Posted by Ciara Conifrey on Mon, Mar 11, 2013 @ 07:45 AM
So we are hearing a lot about Big Data these days. So in what context is it relevant to you – you may be wondering? Well Big Data is about the 3V’s – Volume, Velocity, and Variety. It is basically where so much data is being collected and at such a pace that it overwhelms traditional databases (think SQL, Oracle). As a result, it requires another way to manage it. A higher-performance but a much more costly way to store and analyse data is by putting it in an enterprise data warehouse (EDW) such as Teradata. The downside is that these warehouses do not come with end-user analytic tools. So this is where QlikView comes into play as it allows business user’s access to Big Data plus other data found in spread sheets or traditional databases. QlikView combines them into one view for meaningful analysis and data discovery. When there is lots of data, it’s even more important that the analytic tool is simple and helps to simplify the decision making process. QlikView is very intuitive – and business users’ love that it is so easy to use.
Most vendors today are focused solely on processing the massive volumes of Big Data. This is an important problem area to solve. But they are not focused on the last part—on giving everyday business users access to the relevant parts of that data and enabling them to derive insights from it. When QlikView is used for analysis of Big Data, customers can apply procedures like loop and reduce, document chaining, and QVDs (QlikView data files) to 1) put just the most relevant data in the hands of business users, and 2) meld the Big Data with other data sources (e.g., CRM systems, ERP systems, local spread sheets, cloud data sources, etc.) to provide context.
The challenges of ordinary BI are exacerbated by the volume, velocity, and variety of Big Data. Deriving the types of business value McKinsey describes taking Big Data the last mile into the hands of business users. The question is: how do you deliver data services to the people who need it? How do you empower business users with self-service and give them an excellent experience that will keep them coming back for more? How do you enable them to explore the data on their own and in groups to discover insights? To make discoveries that helps them innovate? How do you help them simplify decision making, and turn decisions into action? The simple answer to all of the above is – QlikView, which facilitates all of the above.
Business Discovery is a whole new way of doing things as it focuses on the business user and the groups and organizations they exist in, rather than the top-down approach of traditional BI. QlikView takes an approach that provides information and analysis precisely focused on the business problems business users are trying to solve. It’s also about helping users share knowledge and analysis across individuals, groups and organizations. QlikView is based on an App Model, they're easy to create and quick to deploy for specific people and groups that require them.
| QlikView is remixable, meaning users remix and reassemble data in new views and create new visualizations on the fly for deeper understanding, allowing individuals to constantly shift the analysis to meet their new and changing business requirements. Social and collaborative capabilities are another hallmark. Decisions are rarely made in a vacuum or based on a single dashboard or report as they’re often made collaboratively in groups and meetings. A significant benefit of QlikView is that it enables collaborative decision-making through social business discovery. It empowers companies and organizations to create a community of users who co-create apps, communicate with each other in context of their decision apps, and explore business data collaboratively, to drive knowledge that can cascade across an organization. QlikView also offers total mobility for its users as it can be viewed or delivered anywhere or anytime, whether it is an iPad, iPhone, laptop or desktop. |
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Download the whitepaper Big Data for Big Insustries or Call Covali today on +353 12939302 or +44 207 5588 029 to book a demo.
Posted by Noel Shannon on Fri, Feb 08, 2013 @ 10:54 AM
All this talk about 'Big Data' - well it's not much use if you cant get any value out of it. That's why we are directing significant resources towards building a new breed of Apps that will work out-of-the-box so that you can get immediate value from this 'Big Data' Check out our 'Profitability App' which makes it so easy to find out if you are making a profit. 'We already know that!'' I hear you say - Yes but do you know what areas of your business are the most profitable? The least profitable? The products or customers that are trending down over the recent weeks or months compared to last year? Hmm - not so easy when you have 'Big Data'. See this news release from GoodData and check out our Apps by clicking here
San Francisco, Calif. — February 7, 2013. Today, GoodData® announced that its partners are now able to build, promote and sell their own customized Bashes™ from the GoodData BashMarketplace™. The GoodData BashMarketplace is a library of pre-built business analytics mashups called GoodData Bashes. Partners and customers can create and access Bashes from this ecosystem to address their specific business needs.
With this announcement, consulting firms, systems integrators and solution providers have access to GoodData’s resources and ecosystem reach to add significant data driven revenue to their businesses.
Bashes, built on GoodData’s leading Big Data Monetization platform, include integrations, reports, analytics, key performance indicators and best practices rolled into a visually stunning user experience. GoodData Bashes allow any business person, in any size company, to collect and process data from multiple sources, turning it into meaningful insights that they can act on, from any device.
