Everyone wants their businesses to become data-driven enterprises. The potential rewards are to compelling to ignore – including improved visibility into customers, markets and operations, the ability to predict what’s coming, and new paths to innovation. However, as with all good things, there’s a risky side as well – namely, that business leaders may drink... more
For years, the big data and data analytics revolutions have been associated with offices – the tools and platforms of executives, analysts and knowledge workers. But in the background, big data and data analytics has been gradually building capabilities in another critical part of the enterprise – the factory floor. Data-driven transformation is playing a... more
There is now an array of powerful technology poised to transform every organization on earth into lean, mean, data analytics-driven machines – if they let it. That’s the challenge we have before us – getting the organization on board with the promises of data analytics. A recent survey of 314 senior executives across a range... more
There’s been quite a bit of buzz and investment in cognitive computing, and all its associated pieces – machine learning, natural language processing and deep learning. It’s good to see that the AI concept has finally gained traction, as it has been the subject of excitement on and off for three decades now. Each AI... more
Data analytics guru Tom Davenport says he plans, along with co-author Jeanne Harris, to publish an update to their seminal work, Competing on Analytics, to be released in September. In honor of the 10th anniversary of its first release, he took a look back at the progress that’s been made since 2007. His observation: It’s... more
Many pundits and analysts alike are extolling the virtues of a data analytics-driven culture. An organization illuminated in the glow of data analytics is sure to outpace all competitors, while devising the next wave of cool products and services. But, what, exactly, should a data analytics-driven culture look like? It’s important to be able to... more
Digital transformation is what everybody wants, but there are many views on what constitutes a “digital transformation.” Is it online services? Is it a social enterprise? Is it legacy transformation? Is it an analytics-driven enterprise? The definition of digital enterprise may be all of the above, or maybe one of the above. What really matters... more
More and more parts of our business engagements are being driven by algorithms, and lately, there’s been a surprising revelation about these algorithms. Even the most astute data scientists among us really don’t know how many algorithms are generating the results they are issuing. This deepening mystery of Artificial Intelligence Decision-Making was recently explored by... more
Dear Mom, Even though my work often mystified you, you and Dad have been my biggest fans throughout my over 25-year data management career. Not surprising, as you were both dental professionals, not data professionals! But as you started hearing about data in the media more and more, your interest piqued to better understand... more
We’ve certainly come a long way when it comes to business intelligence (BI) and analytics, Organizations have become very adept and taking data from multiple sources and packaging it into formats for consumption by analytics engines and algorithms. While we have addressed the technical aspects of BI and analytics, the organizational challenges and data dilemmas... more