From the category archives:

Strategy

BI 2010 – Making BI more strategic

February 23, 2010

I have just opened ITWeb’s BI 2010 in Johannesburg talking about decisions and importance of decision making in making BI matter (I will post my slides later). Great audience, nearly 200 people with a strong showing from end user customers (75%) and, very interestingly, nearly half considered themselves business / IT straddlers which is a [...]

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Operational decision making as a corporate asset

January 27, 2010

Syndicated from Smart Data Collective
I often tell companies and other organizations that they should treat decisions and decision making as assets. In Smart (Enough) Systems, the book I wrote with Neil Raden, we said
Operational Decision Making as a Corporate Asset
If operational decisions must be made well for your organization to deliver on its strategy, they [...]

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Book Review – Analytics at Work

January 26, 2010

I received a pre-release copy of Tom Davenport’s new book Analytics at Work: Smarter Decisions, Better Results. The book is a follow-on to Competing on Analytics (reviewed here) and is a shorter, pithier book than its predecessor. Once again Tom collaborates with Jeanne Harris and this time Robert Morison of the Concours group. Where the [...]

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A decision-centric organization

January 19, 2010

Syndicated from ebizQ
This week I thought I would write about decision-centric organizations. Organizations face many challenges in today’s business climate. Organizations whose success or failure is determined by the decisions they make (which claims to pay, which customers to target, which transactions to investigate for fraud) are handicapped by systems that are centered on processes [...]

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A predictive enterprise

December 18, 2009

Syndicated from ebizQ
I was reading an old SPSS presentation the other day and found a great definition of a Predictive Enterprise:
A predictive enterprise:

Derives maximum value from its data assets
Understands its business by gaining deep insight
Leverages advanced analytics to predict outcomes
Turns this knowledge into action to optimize decision making across all areas of its operations

I [...]

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Smarter systems for uncertain times – #brf keynote

November 5, 2009

I gave a keynote at the Business Rules Forum today on Smarter systems for uncertain times.  I gave the presentation without slides and had planned to use my notes as a post but, as the notes ran to 5,000 words, I have decided to write a white paper based on them instead!
To keep you going [...]

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Balancing Intuition and Analytics in Decision Making #PBLS

October 29, 2009

Malcolm Gladwell, Thornton May (author of The New Know: Innovation Powered by Analytics)and Tom Davenport (author of Competing on Analytics, reviewed here) made up a high powered panel for this. Various random comments follow:

Healthcare is being used as an example by the panel as an obvious point where analytics and expertise intersect. There is a [...]

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Analytics and Innovation #PBLS

October 29, 2009

Jim Goodnight, CEO of SAS, and Geoffrey Moore, author of Crossing the Chasm among other books, had a discussion on the use of analytics in innovation. Several areas were touched on from the global economy to innovation approaches to education.
The growth of low cost competitors in the global economy has commoditized that which can be [...]

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Some thoughts on rules, decisions, agility and more

October 9, 2009

Syndicated from ebizQ
I got an interesting comment on my recent post about the top 4 concerns of CIOs.
Joanne makes a number of points in her comment that I thought should be addressed:
a business rules engine is not nearly enough. What is needed instead is a means to model manage and measure the impact of a [...]

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All about Smart Work with Nancy Pearson

September 23, 2009

I got a chance to sit down with Nancy Pearson, Vice President BPM, SOA, WebSphere and Industry Marketing at IBM last week to talk about Smart Work and other related topics. Smart Work is one of the four major themes that are part of IBM’s overall Smarter Planet initiative – New Intelligence, Green and Beyond, [...]

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Decision management and a decision-driven organization

September 18, 2009

Some time back I came across an HBR article called Who Has the D? How Clear Decision Roles Enhance Organizational Performance (fee for full article) and I heard from a friend today that Bain was using this approach (see this Bain article for instance Who has the “D”?) as part of building what it calls [...]

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How can decision management help with customer engagement?

July 30, 2009

Shantanu Narayen of Adobe recently said “Engagement is the new business mandate” and when Denise Shiffman (author of The Age of Engage) spoke at a recent CMO summit she added:
As I talk to customers, partners, and employees, it becomes increasingly clear to me that the health of a company relies on the extent to which [...]

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First Look – River Logic Enterprise Optimizer

July 16, 2009

River Logic’s Enterprise Optimizer is what is increasingly known as an “Integrated Business Planning” solution. Enterprise Optimizer is designed to manage cross-functional decisions at strategic, tactical, and policy levels considering all the elements and consequences of those decisions. The models you build allow you to see the financial and operational impact of those decisions and [...]

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Going Beyond Budgeting!

May 18, 2009

I spoke last week at a conference hosted by the Beyond Budgeting Roundtable. I spoke, as you might expect, on the topic of decision management and how it can deliver the kinds of systems a modern company needs. The conference overall was on the (frankly very appealing) idea that budgets can and should be replaced [...]

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Looking upstream for warranty cost savings

March 12, 2009

Kjell Hammerstrom of Sun presented on warranty costs. Product management teams specify warranty term duration and terms of warranties on products while procurment teams negotiate warranty terms with equipment manufacturers (many of Sun’s products are built by a manufacturer like Qunta, Mitac, Celestica). However the process was not collaborative – products would be released with [...]

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Harnessing and Coordinating Warranty Best Practices in a Global Enterprise

March 11, 2009

Terry Adams of Ingersoll Rand, the parent company of Trane, presented on harnessing and coordinating warranty best practices. IR includes Trance, Thermo King, Schlage, Steelcraft and others for about $17B worldwide. All these acquisitions have experience and systems so Ingersoll Rand has a vision of a Business Operating System to drive common [...]

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Measuring and improving an effective and efficient warranty process

March 11, 2009

John Hagen of Trane presented on measuring and improving an effective and efficient warranty process. Trane produces Commercial HVAC systems of every size. Warranty is tricky because they make everything so specific to customers.
Trane started a new quality initiative in 2004 because they felt that there were some low hanging fruit. They had warranty reserves [...]

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An update on the warranty industry

March 11, 2009

Eric Arnum, editor of Warranty Week, gave an overview of the industry as a whole. Clearly the recession is taking its toll. Starting with new home builders it has spread to RV makers, auto makers, various retailers, GE and others. Warranty is important in many of these company’s challenges and some, like Hyundai, are trying [...]

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Live from Warranty Chain Management 2009 – The Strategic Importance of Warranty

March 11, 2009

I am at the Warranty Chain Management conference this week and blogging more or less live. Despite the economy there are over 180 attendees as well as a solid core of sponsors. Marc McKenzie, Global Director of Corporate Warranty & Governance from Hewlett Packard gave the opening presentation on the strategic importance of warranty.
HP spends [...]

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The unrealized power of data

February 20, 2009

Syndicated from Smart Data Collective
Andreas Weigend, former amazon.com Chief Scientist, gave a keynote on the unrealized power of data. He started with a historical perspective. In the 70s perhaps 10M used computers, mostly in the back office. By the 80s this had reached 100M and the front office. By the 90s the internet and search [...]

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