their buying patterns.
All [...]
80% of Business Leaders make Critical Decisions without Full Information
Today we have more information at our fingertips than we have ever had before, yet informed decisions are not always made, when they should be. Every critical decision made in business should always be made on the basis of information, statistics and analysis. Although this is a staggering statistic, it has been stated before that [...]
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 in [...]
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 analytical [...]
Financing the BI Project: Uniqueness Factors (or USP)
In planning the BI project it is important to develop an understanding of the uniqueness factors for that business. Building this understanding may influence the type of solution that is financed.
The last article in this series covered “The Corporate Architecture and Complexity of Data Links“. This builds on out business understanding that impacts the selected [...]
Financing the BI Solution: The Corporate Architecture and Complexity of Data Links
This series is looking at the financial factors of building your BI solution. Most larger corporations today already have some form of business intelligence in place so the interest here may be more in applying these principles to upgrading your solution. Yet surprisingly there are always greenfield solutions being applied is some corner of the [...]
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 [...]
Financing the Business Intelligence Project (Buy or Build?)
In order to finance the project it is necessary to decide how the underlying Data Warehouse is to be created. This means the Project Board will need to decide:
Whether to use a ready-made solution or have it custom built
What degree of external staffing resources are [...]
The Interplay of Social Media, Business Intelligence, and Cost Effectiveness
Social Media, Business Intelligence, and Cost Effectiveness are three major business issues that are rarely put together in the same sentence. Yet all do have a role to play in improving business results.
From the ability to leverage Social Media as a Marketing and Customer Services tool that allows our business to communicate more effectively. The [...]
Social Media meets BI: Finding Social Media’s Business Value
With the rise of every new business tool comes the need to leverage it correctly in order to provide business value. I have talked before about “when people are talking about your brand the business needs to be on the pulse” and needs to responding appropriately. Social Media intelligence is about managing that intervention.
Business [...]
How to Leverage the Social Media Channel for Business Success
One of the questions that I have been talking to many businesses about recently is leveraging the Social Media channel as a marketing tool.
There are a great deal of so-called ‘Social Media Marketing experts’ talking on this subject on a daily basis. Yet the majority of these are marketing people who are simply advising businesses [...]
Statistics, Damn Lies, and Statistics
Whenever I see an article about statistics this old adage always comes to mind. When I see statistics on their own it is of-course even worse.
I was hunting the web recently and came across a few statistics. Apparently only 60% of business decisions are based on analytics. Of-course the more telling part of this is [...]
