Business intelligence and analytics

Big Data in Big Companies 

The International Institute for Analytics (IIA) and SAS, assess how 20 large firms have deployed analytics to generate value from their big data assets. Continue Reading

Privacy and big data

Sixteen key questions companies need to answer when considering the privacy and governance aspects of big data Continue Reading

Online retailing means the industrialisation of analytics

Figleaves founder and eCommera chief scientist Michael Ross argues that online retailing requires a new type of action-oriented business intelligence Continue Reading

By

• Brian McKenna, Senior Analyst, Business Applications

Case study: How Premier Inn uses mobile analytics

Premier Inn's mobile app has been downloaded more than two million times and 77% of room bookings are made via the app Continue Reading

By

• Graham Jarvis

Whiteboard it – the power of graph databases

Graph databases map relationships between entities in a network. They won’t replace conventional relational databases, but for harnessing the value of interconnectedness they mark a breakthrough Continue Reading

By

• Andy Hogg, Contributor

Taylor Wimpey builds cloud forecasting process with Anaplan

Homebuilder Taylor Wimpy teams up with Anaplan to ditch its old Excel suite and head for the cloud Continue Reading

By

• Kayleigh Bateman, Computer Weekly

Virgin Media uses ETAdirect to manage engineers more predictively

Virgin Media is using predictive analytics to get the right engineer out to the right problem. It believes its use of TOA Technologies cloud-based ETAdirect system gives it a competitive advantage Continue Reading

By

• Brian McKenna, Senior Analyst, Business Applications

Big data journalism exposes offshore tax dodgers

How journalists harnessed big data to challenge offshore financial secrecy Continue Reading

By

• Duncan Campbell and Craig Shaw

The need for data speed

In this week's Computer Weekly, we find out how the McLaren Formula One team is using high-speed data analytics to improve race performance. Our new buyer's guide looks at best practices in data management. And we discuss IT leaders' frustrations about the unwanted complexities of software licensing. Continue Reading

The Economic Value of Data

Big data analytics promises to boost the profits of financial services firms, according to this report from Cognizant. Continue Reading

CW500: Back to the Future: Big Data at Channel 4

Bob Harris, Chief Technology Officer of Channel 4 Television, explains the broadcaster's approach to big data in this presentation for Computer Weekly's 500 Club. Continue Reading

Indian banks harness big data analysis amid competition

The increasing penetration of broadband and growth in smartphone usage in India are driving the development of IT-based services for bank consumers. Continue Reading

By

• Viraj V Desai

OpenCorporates makes company data public

Company data is being made available as part of an initiative to place more government data in the public domain Continue Reading

Davenport: Travel industry data pioneer has lost way but can be saved

Tom Davenport sees the travel industry as a data pioneer that has lost its way, but can be redeemed Continue Reading

By

• Brian McKenna, Senior Analyst, Business Applications

Case study: Toyota fleet management system gathers global fork-lift truck data remotely

Toyota Material Handling Europe develops operational data management system that monitors and controls fork-lift trucks globally Continue Reading

By

• Brian McKenna, Senior Analyst, Business Applications

From chess to ping pong: How Pegasystems is capturing the Fortune 500

Pegasystems is winning business from the world's leading companies as business process management technology enters the mainstream Continue Reading

By

• Bill Goodwin, Computer Weekly

Ocado delivers with in-house software development

Online grocery retailer Ocado built its own software for its own business – and now it delivers for Morrisons Continue Reading

By

• Lindsay Clark

Business value from the internet of things

In this week's Computer Weekly, we hear from manufacturing giant GE about its plan for gaining business value from the "internet of things", analysing huge amounts of machine data in an industrial internet. Our latest buyer's guide looks at HR management systems. And we look at ways to improve the detection of data breaches. Continue Reading

CIO interview: Paul Clarke, director of technology, Ocado

Paul Clarke is responsible for the technology strategy at online grocer Ocado, where IT is used in every aspect of the business Continue Reading

BI program rescue strategy: Breaking the rules

If business users are losing faith in a business intelligence team, it might be time to throw out the BI rule book and do what needs to be done, writes TechTarget's Wayne Eckerson. Continue Reading

Is it time to outsource your BI program?

