Big Data Science: Path Forward

<div style=”margin-bottom:5px”> <strong> <a href=”http://www.slideshare.net/dmallinger/big-data-science-a-path-forward&#8221; title=”BIG Data Science: A Path Forward” target=”_blank”>BIG Data Science: A Path Forward</a> </strong> from <strong><a href=”http://www.slideshare.net/dmallinger&#8221; target=”_blank”>Dan Mallinger</a></strong> </div>

Leaders Will Distance Themselves

In NewVantage’s 2012 big data survey of high-level executives and enterprise tech decision makers, a handful of firms forecasted spending more than $100 million over the next three years on big data plans. There is already a subset of firms clearly distinguishing themselves by taking strong steps to establish big data environments that run alongside and are linked to core production environments. These firms are undertaking activities such as analytical sandboxes, big data labs, and the migration of certain applications and queries to Hadoop environments. These firms will learn quickly and will outpace companies who are still considering their big data platform strategies.

BI Gravitates Toward a Mixed Bag of What Works

 http://www.information-management.com/news/bi-gravitates-toward-a-mixed-bag-of-what-works-10024436-1.html

May 24, 2013 – Working under the weight of sluggish adoption rates, business intelligence is gravitating toward more users and access through a mixed bag of new and old solutions, according to the latest annual BI survey from Dresner Advisory Services.

The “2013 Wisdom of Crowds Business Intelligence Market Study” assessed questions of 1,182 respondents across industry verticals and covering fellow researchers, enterprise IT leaders, business executives, BICC heads and vendors’ customer communities. Fifty-nine percent of respondents in 2013 came from North America, and 25 percent stemmed from Europe, the Middle East and Africa, with the rest originating in the Asia/Pacific region or Latin America.

Penetration rates for BI are about flat from last year, according to the survey and Howard Dresner, the chief research officer at the research and advisory firm. Approximately one-third of businesses reported that BI solutions were in use by less than 10 percent of employees, according to the survey. And approximately half of those surveyed for that same question reported that BI use dipped even lower. Conversely, another 18 percent of respondents stated that BI solutions were in regular use across four-fifths or more of their organization. Success rates, too, are stagnant from last year’s survey: approximately 40 percent “completely agree” their BI implementation has been a success, with about that same amount who “somewhat agree” on its success.

Dresner says penetration levels are no doubt subject to ongoing business pains ranging from business cultural bureaucracy and IT spending limits, to expanding governance and compliance. However, Dresner says that, even flat, penetration levels are encouraging compared with developing BI maturity and the scope of users from the top level executives on down. In addition, there are vast plans to expand the reach of BI: Over the next 36 months, more than 70 percent businesses surveyed intend to increase the number of users and access to BI by 41 percent from their current ranks, according to the survey.

“We are expanding access to BI solutions within the organization, so more folks have access. But I think we’re also expanding outside of the organization: contractors, customers, suppliers, the public at large,” he says. “In general, the envelope is increasing as it’s growing within the organization, and none of it as quickly as anyone thought.”

The tools and trends that businesses are opting for have proven to be a mixed bag of hot tech solutions and sometimes maligned standbys. Dashboards were the leading BI initiative from those surveyed, more than 80 percent of which labeled BI dashboards as “critical” or “very important.” Other leading BI plans were end-user self-service (70 percent labeled it as “critical” or “very important”) and advanced visualization (60 percent under the same two choices).

Small but increasingly greatly from last year were respondents moving to the cloud or as-a-service outlets, which 15 percent of those surveyed called “critical” to their BI plans. In a new area tracked in the survey, embedded applications within BI was in use by nearly 20 percent, which was a surprise to Dresner and will be the subject of a follow-up report later this year.

