Izenda Embedded Analytics and Technology Blog

Mar 09
0

BYOD and Self-Service BI: Empowering End-Users

By | BI Innovation, Big Data, Business, Customer Success, For Developers, IT and Engineering, Izenda Reports, Technology, The Cloud

Close-up-of-businessman-using-tablet-computer-smDid you BYOD to work today? BYOD, or Bring Your Own Device, has been evolving as a business practice since at least 2009 in many industries. The idea of employees using their own laptops, tablets or cellphones for work has many supporters and many skeptics, especially those worried about security.

Regardless of viewpoint, BYOD is here to stay. A November 2014 study from Tech Pro Research found 74 percent of responding companies permit or plan to permit BYOD. Their study also looked into the impact wearables and the IoT (Internet of Things) are having on BYOD policies. Read More

Mar 06
0

Consumerized BI Drives User Adoption

By | BI Innovation, Big Data, Business, Customer Success, For Developers, IT and Engineering, Technology

Main-File2In July 2011, Gartner released a report “The Consumerization of BI Drives Greater Adoption.” Its main focus, the thinking at that time, was that business-intelligence tools were too difficult to use, slow to respond or didn’t deliver relevant content. A key sentence from Gartner’s press release: “BI users want to be able to just pick up and use the technology — they don’t want to have to read the manual.”

Today, Gartner, Gigaom Research, Forrester and others are all focusing on the benefits of self-service BI. Gigaom, in a recent white paper underwritten by Izenda, explored the importance of embedding BI tools inside applications. “Reporting and analytics must be embedded inside applications and end-users must be able to use their interfaces not just for running reports, but for designing them,” analyst George Anadiotis wrote.

It’s no surprise that end-users, whether digital natives or older consumers weaned on Amazon, Google and Facebook, have high expectations that the applications they use at work are modern, portable and easy-to-use. In a data-driven world, they want to create their own reports, dashboards and visualizations when they want it, where they want it and on whatever device they are using. Read More

Mar 04
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Changing Business Means Changing IT

By | Business, Customer Success, For Developers, IT and Engineering, Technology

In recent weeks, this blog has focused extensively on how changing technology has affected business and the world of business intelligence. Today, we look at how those changes have impacted IT departments and executives.

hand drawing a database layout and tableAs businesses become truly digital, they look to IT to create new products and services, not simply to enable their delivery. IT is longer expected to react to what business needs, they are expected to work alongside the organization.

Ian Cox, a former CIO-turned consultant and author, is a good source on the changing IT world. TechTarget interviewed Cox, the author of “Disrupt IT: A New Model for IT in the Digital Age.”

“Rather than the hands-on, techie skills we needed in the ’90s, IT — while it’s still a technical department — [needs to] become more business-focused and to look at the IT skills required to add value to the business,” Cox told TechTarget. Read More

Mar 02
2

Talking SMAC: Redefining World of Business

By | Big Data, Business, Customer Success, Technology, The Cloud

iPad and iPhone 5Have you heard the acronym SMAC? SMAC stands for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud, the four parts of what many describe as a new “digital industrial revolution.”

The term has become a buzzword among many tech and business leaders in the past few years. “The notion of combining social, mobile, analytics and cloud into one architectural pipe is gaining traction,” reads the headline from Computerworld.

“It’s like an industrial revolution of sorts, where you’re achieving the digital critical mass of some key foundational elements,” Ed Anderson, research vice president at Gartner, told the magazine. “We have this platform in cloud services that presents us with unlimited capacity of computational resources. With mobile we have this unprecedented ability to put connectivity into the hands of individuals and devices. Analytics gives us specific insights we never had before, and social media makes it all personal.” Read More

Feb 25
1

Gartner Confirms Move to Self-Service BI

By | BI Innovation, Big Data, Business, Customer Success, For Developers, IT and Engineering, Technology

Gartner this week released its annual Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence and Analytics Platforms research, and we’re excited by one of its key findings. ByMonitor-Mockup2 2017, Gartner said the majority of business users and analysts will have access to self-service tools to prepare data for analysis.

Sound familiar? It should. Izenda has been offering self-service business-intelligence software since its inception. The move to self-service tools should not be a surprise to any organization who has embedded Izenda’s reports, dashboards, and visualizations. Their users already know the value of self-service BI.