TechTarget's Wayne Eckerson writes that if your business intelligence efforts aren't producing the desired business results, one option to consider might be -- yes -- outsourcing the BI initiative. Continue Reading

Inadequate datacentre infrastructure is a barrier to big data analytics

Inadequate datacentre infrastructure and siloed work practices are preventing UK enterprises from benefiting from big data analytics, shows study Continue Reading

By

• Archana Venkatraman, Datacentre Editor

An Information Architecture Vision

The Open Group assesses the "big data" problem and offers an Enterprise Information Planning and Architecture Model to help organisations make the most of their information. Continue Reading

SAP buys e-commerce company Hybris to move into CRM market

SAP is moving into the CRM market with its purchase of Hybris, a Swiss customer relationship management (CRM) supplier Continue Reading

By

• Brian McKenna, Senior Analyst, Business Applications

Sports performance data analytics fuels Opta’s business expansion

Football performance data could play a role in clubs’ scouting efforts, and even in footballer market evaluation, according to OptaSports Data Continue Reading

By

• Brian McKenna, Senior Analyst, Business Applications

Gartner: Deriving value from Big Data for CRM

Kimberly Collins, research vice-president of Gartner highlights the critical steps organisations should to take to integrate big data into Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Continue Reading

CW500: Back to the Future: Big Data at Channel 4

Bob Harris, Chief Technology Officer of Channel 4 Television, explains the broadcaster's approach to big data in this presentation for Computer Weekly's 500 Club. Continue Reading

Six steps to creating a BI competency center

TechTarget's Wayne Eckerson lays out a roadmap for setting up a successful business intelligence competency center, and breaking down BI silos, in a decentralized company. Continue Reading

Aadhaar project data collection: An interview with Mindtree's CEO

Get a view into the data collection efforts for the Aadhaar project from Krishnakumar Natarajan, the CEO at service provider Mindtree. Continue Reading

By

• Dinesh Dhiman

ARI uses HANA to power self-service BI for fleet management

ARI, the leasing and fleet management business, has used SAP HANA to boost business intelligence (BI) and predictive analytics Continue Reading

By

• Cliff Saran, Managing Editor

Embedded BI: Largely invisible, but not for long

TechTarget's Wayne Eckerson tracks the ongoing evolution of embedded business intelligence tools and sees big things ahead for the technology. Make that very big things. Continue Reading

McLaren uses high-speed data analytics to gain Formula 1 edge

The McLaren Group uses high-speed data analytics as it seeks a competitive edge for its Formula 1 racing team engineers Continue Reading

By

• Brian McKenna, Senior Analyst, Business Applications

Tesco uses big data to cut cooling costs by up to €20m

Tesco is aiming to save over €20m a year by using sophisticated analytical technology to ensure its chillers work at optimum temperature Continue Reading

By

• Bill Goodwin, Computer Weekly

Gartner: Big data will transform customer relationship management technology

CIOs need to start thinking how to integrate big data into their customer relationship management (CRM) systems, says technology analyst Continue Reading

By

• Bill Goodwin, Computer Weekly

Lean analytics to change business decision making

Attending to the “one metric that really matters” is one principle of a “lean analytics” approach Continue Reading

By

• Brian McKenna, Senior Analyst, Business Applications

SAP readies the Hana-powered enterprise cloud

SAP is making its Hana in-memory database available as a hosted service to power enterprise applications Continue Reading

By

• Brian McKenna and Cliff Saran

British Army data quality programme tackles ‘whole army’ concept

The British Army’s data quality programme faces a challenge with moves to unify regular and territorial soldiers into one force Continue Reading

By

• Brian McKenna, Senior Analyst, Business Applications

Beyond Big Data – The New Information Economy

How information is managed is more important than 'big data', say analysts Clive Longbottom and Rob Bamforth. Continue Reading

Information Security Breaches Survey 2013

Security breaches cost large businesses an average of £850,000, the 2013 Information Security Breaches Survey reveals. Continue Reading

Tesco uses supply chain analytics to save £100m a year

Understanding return on capital employed was a driving force behind an analytics programme which saves Tesco £100m in supply chain costs Continue Reading

By

• Lindsay Clark

Case study: Telefonica Ireland uses business intelligence to reduce churn

O2 Ireland, part of Telefonica, has been using Teradata’s data warehousing and Cognos BI to stop customers leaving and entice them with location-based offers Continue Reading

By

• Lindsay Clark

Change management tips for BI program managers

TechTarget's Wayne Eckerson writes that business intelligence managers can learn some valuable lessons from the book "Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard." Continue Reading

Business Outcomes from Big Data

This research study from CEB evaluates the CIO's role in making big data attainable and useful for the business. Continue Reading

CIO interview: Mary Hensher, IT director, Cancer Research UK

Charity Cancer Research has felt the impact of recession on fundraising and the need to innovate through technology is more important than ever Continue Reading

By

• Angelica Mari

Is EMC Greenplum the real Hadoop company?

