Putting Big Data To Work For SMBs

Posted on May 10, 2013 by lauriemccabe

info you need photoIn my previous post, Is Big Data Relevant for SMBs?, I looked at the underlying trends driving the buzz around big data, and why big data is relevant for SMBs. I also discussed why “big” is a relative term–relative to the amount of information that your organization needs to sift through to find the insights you need, when you need them, and the widening performance gap between businesses that can find the right needles in the data haystack, and those that can’t.

But, charting the course from information overload to actionable business insights isn’t easy, especially for resource-constrained SMBs. In this post, I’ll draw on my conversations with three IBM business partners to discuss what they are seeing, and how they are helping SMB analytics novices chart a course to a successful big data landing. They include:

  • FYI Solutions is an IT consultancy based in Parisppany, NJ. FYI specializes in business analytics solutions for financial services, insurance, life sciences, media & publishing, and automotive companies. In business for 29 years, FYI Solutions takes pride in creating lasting value through lasting relationships–the average FYI Solutions client relationship is 15 years.
  • LPA Systems, Inc. is a business analytics and business intelligence company with deep roots in the healthcare, hospitality, finance and insurance industries. Founded in 2001, LPA’s main office is in Rochester, New York, with additional offices in Houston, Dallas and Cleveland.
  • Waypoint Consulting is a business analytics and financial performance management consultancy based in Newton Square, PA and a 2012 Philly 100 company. Waypoint combines proprietary methodologies, partner products and certified consultants to help customers deliver analytic solutions. Waypoint’s Project Management process provides clients with full transparency into a project while ensuring solutions are delivered on time and under budget.

Houston (or Parsippany, Rochester, Newtown Square), We Have A Problem

SMBs rarely seek out “big data” solutions. Instead, they’re looking to solve a business problem. They may need guidance to understand what data they need to solve the problem, where the data is that they need to use, and how to capture and use the data to address challenges and meet business goals.

Trying to solve business problems is nothing new. What’s changed is that they are dealing with more data, located in more places, and created in different formats. The other big thing that’s changed is that they need to get information and insights faster.

As Joe Rodriguez, Software Practice Leader, FYI Solutions states, “They can be coming at it from different angles. They may have delivery people in the field telling them that it’s too slow to do queries to check on inventory–they are waiting too long and losing money. Or their information is stuck in different silos, and it’s a time-consuming, laborious process to try to pull it into an enterprise wide view.” Or as Brendan McGuire, Managing Partner, WayPoint Consulting puts it, “With more external and internal data available, companies can no longer effectively leverage and use the data with the tools they’ve been using.”

The Right Stuff for Successful Outcomes

Most SMBs that come to these solution providers are just getting started down the analytics path. They come in frustrated with ever-more complicated Excel spreadsheets and pivot tables that take too much energy to create and update, and that propagate too many errors to trust.

Some are also coming from industries, such as healthcare, that have undergone a rapid transition to digital records due to new regulatory requirements. All of a sudden, they are swamped with data.

Few have in-house experts that are well-versed in analytic best practices and approaches, and many don’t even have business analysts. As Joe Rodriguez puts it, “We often have a brand new customer who will come to us because they have a problem to tackle. They may have limited knowledge about analytics, and need us to help them understand it and how it can help them.”

?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????So what does it take for these novices to successfully navigate up the curve? The solution providers I spoke with shared common views on the essentials for good outcomes.

