Last month we held the Izenda Embedded BI User Conference for the software industry, welcoming approximately 100 attendees from across the United States – and even from across an ocean. Our President and CEO, Bill Curran, kicked things off on a high note by announcing the release of our 7 Series, the industry’s first purpose-built for embedding self-service BI platform for software companies.
We set our goal in this conference to show software product teams how embedded business intelligence (BI) and analytics solves many of the problems they’ve had in finding a suitable BI tool that answers their customers’ needs and increases user adoption.
Over two days powerful speakers, industry thought leaders, BI and analytics practitioners and technical experts discussed the future of embedded BI, participated in technical discussions and got tips on best practices with analytics.
Speakers Reveal Future for Izenda and Embedded Analytics
Speaking at the Izenda Embedded BI User Conference on Monday, our CEO made the big announcement about the new 7 Series embedded analytics platform. He pointed out the most important concept in his announcement was that this release was purpose-built. It answers the questions that Izenda continues to ask software product teams as we develop our products, “What do you need?” and “How do you need it?”
“We came to crossroads of where we needed to be. You come to a point where you go, are you willing to change? Change is not easy. You reach this pinnacle, you reach this moment and you say, what’s next?” Bill said.
Industry thought leader Wayne Eckerson’s voice can be heard across the BI and analytics landscape. The founder and principal of the Eckerson Group shared his knowledge on the future of embedded BI – and analytics in general – with the attendees from software companies in many different industries.
He shared that they should know that their customers now expect analytics within their key business applications, fitting within the workflow. Software companies might need to serve up basic reports and dashboards tailored to casual users roles to increase user adoption and customer satisfaction.
Microsoft MVP John Garland offered insight about the .NET software development ecosystem, which has seen drastic changes even in the past few months. How do software product teams know when they need to switch to the latest versions of .NET Core for their application development?
“Honestly, the pie is still baking on this,” he said.
A principal consultant and instructor at Wintellect, he advised software companies to start looking into a strategy to prepare for when their customers come to them.
“If cross platform development is very important, this is absolutely significant to you. Extremely important performance issues need to be taken care of in short order,” he said. “The tip of the spear is bumpy but it’s a fun ride.”
Sales, Marketing Help for Non-Technical Team Members
Recognizing that the business of software development requires more than code, Izenda invited speakers to offer insight into sales and marketing products. Jeff Perkins of QA Symphony shared his insight into “Big Marketing on a Small Budget.” Greg Peters of Momentum3 had advice for companies wanting to maximize their investment in Izenda. And Phil Blackstock of Sales Development Academy took on B2B business in his presentation, “Sales Development: the Key to Successful B2B Demand Generation.”
Outlining Roadmap for 7 Series, Teaching Best Practices
After hearing our President and CEO deliver news about Izenda’s 7 Series, our vice president of Development and Customer Success, Dawn Russell, shared a bit of the product roadmap for Izenda’s embedded BI and analytics platform. She and other members of the software product team answered questions about the new release in a technical panel and demo of the new release.
Plenty of customers still use our 6 Series, and our team devoted two full sessions on it. The information shared in the “Integration Best Practices & Customization Considerations” was especially helpful to those software product teams new to Izenda. Our session on best practices on report, dashboard and forms design could have lasted another hour and a half, according to some of the attendees.
At the conclusion of our user conference, we were fortunate to have many software companies asking for demos and even requests to get in the integration pipeline for our just released 7 Series. For those of you who attended, we hope you found it was a valuable experience and a wise use of your time. We hope to see you and those of you who were unable to attend at our next Embedded BI Conference and to hear from you even before then.
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