EMC Greenplum launched two new Hadoop-related technologies to support Big Data deployments. Analyst Group, Nucleus Research assesses their importance. Continue Reading

Business intelligence program needs long-term tending to fully blossom

The evolution of Quicken Loans' business intelligence strategy from static reporting to self-service BI holds useful lessons for other organizations. Continue Reading

By

• Craig Stedman, Industry Editor

42% of businesses use existing IT department for big data projects

Businesses are creating in--house big data functions with 42% of big data pioneers use existing IT resources and 37% creating separate functions Continue Reading

CIO interview: Darrell Stein, IT director, Marks & Spencer

As M&S develops its multi-channel capability, Darrell Stein and his team are delivering projects focused on innovation and profitability Continue Reading

By

• Angelica Mari

Accenture delivers rapid reporting for Six Nations

In sponsoring the Six Nations Rugby tournament, Accenture has shown how rapid prototyping can be applied to building enterprise reports Continue Reading

By

• Cliff Saran, Managing Editor

CW Buyer's Guide: Big Data Infrastructure

Computer Weekly looks at the mindset and technology infrastructure businesses need to analyse big data. Continue Reading

Businesses and IT suppliers to collaborate on big data

Businesses are to collaborate to work out how to exploit the rapidly growing volume of data generated by social media, mobile devices and the internet of things. Continue Reading

By

• Bill Goodwin, Computer Weekly

Innovative business technologies in a converging world

This independently researched report investigates converging business technologies, including cloud computing, big data analytics and business intelligence. Continue Reading

Business applications, data analytics can make business lean

Centralised business apps, such as ERP and CRM can frustrate, but also make a business lean. Data analytics has a fresh Six Sigma role to play Continue Reading

By

• Stephen Pritchard

Gartner: analytics will be more transparent, real-time and automated

Analyst firm Gartner has identified three trends for analytics and BI: transparency, real-time and automation Continue Reading

Rugby Football Union uses IBM predictive analytics for Six Nations

IBM tries out predictive analytics software, TryTracker, developed in association with the Rugby Football Union (RFU) Continue Reading

By

• Simon Creasey

Sap business suite now available on Sap Hana

This analyst report from Nucleus Research assess the impact of SAPs decision to power SAP Business Suite by its SAP HANA in memory database technology. Continue Reading

CW Special Report on Oracle

This special report, updated for 2012, gives an independent view of the challenges facing Oracle, its financial performance, the services it offers, its place in the IT market and its future strategy. Continue Reading

Interview: John Harris, vice-president of global enterprise architecture, Aimia

Aimia, the organisation behind retail loyalty programme Nectar, is overhauling its IT to make the most of customer data Continue Reading

By

• Angelica Mari

Without analytics, it's 'big data, big schmada'

Data -- including big data -- has no value by itself, says TechTarget's Wayne Eckerson. It's what you do with data to gain business insights that counts. Continue Reading

Don’t make big data stand alone, warns Gartner

Gartner cautions organisations against treating big data as unique and criticises business intelligence suppliers for failing to exploit mobility Continue Reading

By

• Brian McKenna, Senior Analyst, Business Applications

Online gambling sector bets on business intelligence

Online gambling and gaming industries crave structured business data. Volumes can be huge and they need to react to customer behaviour Continue Reading

By

• Lindsay Clark

GE uses big data to power machine services business

GE, one of the UK's largest manufacturers, is using big data analytics with data generated from machine sensors to predict maintenance needs Continue Reading

By

• Cliff Saran, Managing Editor

Betting site YouWin speeds response times with MongoDB database

Bookmaker WinUnited has deployed a MongoDB open source non-relational database from 10gen to help it better update betting odds in real time Continue Reading

