Heaps of data

Heaps of data

A hot topic related to data management is the ability to deal with huge volumes of data. We are talking about such huge volumes of data that we can barely manage them with current technologies in reasonable response times. New technologies that have become available are more suited for working with such huge amounts of data. They can be meaningfully applied to uncover hidden patterns in data and implement business intelligence solutions. -- MonitorPro magazine, spring 2012, p. 28-31...
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Data is the basis for both business processes and business intelligence

Data is the basis for both business processes and business intelligence

This year's Business process management conference hosted several discussions about the (non)connectivity between business processes in companies with business intelligence. The theme was introduced by a professor from the Zagreb Economic Faculty who presented research into this area with a case study and concluded with a round table of IT managers from various local companies. More or less everyone agreed that the areas of business process management and business intelligence are currently not interconnected enough and discussed what benefits could be achieved if they were. They mentioned several examples of how the business users required reports and analyses that were produced by the business intelligence department. But reports themselves don't necessarily illustrate that business intelligence is aware of business processes. The question remains whether those who design business processes in companies take into account the consideration how they will analyze them or measure their effectiveness, what data will be needed to do so, how often will the data have to be updated...
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Data warehousing is a mature information infrastructure

Data warehousing is a mature information infrastructure

Data warehousing has matured to the point where it has become required as a necessary part of business information infrastructure. No longer are data warehouses regarded as a new and untried concept. In recent years we have seen developments in technologies, methodologies, architectures, approaches and ways of using the data warehouse. But this does not mean that everything is known and there are no new challenges to address. -- MonitorPro fall 2011, p. 37-39...
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Data warehouse maintenance

Data warehouse maintenance

Data warehouses must be constantly kept up to date – on the one hand due to changing business requirements and on the other hand due to technological advances. We can say that a warehouse is never really completed. Maintaining a data warehouse may in time become even more demanding than its initial implementation. How do we approach this challenge? -- MonitorPro fall 2011, p. 40-41  ...
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How to segment customers

How to segment customers

Customer segmentation is becoming a popular topic. As with anything new there are many misconceptions, misunderstandings and too little clarity. Each stakeholder has their own definition of segmentation and each understands it in a different way. The basics are actually always the same and the required tools are known and established. -- Article published in MonitorPro summer 2011, p. 24-26...
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Business processes and business intelligence

Business processes and business intelligence

Business intelligence is evolving from a reactive ("What has happened?") into a more proactive ("What will happen?") role. In order to maximize benefits it would make sense to more tightly combine business intelligence (BI) with business process management (BPM) rather than implement each solution individually. - Article published in MonitorPro, spring 2011, p. 28-29....
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Dark clouds ahead for data governance

Dark clouds ahead for data governance

Among the myriad of year-end analyses and forecasts I was very much amused by reading Jill Dyché's forecasts. I like her style because unlike other analysts who generally forecast what will happen she chose to forecast what will not happen in 2011. I always sympathize with her when I read her blog posts as she seems to come across similar data quality issues as I do. In her forecasts she comes to the conclusion that in 2011 management won't want to invest in data governance and business users won't help to define business rules. All this despite the slowly dawning realization that data is valuable. My experiences are similar. I believe that developers will continue to spend countless hours to wrangle data: to cleanse, transform and load into the data warehouse, to resolve ambiguities, to join incompatible data sources and so on. In order to avoid all this work, the company should implement data governance on a corporate level. This should include...
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The right data at the right time

The right data at the right time

Recently I heard the frequently used phrase again: we have to provide "the right data to the right people at the right time". The phrase is related to business intelligence and hints that we should provide business users with the right data at the right time to enable them to make business decisions. Have we ever really asked ourselves what does this mean? The data warehouse should be the source for all data on which to base business decisions, so let's start here. Do we really have all data that is needed to make business decisions in our data warehouses? The answer is generally NO. Data warehouses usually don't encompass all data sources in a company and there is always a little something that is still missing. There are many reasons for this, such as that a data source hasn't been loaded into the data warehouse yet because of a development backlog, or that a data source is not available in digital format,...
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Data mining replaces the crystal ball

Data mining replaces the crystal ball

Business intelligence solutions have matured to the level where we don't have to ask anymore whether they are useful or relevant. It is a given that they supplement other business solutions. Due to increased competition, there is more need than ever to extract even more business value from business intelligence solutions. - Article published in Sistem, February 2010, p. 8-9....
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