KEEP IT SIMPLE
Business Intelligence Industry Healthcheck
Recently, we’ve been working with many companies to deliver what we call LucidEra Pipeline Healthchecks. It’s a free assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of your pipeline, your sales people, and your sales process. There’s nothing you need to do except provide us access to your sales data, and the results are ready in 48 hours. It has quickly become one of our most popular services.
It’s interesting to look at why a service like this is so popular, and why it is so valuable to customers. How is it possible that in just 48 hours, a third party can look at a company’s data and identify issues and opportunities that the company didn’t know about? In our case, when we deliver a Pipeline Healthcheck, it’s certainly the case that we don’t have in-depth knowledge of how the company works or what their biggest business challenges are. So how does a 48 hour assessment provide real value?
The answer lies in the fact that the vast majority of business people have never been taught how to analyze the area of their business that they’re responsible for. Finance is an exception, since most people with a finance degree have taken several classes on how to interpret financial statements and how to manage by key metrics. But for the rest of us, managing the things we’re responsible for is done more as an art than as a science. Looking at sales in particular, how many of us were ever taught how to analyze our pipeline? Universities don’t have classes on the topic. Even business schools don’t. And most companies don’t teach it to their employees either.
Traditional Business Intelligence has tried to provide tools to help people gain insight into their businesses so they can figure out what actions to take to grow their companies. But there is a fundamental flaw with this approach: as I stated above, people don’t know what to do with these tools. They don’t know what questions to ask. They have to make it up as they go. That is, they don’t know what they don’t know.
So, I thought it would be useful to go through the mental exercise of doing something like a “Healthcheck” for the BI industry to see what issues and opportunities I’d uncover there. Let’s start with a general framework for what BI is about, often referred to as the Three A’s: Access, Analyze, Action. This is the core value proposition that traditional BI vendors have always touted — they give you simplified access to data (often, this data comes from multiple sources), then you analyze the data to find insights, and then that leads to taking positive action in your company.
Access: If I were grading the industry, I’d give it a “B” here. From some perspectives, the industry has done well. Before BI and Analytic solutions were available, getting access to the data you needed was pretty cumbersome, particularly if that data resided in multiple systems. For example, you had to go to your CRM system to get pipeline information, but your ERP system had information on actual bookings and discount amounts. BI solutions have made that much easier by bringing the data you need into one place, and providing multiple convenient ways to get the data either through a web browser, through being embedded in enterprise applications (often via mashups), being sent via email, as cellphone-based alerts, etc.
But, another aspect of access is “is it available to everyone?” Here, there is a huge opportunity to make BI and Analytics far more accessible. Given the cost, complexity, and skill sets needed to implement and manage traditional BI solutions, most smaller and midsized companies have been left out in the cold. This is one of the major reasons that the SaaS model for BI is becoming so popular — the vendor does all the heavy lifting regarding the infrastructure, making it available to everyone.
Analyze: I’d give the industry a “C” here. Traditional BI has focused on giving people powerful tools to answer almost any question they can think of asking when they analyze their business. But, it misses the main point that people don’t know what questions they should be asking. It’s like giving a patient a full set of state-of-the-art medical equipment, and telling them that they can now go diagnose their own health.
There are two major actions we need to take here. First, we need to move away from the concept of “BI as a tool” and move towards “BI as an application.” That is, we need to stop thinking that the right solution is a tool that let’s us answer any question we can ask, and start focusing on prebuilt analytic applications designed for specific roles in a company that include best practices to guide people towards the things they should be looking at. Second, we need to help educate customers about using analysis effectively. The SaaS model means we don’t have to pay consultants as much money to implement BI for us. So, take the savings there and apply the resources towards educating employees on how to use analysis effectively in their roles. People want, and need, help using analysis. As one of our customers recently commented on a prior blog post,
[Smaller organizations] do not have the budget for a sales operations person (typically) let alone a full-time analytics person. We absolutely need a tool that can start us in the right direction and then let us tune it to our business… which, in my experience, Lucidera does very well so far.
Our industry needs to put more energy into helping people understand what they should be looking at and why. The products need to embody best practices, and the services should focus on the “why” of analytics, not the “how.”
Action: This one gets a “D”. If people don’t know what they should be looking at, then they’re not getting valuable insights, so there’s nothing to act on. Using the patient analogy above, assuming the patient had no prior medical training, he’d probably just be able to take his own pulse. As long as it was reasonably normal, he’d assume he’s healthy, and there’d be no action to take. Until we make it much easier for people to understand what they should analyze and why, there won’t be much progress here. But, if we can change this, whole industries can reinvent themselves. Once the manufacturing industry went from the purely skill-based artisan / apprentice model to the production line with data driven manufacturing processes, we launched the industrial age. Similar things are waiting to happen to other industries.
