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April 10, 2008 Key Performance Indicators and More Key Performance Indicators How are we doing? Is that new BI system making a difference for us? As many of you have probably already heard through various seminars and trade journals, you can't tie business intelligence and enterprise data warehouse to the business until you have key performance indicators, or KPIs, in place. KPIs help measure the impact of a BI/DW effort in tangible business increments, such as numbers of widgets sold to particular customers, or decreased error rates, or decreased customer complaints, and so on. Claudia Imhoff points to a new site that actually provides an entire library of KPIs, available for adoption at no charge. The KPI Library -- "Where good KPI definitions meet." (Free registration required to view entire library.) The site now has close to 1,000 KPIs, spanning 16 business areas, including finance, governance and compliance, human resources, IT, legal, outsourcing, and procurement. Typical KPIs in the library include the following: - % of (preferred) suppliers not used in last 12 months ...I should make sure my clients use this one :-) - Market share gain comparison % - Ad click-through ratio (CTR) - Cash dividends paid - Share price - Perfect Order Measure - Average customer recency - Average number of trackbacks per post - % of service requests posted via web (self-help) - Total energy used per unit of production - Cumulative Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) Posted by joemckendrick in BI • Management • Performance Management  |  Permalink  | Comments (0)  | TrackBacks (0) February 27, 2008 IBM Leverages Cognos My colleague Elizabeth Book Kratz caught this nugget of valuable information related to the IBM-Cognos acquisition, buried in IBM's latest announcement about its new System z10 mainframe: IBM today is announcing new Information on Demand software for System z, including Cognos 8 Business Intelligence (BI) for System z. IBM Cognos 8 BI for System z combines the proven reporting and analysis capabilities of IBM Cognos 8 BI with the power and reliability of System z, enabling customers to use their data for competitive advantage, improve decision-making and optimize their business performance. IBM is also announcing a Cognos 8 BI for Linux on System z customer beta program. IBM Cognos 8 BI for Linux on System z will be available in the second half of 2008. IBM’s Information on Demand strategy is helping customers gain access to the right information they need, when they need it, along with key business insights needed to address and respond to changing market demands. By deploying Cognos 8 BI for Linux on System z, customers will be able to easily report and analyze hundred of millions of transactions directly on the mainframe - ensuring everyone across the organization can quickly identify and respond to critical business trends. IBM is also announcing the immediate availability of DB2 for z/OS Value Unit Edition, which provides a new one-time-charge offering that enables the deployment of new application workloads. This offering strengthens the role of System z as a cornerstone for key business initiatives such as SOA, Data Warehousing, Business Intelligence and packaged applications such as SAP. DB2 for z/OS Value Unit Edition and IBM Information Server enable System z clients to further deliver trusted information for their dynamic warehousing requirements. In addition, IBM will bring new Master Data Management capabilities to System z in the second half of this year. This will include the InfoSphere Master Data Management Server for Linux on System z, which allows businesses to centrally manage customer, product, and account data for use across an enterprise. With the Cognos 8 BI toolset, IBM is prepared to move into the next realm of data management and analytics in a big way. Posted by joemckendrick in BI Vendor Watch • Business Intelligence • Data Management • Decision Support • Performance Management  |  Permalink  | Comments (0)  | TrackBacks (0) September 29, 2007 Cognos Acquires Applix: What's the Deal With That? Earlier this month, the BI vendor world grew just a tad smaller when BI giant Cognos announced it was acquiring performance management vendor Applix for $339 million. Craig Schiff provided some insights on what the acquisition means to the BI/analytics world here. Craig, a leading business performance management analyst, observes that the acquisition gives Cognos a leg up in the financial performance management arena, an area it has been angling for in recent years. He adds that "Cognos will now have its own profitability analysis solution. Also, the combined entity will be a force to be reckoned with in the mid-market." The main negative that Craig sees with the acquisition is product overlap between the two companies. "Although I have not seen PowerPlay and [Applix] TM1 go head to head in many deals and they have very different strengths, the products have been presented in a similar manner from a marketing perspective." The Applix acquisition may only be the beginning for Cognos. As CFO Magazine's Roy Harris observes, Cognos CFO Tom Manley recently hinted that Cognos is looking to acquire more vendors in the analytics and performance management space. "We want to be the independent supplier of performance management solutions," he is quoted as saying. Posted by joemckendrick in Performance Management  |  Permalink  | Comments (0)  | TrackBacks (0)