  1. Start with smarter decision-making, not tools. Start with a close examination of the business drivers for a more advanced analytics approach–not with the tools. As Brendan McGuire noted, “The first and most important part of the conversation is working with the client to understand what processes do they have and what decisions do they need to make, and how can better data insights support this? Or as Barbara Schiffman, Director of Technology Solutions, FYI Solutions says, “We don’t start out by talking about the tools. In fact, the tools are incidental. We start with what business problems are you experiencing? Where do you really want to be instead of where you are today?”
  2. Get on the right entrance ramp. As mentioned above, many SMBs are just getting started up the analytics curve. With so many bright and shiny objects under the big data umbrella, it can be tempting to bite off more than you can chew. Jesse McNulty, Account Manager, LPA Systems summed it up this way: “Most SMBs are just getting started and have enough to do with getting good basic functional reporting in place. They can get enormous benefits just from getting the foundation in place, then build on their analytics competency from there. But some are already farther along, and ready to move into location analytics, forecasting, predictive analytics or other more advanced things–like prescriptive analytics.” On the flip side, they may not have given much thought to mobile analytics right out the gate, but could benefit from it. According to Brendan McGuire, “Most SMBs don’t initially think about it. But once we end up talking about it, many of them realize that their executives and business users are using tablets and smartphones, and that mobile needs to be part of the plan upfront.”
  3. Create the right roadmap for your business. I know I just said to stay focused, but at the same time, you also need to create a roadmap that will serve your needs as things evolve in your business, the market and with the competition. As Barbara Schiffman advises, “You shouldn’t just put a tactical Band-Aid on the problem. You need enough detail to figure out the real problems, solve for those today, but also look ahead to the future, and the types of problems that could arise.” Keep in mind that this is your roadmap, for your business. Just as there are many different entry points, the roadmap for each business will be different. “At the end of the day, it’s all about what solution will deliver the best business ROI for your company,” notes Schiffman.
  4. Decode data requirements. Take time up front to think through what data your business needs to enable better decision-making. What data are you drawing on today for decision-making and business processes? Where is the data, and how can you make it more accurate and usable? What data are you missing that you need, and how can you get it? Once you have a clear picture of the key data sources you need to pull from, you can start to figure out which tools you’ll need for the job. If you’re like many SMBs, you probably have data in different “silos”, such as an internal financials application and a cloud-based HR or CRM solution. Integrating these data sources is likely an investment you’ll need to make. As Brendan McGuire advises, “Data silos are inconsistent, expensive to support, cause errors. When you have an integrated data store, and you use that for analytics, it doesn’t impact your transactional systems. You use that to do any level of reporting, build dashboards, create mobile interfaces.”
  5. Evaluate industry-specific solutions. While horizontal solutions may fit the bill in some cases, tailor-made, industry-specific solutions and a solution provider with expertise in your industry can often save time, money and a lot of aggravation. As Jesse McNulty explained, “There is tremendous change occurring in the healthcare industry as payment models shift from fee-for-service to pay-for-performance or full risk. There are many nuances, for instance, to areas such as managing chronic disease populations, and healthcare organizations have very specific metrics that they need to monitor to improve business performance against them.” Having a pre-configured solution that integrates the internal and external data, structured and unstructured, into one location, and addresses specific healthcare needs with healthcare terminology and business practices helps save clients time and money. According to McNulty, “This enables us to get a client’s electronic medical records (EMR) system connected to and running on our Chronic Disease Management analytics in as little as two weeks.”
  6. Find a partner that provides comprehensive services. Because most SMBs will take an incremental approach, it’s important to seek out comprehensive services in this rapidly evolving area. Look for solution providers that offer consulting, and implementation and support services, and demonstrate a deep commitment to establishing ongoing relationships with their customers. However, since no one provider is ever likely to be able to do it all, in this volatile space, selecting a vendor that’s part of a strong ecosystem is also important. Being part of a bigger ecosystem gives solution providers the knowledge and training they need to stay ahead of the big data learning curve, and improve the offerings and services they provide to you.

Perspective

As all investment literature warns, past performance in not a guarantee of future success. Just ask Blockbuster, which was blindsided by consumers’ shifting preferences for renting movies; RIM BlackBerry, which underestimated how much the bring your own device (BYOD) trend would impact its smartphone sales to businesses; or Energizer, which missed the boat on how fast the sales of single-use, disposable batteries was dropping.