When it comes to business intelligence functions, the hype around big data has yet to really take hold, according to Dresner. The “panacea effect” being pushed by some vendors and forward-thinking analysts isn’t trickling through – and may not any time soon – when it comes to big data, with nearly 30 percent of those surveyed calling big data “not important” to their BI practices. Also cooling is the trend around data warehousing, which was at one point in lock-step with BI. Dresner says warehousing is firmly implanted at large enterprises, but carries enough cost and complexity for smaller and mid-sized businesses that they’re being sidestepped with emerging database software and on-demand platforms.

The choices of solutions give insight into where businesses are finding the most value and reach with BI plans, according to Dresner. Two decades after Dresner and others discussed “information democracy” as the means to general access to BI, “that’s not where we’re at.” But the solutions and trends rising in use – or falling by the wayside – are part of the evolution in what Dresner has termed the “renaissance of BI,” a step-by-step process that proves to be casting a wider net of users and more often driven in part with executive buy in.

“We’re getting better, we’re getting closer, but certainly there is a lot of room for improvement,” says Dresner. “Users have more discretionary spending than in the past. And if users are becoming the buyers, then the solutions are going to have to look a little different.”

The number of respondents represented a 40 percent increase in from last year’s survey. For more information on the 106-page report, visit here.

Justin Kern is senior editor at Information Management and can be reached at justin.kern@sourcemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @IMJustinKern.

Hot Summer Reads in Information Management

Secrets of Analytical Leaders: Insight from Information Leaders

A familiar face at conference events and in analytic writings, Wayne Eckerson returns with 20 chapters that could stand alone as essays but come together as a methodology for solid analytic practices. Eckerson talks with analyst peers and practitioners, like Nokia Senior Director of Big Data Amy O’Connor, who writes: “The way that we’ll succeed at Nokia is to create a culture that treats data as our most critical asset. The keys to making this happen are executive support, evangelism, and collaboration.

 

Data Points: Visualization That Means Something

Following on his previous big seller, “Visualize This,” Nathan Yau brings nice, modern touch to visualization, the vital but often hard-to-pin-down aspect of business data. Yau uses his expertise as a stats Ph.D. from UCLA to back up refined views on data graphics.

Using Open Source Platforms for Business Intelligence

Lyndsay Wise, founder and president of analyst firm WiseAnalytics, outlines the technical and business skills needed to get the most from open source BI. In this book, Wise seeks to give a wider understanding to “what open source is, what it does and what the benefits and challenges are of implementing it, even in terms of letting developers look at things more broadly, instead playing around with it to develop it.”

Avoiding Common Pitfalls of Unprofitable Projects

On the Money:
Avoiding Common Pitfalls of Unprofitable Projects

Wednesday, June 26, 2013
1:00 p.m. ET
Registration fee: waived,
courtesy of Deltek

  

How much do you know about the inner workings of your firm?

How much does firm leadership know about the who, what, when, and where of client engagements? Perhaps they do not know as much as one would hope. Getting the right people on the right projects at the right time is no longer a luxury for consulting firms. It’s essential to success – for both the client and the bottom line. But that success hinges on project visibility and transparency within a firm.

Explore this topic further – at no cost. Plan now to join us online June 26, and uncover answers to such critical questions as:

• Why do so many projects fail to meet firm expectations?
• What are some best practices top firms use to eliminate “scope creep”?
• Does your firm have the adequate transparency into projects and process?
• Are you tracking and measuring the right metrics?
• Are your internal systems effective in creating real value?

PLUS — get answers to your own questions during the live Q&A session immediately following the presentation.

This free webinar promises guidance on overcoming the common pitfalls of unprofitable projects.

Consulting Publisher, Editor-in-Chief and host Joe Kornik will present proprietary data from the recent Consulting magazine/Deltek Efficiency and Automation survey.

Ernst & Young’s Edwin Bennett and Leslie Blair will be on hand to discuss how to overcome some of the common profitability pain points.

Finally, Kristin Winford of Mesirow Financial Consulting will offer an inside look at Mesirow’s success, highlighting a few of the firm’s best practices.

This event is offered free of charge to consulting professionals courtesy of our sponsor, Deltek. We invite you to register now and to forward this invitation to others in your organization.