Izenda Embedded Analytics and Technology Blog

Mar 30
0

Finding Golden Nuggets in Your Data

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

Film stripThe New York Times, in a March 22 article, focused on the challenges for Kodak, the onetime king of photography, as it attempts to redefine itself in a fast-changing business environment.

Kodakโ€™s researchers actually invented digital photography in the ’90s, but the company remained focused on the revenue generated from traditional photography. Even before cameras became an essential part of the smartphone, sales for traditional film were plummeting.

โ€œFor Kodak, the advent of digital photography was ruinous. Today it has $2 billion in annual sales, compared with $19 billion in 1990 when consumer film was king. It now has 8,000 employees worldwideอพ it had 145,000 at its peak,โ€ the Times article points out.

The point here is to not single out Kodak for any past decisions or performance. The list of large 20th Century companies that could not adapt to a changing technological (or consumer) landscape is endless. Read More

Mar 27
0

Understanding the Value of Small Data

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

Izenda Tech Blog logoMuch has been written about big data and how it is revolutionizing business and business intelligence. Today, weโ€™re going to give some recognition to aย less hyped sibling โ€“ small data.

Allen Bonde, VP of Product Marketing and Innovation at Actuate, has been written about small data in many places, includingย the Small Data Group blog. His definition of small data:

โ€œSmall data connects people with timely, meaningful insights (derived from big data and/or โ€œlocalโ€ sources), organized and packaged โ€“ often visually โ€“ to be accessible, understandable, and actionable for everyday tasks.โ€

Put even more simply, big data is about machines; small data is about people. Read More

Mar 25
0

Data ‘Hot Career Field’ for Students

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

Izenda Tech Blog logoIf anyone still has any doubts that the movement toward data-driven business is accelerating, take a look at the nationโ€™s campuses.

Bachelorโ€™s degrees in statistics have jumped 95% since 2010, according to Fortune magazine, citing new data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and reported by the American Statistical Association (ASA).

Computer science remains a leading STEM major (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics), with a 92% increase in degrees over the same period. Programming and software development are not far behind. Read More

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 donโ€™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 worldโ€™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 18
0

Two-Day .NET Online Conference Begins

By | For Developers, IT and Engineering, Microsoft, Technology, The Cloud

dotnetThe dotnetConf, a free, two-day virtual event co-organized by the .NET community and Microsoft, begins Wednesday. The online conference helps developers create desktop, mobile, web, and cloud-based applications using the .NET Framework.

The third annual event picks up from last Juneโ€™s two-day event. Day 1 features 10 talks with the latest on updates to .NET with the developers and program managers who are building the framework. Thursday features a whole day dedicated to .NET-related projects created by the community, partners and other Microsoft groups. 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 itโ€™s clear that many organizations are still slowย 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 consultancyย 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 โ€œcritically importantโ€ 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 โ€œ4 Reasons Data Driven Small Businesses Are Embracing Big Data.โ€

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

A Tuesday press release from Izenda and Pareto Business Group, ย a Windsor, Ontario-based company, confirmed that statement. Pareto chose Izenda as a technology partner โ€œbecause it provides enterprise class capabilities and superior usability, a value that allows for white-labeling to the small and mid-sized market.โ€ (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. Aย 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 โ€œThe Consumerization of BI Drives Greater Adoption.โ€ Its main focus, the thinking at that time, was that business-intelligence tools were too difficult to use, slow to respond or didnโ€™t deliver relevant content. A key sentence from Gartnerโ€™s press release: โ€œBI users want to be able to just pick up and use the technology โ€” they don’t want to have to read the manual.โ€

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. โ€œReporting 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,โ€ analyst George Anadiotis wrote.

Itโ€™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 โ€œDisrupt IT: A New Model for IT in the Digital Age.โ€

โ€œRather 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,โ€ Cox told TechTarget. Read More