“We are thrilled to see user-driven, self-service data discovery predicted to become mainstream in 2017,” Sanjay Bhatia, Izenda’s founder and CEO, said. “We think that most embedding strategies are incomplete. While many providers position their products as ’embedded BI’, their solutions routinely don’t go far enough.” Read More

Feb 23
1

Moving Data Beyond A ‘Faster Horse’

By | BI Innovation, Big Data, Business, Customer Success, Technology, Tips

Izenda Tech Blog logoThere is an often misused quote attributed to Henry Ford, although there is no evidence he actually said it. “If I had asked the people what they wanted, they would’ve said faster horses,” the old saying goes.

That sentence prompts a lot of discussion in business and marketing circles. Many people dismiss it, suggesting it claims organizations shouldn’t look to their customers for answers or solutions to problems. Others contend the “quote” was about not just listening but understanding your customer’s needs and asking the right questions.

Look at the phrase through the world of business intelligence and it takes a different twist. Shaun Connelly of Teradata did so in a recent blog:

“Business people can generally tell you what they want, but struggle to know or communicate what they need. To be successful, Business and IT need to collaborate, spar a little bit and figure out what’s possible in terms of objectives, analysis, and actions to drive specific results.” Read More

Feb 20
1

Five Key Features Your Application Needs

By | BI Innovation, Big Data, Business, Customer Success, For Developers, IT and Engineering, Technology, The Cloud, Tips

Izenda Tech Blog logoBusiness application-users need and expect fast, real-time business intelligence. In the past, traditional reporting methods required waiting for IT to run a report that might take days to receive. In considering an embedded self-service BI solution, here are five key features your application needs:

Flexible Fields. It’s not enough to custom-build reports. You have to have the capability to add or revise fields, and your reports and dashboards have to change in real-time, and not require waiting for IT help. Read More

Feb 18
1

Finding the Long Tail of BI in Your Company

By | BI Innovation, Big Data, Business, Customer Success, For Developers, IT and Engineering, Technology, The Cloud

For 11 years, we’ve heard the buzzword “the long tail” prominently discussed in business. First applied to companies like Amazon, the theory is that the company makes more money through the volume of sales from lesser-known books and movies over time than it does from the popular blockbusters. The long tail of the sales chart is so long that all the small sales of lesser-known products add up to something very big.

41XfrH+XPeLFormer Wired editor in chief Chris Anderson first popularized the phrase in a 2004 magazine article and expanded upon it in his 2006 book, “The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More.”

What does this have to do with business intelligence? Richard Back, a BI architect at IPL, makes the connection in a recent post for Tech Radar. He brings the long tail concept into the world of data and analytics. Read More

Feb 16
0

Leveraging IoT for Digital Business

By | BI Innovation, Big Data, Business, Customer Success, For Developers, IT and Engineering, Technology, The Cloud

In the not-so-distant future, this likely will happen when you have a car accident. Sensors, connected with smart apps, will instantly: a) Gauge how seriously you may be hurt. b) Report the accident location to police and medical personnel. c) Determine how much damage your vehicle has sustained. d) Report the accident to your insurance company. e) If warranted, offer options on how to replace the car. f) If warranted, even alert your attorneys.

Izenda Tech Blog logoSound far-fetched? Not in the world described by Daryl Plummer, Research VP and Gartner Fellow. He gave a Gartner local briefing last week in Atlanta titled “Securing Digital Business Through an Internet of Things.”

Plummer focused on the implications for business in this growing Internet of Things (IoT) world, where everyday objects and machines have network connectivity, allowing them to send or receive data. Read More

Feb 13
0

Gigaom Research Paper Stresses Embedded, Self-Service BI

By | BI Innovation, Big Data, Business, Customer Success, For Developers, IT and Engineering, News & Events, Technology, The Cloud

Gigaom Research this week released a white paper stressing the importance of embedding modern BI (reporting, dashboards and visualizations) in a user’s work application. The report, titled “Embedded Analytics in the Self-Service BI Enterprise,” was underwritten by Izenda.

Paper CoverThe white paper explores:

• Why reporting, dashboard, and analytical solutions should be embedded in applications. • Why BI solutions should democratize access to data and lift the burden from IT and data science teams. • Why reporting functionality should have a professional look and feel that is natural for users. • Why adopting a third-party solution is usually the most sensible approach for ISVs and solutions providers. Read More