By

• Brian McKenna, Senior Analyst, Business Applications

SAP puts Business Suite on HANA, joins transactional to analytical

SAP has announced that its Business Suite software now runs on the HANA in-memory database Continue Reading

By

• Brian McKenna, Senior Analyst, Business Applications

King.com gaming site unlocks big data with Hadoop

Online gaming company King.com replaced its MySQL database with Cloudera’s Hadoop distribution to cope with big data Continue Reading

By

• Brian McKenna, Senior Analyst, Business Applications

CIO interview: Kevin O’Connor, Carlson Wagonlit Travel

As the new CIO at Carlson Wagonlit Travel, Kevin O’Connor is looking to bring in a new approach to the company’s IT strategy Continue Reading

By

• Angelica Mari

Data to grow more quickly says IDC’s Digital Universe study

IDC’s annual Digital Universe study finds data set to expand to 40 Zettabytes by 2020. Emerging markets and machine-generated data will account for increasing proportions of it. Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Big data analytics set to confound conventional adoption curve in UK

Big data and analytics companies predict increased adoption in the UK. MapR, Cloudera, ParAccel and Pentaho sketch out the adoption curve Continue Reading

By

• Brian McKenna, Senior Analyst, Business Applications

Scrum methodology FAQ for Indian professionals

An agile software development methodology, SCRUM has become popular in India over the last few years. Get all your Scrum-related queries answered here. Continue Reading

By

• - Staff Writer, SearchBusinessIntelligence.IN

BI catch phrases you'll hear in 2013

TechTarget's Wayne Eckerson lists six slogans that he says BI, analytics and data warehousing professionals are likely to encounter in 2013. Continue Reading

Tripartite structure best on BI 'center of excellence'

There are no rules on how to set up a business intelligence center of excellence, says TechTarget's Wayne Eckerson. But most of the ones he sees include executive, business and technical teams. Continue Reading

How to gather BI dashboard user requirements to nail business strategy alignment

Many analytical systems -- data warehouses, business intelligence systems -- fail because user requirements are not collected properly Continue Reading

By

• Mark Whitehorn, University of Dundee

Royal Free Hospital uses SAP BusinessObjects dashboards to fathom data

The Royal Free Hospital has implemented SAP’s Business Objects dashboard technology to fathom complex data more efficiently Continue Reading

By

• Brian McKenna, Senior Analyst, Business Applications

German retailer Otto invests in neural software to net future sales

German retail giant Otto improves demand forecasting with neural network technology from Blue Yonder, a predictive analytics start-up Continue Reading

By

• Lindsay Clark

Scenes from EMC Momentum Vienna 2012

EMC Momentum took place in Vienna this year, at the Messe Wien Congress Centre. 1,100 EMC attendees descended on the conference for hands-on-labs and a selection of sessions. View photos from the event here. Continue Reading

By

• Kayleigh Bateman, Computer Weekly

Unilever enterprise data warehouse locked to business programmes

Unilever is building a global enterprise data warehouse (EDW) locked into the critical paths of high-profile business programmes. Continue Reading

By

• Lindsay Clark

West Midlands Police develops golden view of criminals, suspects

West Midlands Police, the second largest force in the UK, seeks to reduce risk to its officers and the public by using DataFlux software that gives a master record for criminals and suspects. Continue Reading

By

• Brian McKenna, Senior Analyst, Business Applications

Teradata brings big data into the SQL family

Teradata addresses the issue of combining unstructured, semi-structured and traditional row-and-column data warehousing in a single architecture. Continue Reading

By

• Lindsay Clark

Analytics, Decision Making & Teams That Do It Right

Experts advise how to make the most of analytics in this report from SAS and the Harvard Business Review. Continue Reading

CW500: Managing the mobile workforce (part 1)

Mobile working has transformed Colt Telecommunications beyond recognition over the past three years Continue Reading

By

• Bill Goodwin, Computer Weekly

How to manage unstructured data for business benefit

The cloud offers some progress in the resource-sapping management of unstructured data, but it is critical to work back from the business case. Continue Reading

By

• Stephen Pritchard

Big data advice from big names, Coca-Cola and Lastminute.com

Coca-Cola's chief privacy officer and Lastminute.com's innovation head offer advice on data privacy at Big Data Europe Continue Reading

