Izenda Embedded Analytics and Technology Blog

Mar 23
0

Leveraging BI to Maintain Competitive Edge

By | BI Innovation, Big Data, Business, Customer Success, For Developers, IT and Engineering, Technology, The Cloud
Izenda Tech Blog logoIf you are following the business intelligence space, it seems that there are new surveys every week confirming the growing use of BI in a competitive landscape.

Whether the research comes from academia, research analysts, consultants, large enterprise solutions providers or smaller BI vendors, it all points in the same direction: We live in a fast-paced, data-driven world. Those organizations who don’t keep up will be left behind.

A global report from the consulting company Capgemini is one of the latest in a massive deluge of studies, which reflect this acceleration of data growth and the business world’s attempts to keep pace with it. Their survey found that 64 percent of enterprises in North and South America, Europe and Asia-Pacific believe that big data is changing traditional business boundaries. It also found:

  • 58% expect to face increased competition from start-ups enabled by data
  • 24% of companies report disruption from new competitors moving into their industry

Read More

Mar 16
0

Security Worries Hold Back Cloud BI Adoption

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

Izenda Tech Blog logoUser adoption of cloud business intelligence tools has jumped over the past three years and will continue to grow, but it’s clear that many organizations are still slow to take the leap because of security concerns even if they’re unfounded, according to multiple observers.

SearchBusinessAnalytics recently explored that hesitation in an interview with Howard Dresner, founder, president and chief research officer at consultancy Dresner Advisory Services. His company has conducted an annual Wisdom of Crowds Cloud Business Intelligence Market Study since 2012.

The article points out the Dresner survey found nearly two-third of the vendors consider cloud BI “critically important” to their businesses. However, more than half of them have no plans for cloud deployments. Read More

Mar 11
0

SMBs Expect BI Solutions

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

A recent article Small Business Trends article offers “4 Reasons Data Driven Small Businesses Are Embracing Big Data.”

pareto_colorThe article includes this telling quote: “Previously the exclusive domain of statisticians, large corporations and information technology departments, the emerging availability of data and analytics – call it a new democratization – gives small businesses and consumers greater access to cost-effective, sophisticated, data-powered tools and analytical systems.”

A Tuesday press release from Izenda and Pareto Business Group,  a Windsor, Ontario-based company, confirmed that statement. Pareto chose Izenda as a technology partner “because it provides enterprise class capabilities and superior usability, a value that allows for white-labeling to the small and mid-sized market.” (Read the full press release on PRWeb.) Read More

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
0

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