“Our partners can now monetize their domain expertise through a combination of Bashes and GoodData services,” said Cody Crnkovich, Vice President of Channels and Alliances at GoodData. “Leveraging GoodData’s unique solution provider program, consultancies and VARs have a significant opportunity to create new recurring revenue from big data based around their core competencies on our industry-leading platform.”
The GoodData partner Bash and professional services revenue increased four times in the second half of 2012. Many leading cloud solution providers are building GoodData Bashes, including ACR Analytics, Alternative Technology Solutions, Bitbang, Bluewolf, Covali, DemandGen, EmeraldCube, Keboola, Levementum, LyntonWeb,Samuraiz, Strategy Lab and Zero One Consulting.
Covali Sales & Profitability Bash
Covali is a highly experienced consulting firm specializing in providing integrated and advanced reporting and business intelligence (BI) solutions. Through this partnership, enterprises will now have the ability to analyze data from their Microsoft, Sage or MySql ERP systems. Covali is first to market with a Bash that integrates cloud BI technology with onsite data systems. The initial business applications will focus on sales and margins, customer value, supplier performance and financial performance.
“We are excited to become a preferred delivery partner for GoodData,” said Noel Shannon, CEO of Covali. “This partnership will enable us to utilize our key strengths and deep web analytics knowledge to give customers a unique level of meaningful insight into their data. We will work hard to uphold the GoodData standard and are honored to be an extension of their delivery team.”
Samuraiz Business Performance Monitoring Bash
Samuraiz Coporation is a software, middleware and cloud service distributor providing total support in marketing, sales and service for global advanced IT vendors and serving enterprise customers in Japan. Samuraiz provides advanced software, middleware and cloud services to reinforce business strategy of Japanese companies.
“We believe that the evolving Bash ecosystem powered by GoodData in Japan accelerates the business of many Japanese companies and brings enormous benefit to them,” said Ritaro Tani, President of Samuraiz. “As our first step of introducing GoodData to the Japanese market, we are developing a business performance monitoring Bash especially for Salesforce.com users in Japan. We are going to add further benefits through mashups of Webtrends’ analytics data, Compuware Gomez’s user experience data and Japanese social analytics data to Samuraiz solutions powered by GoodData.”
Zero One Digital Media Bash
ZeroOne helps companies improve communications, streamline processes, and develop new revenue channels with strategy, design and cloud technology. By collaborating with GoodData, Zero One is able to offer digital media clients data driven insights into their customer quality, content efficiency and audience profiles.
“In new media, it is critical to identify, obtain, and retain deep customer relationships that drive recurring revenue,” said John Miller, Principal at Zero One Consulting. “The problem is that you need more than Google Analytics to do this. Our Media Bash provides immediate, actionable insights. We are very excited to team with GoodData on this innovative offering.”
Levementum xRM Bash
Levementum is a leading Cloud Solutions Provider, with a focus on helping organizations run business applications like messaging, collaboration, CRM and analytics in the cloud. By developing hybrid cloud solutions upon industry leading platforms, such as Salesforce.com, GoodData, SugarCRM and Magento, Levementum helps customers leverage the power of the cloud for their businesses. Levementum’s advanced relationship management analytics solutions powered by GoodData extend the value of CRM and Commerce solutions by providing measurable insights that optimize activity and enable smart data driven decisions.
“The power of GoodData to gather data from cloud applications, the web and other social outlets to provide businesses with real-time insight into business performance and customer behavior adds to the value of the CRM and Commerce solutions Levementum provides to our clients,” said Doug Guilbeau, Managing Partner and EVP Operations at Levementum. “This combination of intelligence will allow businesses to make better decisions for measurable results.”
DemandGen Demand Analytics Bash
DemandGen International is a global consulting firm helping progressive companies leverage marketing automation and CRM systems including Eloqua, Marketo and Salesforce. DemandGen has built a solid reputation as the trusted advisor to the world’s leading marketing and sales teams for their vast expertise in building award-winning lead management systems. Their passion for helping clients measure marketing’s success led the company to develop a Demand Analytics Bash powered by GoodData. The Marketing Performance Management Dashboard™ provides insight into marketing’s contribution to pipeline and revenue.
“Our goal was to find this proverbial ‘Holy Grail’ for Marketing, and GoodData allowed us to build it,” said David Lewis, Founder and CEO at DemandGen International. “We believe our clients need to show how Marketing activities and results tie to the strategic objectives of the business. Our GoodData Bash is a game changer for providing executives with a clear picture of Marketing’s value and contribution.”