By

• Brian McKenna

Big data: Lessons from the leaders

This research from the Economist Intelligence Unit assess how far companies have progressed in their use of big data and examines how they can turn it to business advantage. Continue Reading

BI users slammed by IT as banshees and telepaths

Survey discovers IT professionals exasperated and world weary when confronted by BI users uncommunicative and exigent. Continue Reading

By

• Brian McKenna, Senior Analyst, Business Applications

From the Editor: Advanced analytics full of promise, but hard to do

Advanced analytics technology adoption has been slow, but sports analytics has been brought to the fore with the London 2012 Olympics. Continue Reading

By

• Brian McKenna, Senior Analyst, Business Applications

Predictive sports analytics put in play for Wimbledon, Formula One

Predictive analytics in sports is proving itself in tennis and car racing. Can it make the leap to team sports, long the preserve of barroom anoraks? Continue Reading

By

• Gareth Morgan, Contributor

Data virtualisation on rise as ETL alternative for data integration

The Phone House and Novartis have turned to data virtualisation from Denodo and Composite to gain a single logical view of disparate data sources. Continue Reading

By

• Gareth Morgan, Contributor

BI tool transforms planning, sales and service at TVS Motors

For TVS Motor, business intelligence tool deployment has enabled better production planning and improved sales and service. Here’s how the company did it. Continue Reading

By

• Mitchelle R. Jansen, TechTarget

BI platform standardization: Step-by-step approach

BI platform standardization is the key to improved data management and clarity on the cost per report. Follow these steps to standardize your BI with ease. Continue Reading

By

• Srinivasan Rengarajan

SAS: High-performance analytics frees data scientists to model faster

High-performance analytics on "big data" could aid European companies as they struggle to make headway in the recession, say senior SAS executives. All sectors are turning to big data, they claim. Continue Reading

By

• Brian McKenna, Senior Analyst, Business Applications

Organisational design for analytics function needs governance

Scant are the absolute rules for the organizational design of the analytics function. It can be outsourced or in-house; sit within a business unit or run from the centre. But it needs governance. Continue Reading

By

• Lindsay Clark

Making money from data: Financial business intelligence at work

Finance professionals are heavy users of BI and predictive analytics software. Find out how a variety of European finance functionaries are analysing trends, cutting costs and finding new business. Continue Reading

By

• Kristina West, Contributor

Business analytics skills shortage provokes companies to cast net wide

Organisations face lack of business analytics skills. Smart companies cast the net wide for the broadest pools of talent, help analysts learn from each other and work to ensure they realize potential. Continue Reading

By

• Lindsay Clark

IBM users reveal five data governance best practices to remember

IBM customers Nationwide Insurance and Cardinal Health reveal five rules of thumb they learned while implementing highly ambitious data governance programs. Continue Reading

By

• Mark Brunelli

India CIO Salary and Career Survey 2012

Get an insight into the expectations of CIO for 2012 in the India CIO Salary and Career Survey 2012. Continue Reading

By

• SearchCIO.IN Staff

BI Masterminds, 2012

SearchBusinessIntelligence.in presents the winners of India’s only independent business intelligence excellence awards, BI Masterminds, 2012. Continue Reading

By

• Sharon D'Souza, Reporter

Predictive analytics used to cut costs in oil sector

Predictive analytics is being used in the oil and gas industry to better manage asset maintenance on capital equipment. And a more enterprisewide adoption of the technology is predicted. Continue Reading

By

• Lindsay Clark

Deloitte spots analytics trends, ethics and open data

Deloitte identifies four analytics trends: an increased focus on ethics, the rise of open data, new business models and a refusal to do analytics for its own sake. Continue Reading

By

• Brian McKenna, Senior Analyst, Business Applications

European river managers delve into new knowledge management system

The UK’s Environment Agency has procured a semantic wiki based knowledge management (KM) system to aid river restoration across Europe. Continue Reading

By

• Brian McKenna, Senior Analyst, Business Applications

BI reporting tools set to aid decision making at Elder Pharmaceuticals

BI reporting tools are known to buttress quick decision making. In this regard, Elder Pharmaceuticals plans to deploy BI tools for data mobility. Continue Reading

By

• Sharon D’Souza, Reporter