I find it fascinating that people have been crying out for a long time about needing simpler Business Intelligence solutions and more guidance, yet historically the only response has been to add even more features to an already complicated solution. If the response to our Pipeline Healthchecks is any indication, a new approach to analysis is emerging — one that incorporates best practices and guidance.
posted by Ken Rudin at 11:39 am
Data Visualization Rush: The Week that Was
In a week that saw Rush return to US television for the first time in 33 years on the Colbert Report, here’s a quick summary of what transpired on the Keep it Simple blog:
- “User-centric” not “Data-centric” approaches are promoted as the future of business intelligence in this post.
- Stephen Few calls Seth Godin to the mat with a few data visualization tips. (Meanwhile, I’ve been spending quality time on this useful baby name visualization site.)
- LucidEra (and Twitter) are recognized by AlwaysOn as Global 250 winners.
Now here’s Rush on the Colbert Report. Good stuff!
Have a great weekend!
posted by Darren Cunningham at 7:53 am
Congratulations Twitter
AlwaysOn announced that Twitter is the Global 250 winner today. According to their website:
“Twitter is at the forefront of creating a working mobile social networking model. The concept is a cross between an online social network such as Facebook and a TypePad blog, albeit with a lot more brevity. This new type of micro-blogging platform has myriad applications that are only just being discovered, developed, and disseminated.”
While I have to admit that I’m still trying to figure out Twitter and how to use it effectively, I have become a “tweeter.” You can follow LucidEra updates here.
Global 250 companies are recognized by AlwaysOn for:
“Introducing new tools, services, and platforms that are driving the next phase of innovation and creating real value at an economically uncertain time.”
LucidEra is proud to be on the list Global 250 Winners. You can read our press release about the announcement here.
posted by Darren Cunningham at 8:36 am
Few Visualization Tips for Seth Godin
I’m a regular reader of Seth’s Blog and Stephen Few’s Visual Business Intelligence Blog. Yesterday these two worlds came together (like chocolate and peanut butter).
It started with Seth Godin writing a post called, “Three Laws of Great Graphs.” He recommends to his readers that PowerPoint presentations should contain:
- One story
- No bar charts
- Motion
Stephen Few, a data visualization purist, then takes Seth to task in this response, “Godin’s Silly Rules for Great Graphs.”
It’s a good read.
posted by Darren Cunningham at 7:58 am
The Future of Business Intelligence
A few months ago I wrote a tongue-in-cheek song about the history of the business intelligence market (with apologies to Billy Joel). We then went on to make our 2008 business analytics predictions in this post.
Today I read a solid contributed article on the Dashboard Insights website called, “The Future of BI - Are Dashboards Pointing the Way?” It’s a very insightful piece which highlights many of the challenges we’ve also seen organizations face as they attempt to embark on an intergalactic business intelligence / data warehouse initiative in the hopes of delivering timely, relevant, and actionable information to business people. I actually found the article thanks to Tom Hudock’s excellent blog called BI for Business People.
Here are the some of the highlights:
- “The primary users of these systems were trained data analysts who served as a human bridge between the business users and the specialized tools designed to access the back end BI systems.”
- “In this early period of BI, during the emergence and development of BI as a discipline, one key ingredient was conspicuously missing: the end-user who was the ultimate beneficiary of this “intelligence.”"
- “BI tools are still considered too hard to use, too long to implement, and costing too much. Why is this?”
- “The large BI companies and the recognized “experts” are actually hindering the very innovation and processes that would most benefit business and increase the efficacy of these tools.”
- “Both the BI companies and the solution providers have a vested economic interest in continuing to see these technologies and approaches purchased and implemented.”
The author, Tom Gonzales from BrightPoint Consulting, goes on to showcase the importance of “user-centric” not “data centric” business intelligence and not surprisingly he points to dashboards as the way forward. Check out the article and share your feedback. It’s a great topic that is definitely ripe for discussion.
posted by Darren Cunningham at 10:26 am
Keep it Simple Weekly Review
Here’s a quick summary of the most popular Keep it Simple posts from the last two weeks:
- Cognos Gets a BI Black Eye was the most popular post. You many also find this post by SAP’s Timo Elliott in defense of Cognos to be interesting.
- What is Your Data Actually Telling You. Nice comment from an on-demand sales analytics customer on this post: “We absolutely need a tool that can start us in the right direction and then let us tune it to our business… which, in my experience, Lucidera does very well so far.”
- Celebrating Canada Day. My family likes Rush. What can I say?
- Lucas Joins the Force. Still no press release from Salesforce.com on their latest appointment. What’s up with that?
- What’s in Store for Business Intelligence in 2008. This post continues to get attention. Ken Rudin appears to be an Oracle.
We talk a lot about driving sales analytics best practices and how on-demand analytic applications like LucidEra Lead Insight can dramatically improve sales and marketing alignment on this blog. A friend sent me the classic clip from Glengarry Glen Ross this week. I thought you might appreciate the alternative Sales 1.0 approach on a Friday afternoon…
Have a fantastic weekend!
posted by Darren Cunningham at 4:31 pm
iPhone Day
I love getting all of these new iPhone application Google Alerts on my Blackberry!
Who knew??