About GoodData
GoodData provides a cloud-based platform and apps that enable more than 8,000 global businesses to monetize big data. GoodData is headquartered in San Francisco and is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst Partners, Fidelity Growth Partners, Next World Capital, Tenaya Capital and Windcrest Partners. For more information, read our blog, visit our website and follow @gooddata on Twitter.
©2013 GoodData Corporation. All rights reserved. GoodData, Bash, GoodBash, GoodSales Bash, GoodSuccess Bash, GoodMarketing Bash, GoodSubscription Bash, BashMarketplace, and others are trademarks of GoodData Corporation in the United States and other jurisdictions. Other names used herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.
Posted by Noel Shannon on Wed, Feb 06, 2013 @ 04:16 AM
3 February 2013 by Leslie Faughnan in The Sunday Post
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ed Covali is a three-year-old specialist company designing and delivering advanced analysis and business intelligence solutions. Its QlikPower division is a QlikView BI partner, and it works also with the GoodData cloud BI platform.
Covali chief technical officer Paddy Moore is an industry veteran and a strong advocate of the growing importance of the data scientist in the rapidly evolving field of analytics. "We used to call it 'innovational analytics' but, in truth, the terms do not matter too much because, as always in IT, they change over time anyway."
"Whatever it is called, this is a role for a rational brain. Actionable insights are what the clients or bosses are looking for, but they have to be accurate, scientific and evidence-based," Moore said.
"I would suggest a data scientist needs three characteristics or skillsets. ICT knowledge is basic, statistical and analytical mastery is the science being applied, and then the results have to be presented. I'm inclined to think that very strong communications skills and clarity in business terms are at least as important as the technical side."
There is a common misconception that data science looks at all the data in a given case and then comes to conclusions or insights, Moore said. "But actually it is based on the reiterated scientific principle. You take in a certain hypothesis, test it against the data and see if and to what extent it stands up. In business, practical analytics will take directions from marketing or sales or wherever. There will also, of course, be standard analytical tools for common business functions that are simply applied to the specific business and its data.
"You are always looking for true, underlying facts that may not be readily visible or are suspected but the organisation needs confirmation and as much accurate information as possible. The process is essentially human-led," Moore said, "but machine supported."
More and more database and data management software is being designed not so much to store and retrieve data, he said, as to contain it so that it can be readily analysed and exploited.
"Another broad trend is to combine your business data with other information which is potentially relevant but not created or owned by you. That might be public information or third party analysis or sector data or whatever. This is where the hope is that Big Data will deliver on the hype," Moore said.
"Understanding or predicting constantly shifting consumer sentiment is the promise and clearly any enterprise will want to do that and apply it to profits."
To see Covali's Business Intelligence applications in action - click here
Posted by Noel Shannon on Thu, Jan 10, 2013 @ 09:45 AM
We have been told by industry watchers for many years now that Business Intelligence is at or near the top of the agenda for senior executives for the coming year – and this one is no exception. The likes of IDC, Gartner and Forrester have all predicted continuous growth for this sector over the next few years – and sub categories for Big Data, Mobile Data and Analytics have emerged.
The promise of Business Intelligence is to make relevant data available, in an intuitive fashion to allow everyone gain better insight into what’s going on in their organisations, and thereby make better decisions.
This is obviously a good thing – so why are BI tools not used everywhere and by everyone, and why are they used by only a small group of people in most organisations?
Having been involved in selling Business Intelligence solutions for many years now, I am aware more than ever that we are preaching to the converted when we present the arguments in favour of implementing these systems. Everyone agrees that they would benefit from a better handle on their data, better visualisation of trends and better analysis of the underlying exceptions through easy data manipulation and comparison.
Nonetheless we are still seeing reluctance in the organisations we deal with on regular basis to implement Business Intelligence solutions and I suggest that the reasons for this lack of enthusiasm might be because many people believe the following:-
1. They are still quite expensive - The perception is that the entry level price for most BI systems is somewhere north of €20k and the cost of adding users is also quite high.
2. They take a long time to implement - many BI implementations can take months to get going and often times the entusiasm which was present at the demo has been dissipated by the delay in delivering the real solution. This is because most BI applications start from scratch and tend to offer a completely tailored solution for each new customer.
3. They are difficult to learn and to use - Often times you will need to send users on a training course in order to learn how to use the system and it is also often necessary to train 'power users' to an even greater degree.
The reason most people use spreadsheets to do their Business analysis and data manipulation is because thay are cheap - readily available and you can teach yourself how to use them. They have many limitations as we know but they are in use everywhere despite this.
In response to this Covali has developed out-of-the-box Business Intelligence Applications – known as the Q Series on the QlikView Platform. They are also available in the Cloud as Covali Apps on the GoodData Platform.
These apps address the issues above as follows:-
1. They are low cost and also available on a subscription basis. It is also easy to add users and increase storage requirements.
2. They are available immediately with connectors for most ERP systems like Microsoft, Sage and Oracle. Other connectors can be delivered as required.
3. These new breed of apps are simple to use and require no training – you just put add your data and they will work straight away.
The apps already developed on QlikView are for Accouts Receivable, Accounts Payable, Inventory management and Financial Control. These are being moved to the cloud and will be offered on a subscripion basis.
Please feel free to contact us to check out these apps – we can organise a free trial or give you access to the demo if you would like to get a better understanding. Alteratively we can send you a copy of the recent webinar on the subject.
Please click here to arrange a meeting/demo or conversation.
Posted by Joe Maume on Mon, Jul 23, 2012 @ 09:28 AM
I read an interesting article today Fastest-Growing Category of Cloud Computing: Business Intelligence and Analytics. Here is some of what was said
"To be sure, we’re still only in the early stages cloud-based BI and analytics. A new survey report from Saugatuck Technology concludes that, as of year-end 2011, only about 13% of enterprises worldwide – including all industries and all sizes of enterprises – indicated that they had cloud-based BI/advanced analytics solutions in place and in use. 
But this is about to change. Saugatuck’s survey also shows that cloud-based BI and analytics will be among the fastest-growing cloud-based business management solution types through the next two years. Cloud-based BI and analytics will see an 84% compound annual growth rate over this period. This is based on a survey sample of 200 user enterprise IT and business leaders, along with input from about 30 vendors.
BI and analytics — whether on-premises or in the cloud — has long been the hottest area of software. Even when the economy and IT spending are down, companies still keep spending on BI, because it helps provide data-driven clarity and some predictability in market trends, and therefore quickly pays for itself.
“Inevitably, cloud is opening up business intelligence and analytics to more users — non-analysts — within organizations”. There already is a drive to make BI more ubiquitous, and the cloud will accelerate this move toward simplified access.
Not only do cloud-based BI solutions have advantages over on-premises BI for the usual reasons (rapid deployment, low upfront cost; quick and cheap scalability for processing, storage, operations and accessibility), but there are advantages specific to BI applications
For example, cloud-based BI enables the instant propagation of updates and changes, “of particular importance due to changes in data sources, and need to include new types of analysis,” but it also more cost-effectively supports a wider variety of initiatives, including one-time analyses, experimentation, trial deployments, broadening of the usage base, and agile development/deployment.” Cloud also offers a way to better share data with business partners and the supply chain".
Cloud computing is the ideal way for small and medium sized businesses to get the technology that previouly was only available to large multi-national companies. To learn more about how cloud computing can help small and medium sized businesses read our blog post 
Posted by Joe Maume on Thu, Jun 07, 2012 @ 04:12 AM
I came across a very intriguing article the other day Decision Making Is Inherently Collaborative and one comment which really struck me was
"In my view, for an organization to develop a widespread culture of inquiry, people need to be able to communicate easily within the context of their decision apps. They need to be able to explore data together, whether they are online at the same time or not. They need to be able to easily co-create analytic apps so they can get to answers more quickly. So in my view any definition of next-generation analytics can’t be just about the data — it must also include the insights that reside in peoples’ heads, and provide a mechanism for unlocking and spreading this institutional knowledge". 
I completely agree with this comment and I feel that it is dangerous for businesses to think we have the data now everyone go off and do your own thing. That kind of attitude leads to a lot of duplication of effort and wasted time. Collaboration is key to better business decisions, the knowledge and skills that one employee has could be crucial to a task that another is doing. Effective Collaboration among employees can give a business a huge competitive advantage and help lead them to the top of the pack. This is one of the things QlikView can help businesses achieve. As QlikView is excellent at allowing multiple users to explore data together and co-create analytic apps to make better decisions quicker.
If you want to learn more about the collaborative qualities of QlikView you can check out our blog article Business Intelligence The Right Way, with QlikView
Posted by Joe Maume on Thu, May 17, 2012 @ 10:15 AM
I read an interesting article the other day Enterprise resource planning functions differently on premises or in the cloud. This is one of the big questions in modern day business, as company leaders the world over are debating whether to switch over to the cloud or not. I thought this paragraph in the article was quite useful 
"One of the business solutions being bandied about quite a bit these days is the cloud. It may seem like a fad, but the computing power of remotely hosted software (or software as a service [Saas]) is undeniable especially when one considers the cost.