Today Oracle put a business intelligence spin on their Business Indicators iPhone announcement and Salesforce announced a new Mobile iPhone edition. What you may not have noticed is a new AppExchange listing for an application called iPhone Web App for Salesforce. Developed by a consultant out of Boston, there’s a free edition and a $30 / year edition - which I’m sure is a heck of a lot cheaper than Salesforce Mobile.
You can learn more about iSFDC here. Based on the feedback I’ve heard from a few users at LucidEra, it sounds like this is a great example of a developer creating something very useful on the Force.com platform. I just hope he doesn’t run into too much competition from the mother ship.
Now back to my Blackberry…
posted by Darren Cunningham at 5:32 pm
Using a SaaS Model to Deploy Analytics
Check out this LucidEra customer case study published this week by Lyndsay Wise, President of WiseAnalytics.
SaaS business analytics benefits highlighted in the article include:
- “The ease of use, lack of internal support requirements, and keeping costs low.”
- “The implementation, structure, and sense of autonomy.”
- “Quick implementation times and seamless integration.”
- “No need for internal IT infrastructure, lower costs, and easy access.”
If you found the overview of how Phone Works is taking advantage of LucidEra to get more out of their Salesforce.com investment interesting and insightful, feel free to Digg it here.
posted by Darren Cunningham at 11:54 am
Lucas Joins the Force
Looks like the word is finally out. Phil Wainewright reports today that “enterprise software giant SAP has lost one of its brightest software-as-a-service stars to SaaS titan Salesforce.com.”
Star Wars cliches aside, the news that after 10+ years at Crystal Decisions/Business Objects/SAP, Steve Lucas has joined Salesforce to run platform marketing, AppExchange, and Force.com is significant. Steve brings a great track record of leadership to Salesforce and this announcement once again confirms that SAP has its head in the ground when it comes to SaaS.
Last year Steve had this to say about the challenges enterprise software companies face when it comes to the market shift to SaaS in a Salesforce.com whitepaper called, “7 Habits of Highly Successful On-Demand Companies“:
“Although Business Objects has a traditional software heritage, we knew we needed a comprehensive on-demand strategy to stay competitive in the evolving software market. This led to the creation of a dedicated on-demand business unit, which was responsible for pioneering new ways to engage and retain our customers. More importantly, this shift made us focus more than ever on delivering solutions that will make our customers successful over the long term.”
With BusinessByDelay twisting in the wind and, as he states in the Phil Wainwright article, without “a single piece of paper that states what their SaaS strategy is,” it sounds like management at SAP didn’t come to the same realization that Steve and Business Objects did before being acquired last year.
I had the pleasure of working with Steve at Business Objects and I’m looking forward to working with him again as an AppExchange partner. SAP’s loss is definitely Salesforce’s gain.
I’m not exactly sure why, but in light of this announcement, this clip seemed appropriate to me…
posted by Darren Cunningham at 10:15 pm
CRM Best Practices in Focus
According to a recent Forrester research report, the 5 best practices for implementing SaaS CRM are:
- Build the Right Business Case
- Negotiate the Right Contract
- Follow the Right Implementation Approach
- Adopt the Right Data Security Procedures
- Establish the Right Support Structure
Focusing less on what to look for when considering SaaS, which as Intacct’s Dan Druker notes has “come full circle“ in terms of market bias, Salesforce.com recently posted a best-practice paper called, “Seven Domains of Successful SaaS Enterprise Deployments.” They are:
- Vision and Strategy
- Business Metrics
- Adoption
- Sponsorship and Governance
- Process
- Roadmap
- Technology and Data
For the 2nd domain a few good examples are provided that emphasize the importance of business intelligence in CRM through measuring and monitoring the right metrics. They are:
- Increase revenue by acquiring new, profitable customers: Percentage Accepted Leads to Sale
- Increase revenue by retaining customers: Percentage Sales to Repeat Customers
- Reduce costs by reducing sales costs: Average Number of Sales Calls per Sale
A few months ago we also recorded a webcast with Jeff Kaplan from THINKstrategies called, The Business Case for On-Demand Analytics for Salesforce.com Customers. I’ve posted the presentation below and there’s also a whitepaper on the topic if you’re just getting started with SaaS CRM analytics or looking to get more out of your existing CRM investment.
posted by Darren Cunningham at 5:23 pm
Ken Rudin is the CEO of LucidEra. He co-founded the on-demand business intelligence company in 2005. Ken is a veteran of the rapidly growing software as a service industry with over 7 years of experience as an executive with leading on-demand software vendors. These include roles at Salesforce.com, at Netsuite (as an advisor), and at Siebel's on-demand division.
Darren Cunningham is the Director of Product Marketing at LucidEra. Prior to joining LucidEra he was the Category Director for salesforce.com AppExchange Analytics and Data Management. Before joining the on-demand world, he spent over 7 years at Business Objects.
Nate Bride is a Senior Account Executive at LucidEra. Nate has over 14 years experience in building, training, and running sales teams. Most recently, Nate was the VP of Sales at Abso, a leading provider of talent management solutions. Prior to Abso, Nate ran Sales Effectiveness at Salesforce.com. Nate is married with two young daughters and lives one hour from Lake Tahoe.