In fact, that is the primary decision that enterprises have to make when they're deciding how the architecture of their commercial software systems is going to function. The upside of a cloud-hosted suite of applications is that organizations won't have to spend nearly as much money on implementations, new equipment and tracking updates. Therefore, smaller and medium-sized businesses will often select this type of enterprise resource planning".
I agree completely with the author that cost is for most organisations the primary factor in deciding how the architecture of their commercial software systems is going to function. Businesses want good software but importantly they want it at a good price. This I, feel is what QlikPower excels at, providing a set of Business Intelligence applications that integrates with Sage, Microsoft Dynamics and other ERP systems. These apps offer great value and are of outstanding quality as they have been developed using QlikView, the world's fastest growing analytics and business intelligence technology.
We even have a blog post about what makes QlikView unique 
Posted by Noel Shannon on Wed, May 09, 2012 @ 06:57 AM
Alfresco, the cloud connected content platform, recently announced that it has appointed QlikTech’s CEO Lars Bjork to its Board of Directors. Why has Lars taken on this position - in answer he said, "Alfresco is in a similar position to where QlikTech was just a few short years ago, with a huge market opportunity. With its unique combination of enterprise-proven cloud, mobile and on-premise content management, Alfresco has all the components to help enterprises navigate the shift to mobile and cloud productivity. Enterprises don't need a Dropbox alternative - they need Alfresco."
I think this is further evidence of the view that mobile and cloud productivity offers a bright future for technology companies. I also believe that it confirms the position that QlikView will move more and more to embrace these technologies.
Under Lars’ leadership, QlikTech has sustained tremendous growth while considerably expanding its geographic reach. Lars oversaw the company’s initial public offering (IPO) in 2010, which was recognized as one of the year’s top tech IPOs. Since taking the CEO position in 2007, the company has grown almost 400% from $80.6M to $320.6M, which is the valuable experience Lars brings to Alfresco as part of his role on the board.
Posted by Noel Shannon on Tue, May 01, 2012 @ 10:48 AM
The vision for QlikView was presented at the annual Qonnections partner summit in Miami last week. QlikTech VP Product Management Donald Farmer presented the themes for “QlikView.next,” the code name for the next generation of the QlikView Business Discovery platform.
QlikView.next will be a series of software releases centered around these themes:
- Gorgeous and genius. QlikView.next will continue to win the hearts of QlikView business users and IT professionals alike with a user interface that is intuitive, fun, and highly productive. QlikView.next will make it easier than ever before for users to understand the context of numbers by exploring associations, comparisons, and implications.
- Compulsive collaboration. Compulsive collaboration is collaboration that is so natural and easy that people can’t resist participating. QlikView.next will put QlikView at the forefront of users’ shared decision making.
- Mobility with agility. This theme is about access to full Business Discovery from any device. We are designing the QlikView.next user experience starting with mobile first, rather than developing a desktop experience and then modifying it to work on tablets and smartphones.
- Enabling the new enterprise. With QlikView.next, IT pros will be able to optimize their QlikView environments and offer self-service Business Discovery to growing numbers of users, utilizing ever-increasing volumes and variety of data.
- The premier platform. With QlikView.next, we are continuing to focus on delivering platform capabilities like data connectivity and application programming interfaces to our customers and partners. This theme is about enabling customers and partners to quickly and easily deliver apps and solutions that are perfectly relevant to their users and customers.
QlikTech are moving full speed ahead to execute on the QlikTech mission statement: “simplifying decisions for everyone, everywhere.” The primary influences on our vision for QlikView.next include the consumerization of IT, social software taking root at work, pervasive mobility and device independence, and the Big Data explosion. To learn more, check out the new QlikView white paper, “The Vision for ‘QlikView.next.’”
Posted by Noel Shannon on Tue, Mar 27, 2012 @ 12:33 PM
Most executives rely on spreadsheets and static reports for making decisions – but this does not allow you to discover relationships between the various elements in your business or to delve deeper for a better understanding on how you can improve the bottom line.
A recent survey by Nucleus found analytics enabled improved visibility in three areas:
Get the Report
Revenues. The more managers knew about what customers were buying and why, the better able they were to accelerate sales cycles, cross sell, and maximize pricing.
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Gross margin. By serving up highly granular data on costs of goods sold, analytics applications helped decision makers identify the highest margin products so that they could push the right products and increase gross profit.
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Expenses. Operating costs were also important. The more managers of cost centers and lines of business learned about their operating costs as a result of an analytics deployment, the better able they were to reduce or eliminate expenditures that were unnecessary or generated low returns.
QlikPower has developed The Q Series of analytic applications that will work with your data to deliver rapid results and at a low cost.
Fill out this form The Q Series and we will contact you to show you how we can deliver analytics for your business.