For most SMBs, being able to mine untapped data for business benefits is still at the aspirational stage. But now is the time to seriously consider what impact big data and analytics will have for your business, your customers and your industry. Think about trends you see taking shape–and even about the ones that you can now only imagine. What information and insights would help you capitalize on these trends? Likewise, what information are you missing that puts the business at risk?

Clearly, the perfect storm is taking shape as data volume, variety and velocity continue to soar ahead, almost guaranteeing that the businesses that can harness it to their advantage will benefit, and those that don’t will be blindsided.

This is the second of a three-part blog series by SMB Group and sponsored by IBM that examines big data and its implications for SMBs. The first post, Is Big Data Relevant for SMBs?, parses through the underlying trends and hype surrounding big data, and what is important and relevant for SMBs. In my next and final post in this series, I’ll talk about ways that you can get the conversation going and the questions you need to ask to help your business move ahead.


Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Is Big Data Relevant for SMBs?

Posted on April 30, 2013 by lauriemccabe

?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????There’s little doubt that “big data” is the latest “big thing” in the IT industry. But for many small and medium business (SMB) decision-makers, big data is a somewhat fuzzy term. Ask any number of them what big data means, and you’re likely to get different definitions. Making matters worse, the “big” in big data, along with endless discussions of petabytes and zettabytes, make many SMBs skeptical that big data is relevant for their businesses.

So it’s not hard to make the case that “big data” is has become an over-hyped and poorly understood catch-all phrase. What does big data really mean, and what are the implications for SMBs? When we parse through the underlying trends and hype surrounding big data, what’s left that is actually important and relevant for SMBs?

The Realities Driving Big Data Buzz

The big part of big data is easy to understand. Basically, the volume and variety of digitized data is increasing exponentially. Think about how much and how many kinds of information have moved from physical to digital form just over the last several years. Doctors have moved from paper charts to electronic medical records; merchants have moved from paper credit card imprinters to POS terminals to virtual terminals to mobile payment devices. Movies have moved from Blockbuster to Netflix; and photos have move from Kodak to Facebook and Instagram. “Smart” machines–from traffic sensors to seismographs–are creating entirely new digital data streams as well.

As a result, researchers report that we have already created 2.5 quintillion bytes of data, and that 90% of it has been generated in the last two years alone. While quintillions are hard to wrap your head around, these facts make the concept more accessible:

  • 150,000 new URLs are created each day.
  • Twitter sees roughly 58 million tweets every day, and has more than 554 million accounts.
  • 160 million emails are sent every 60 seconds.
  • Over 20 billion credit card payments are processed annually in the U.S.
  • Power companies are moving from physical meter to digital “smart” meter readings, and going from monthly reading to gathering meter information every 15 minutes. This adds up to 96 million reads per day for every million meters–or a 3,000-fold increase in data.

The term “big data” refers to having the ability to dig in to this growing data avalanche more effectively and quickly with tools that make it easier to store, manage, analyze and act on information.

Big is Relative When It Comes to Big Data

According to findings from the IBM Institute for Business Value and Said Business School, University of Oxford, most large enterprises define the “big” in big data as databases with more than 100 terabytes, while most midmarket companies (less than 1,000 employees) consider anything more than 1 terabyte as “big”.

The fact of the matter is, “big” is a relative term–relative to the amount of information that your organization needs to sift through to find the insights you need to operate the business more proactively and profitably. Basically, if the data set is too big for your company to effectively manage and get insights from, then you’re facing a big data challenge.

This isn’t just a large enterprise problem. In SMB Group studies, SMB decision-makers repeatedly cite “getting better insights from the data we already have” as a top business challenge. SMBs may not be dealing with terabytes of data, but many are finding that tools that used to suffice–such as Excel spreadsheets–fall short even when it comes to analyzing internal transactional databases.

Welcome to the Insight Economy

info you need photoWith the amount and variety of digitized growing exponentially, these challenges and requirements will only increase.

Business that can find the right needles in the data haystack more quickly, easily and reliably than competitors can reap enormous market advantages. SMB Group’s 2012 Routes to Market Study shows that SMBs that have deployed business intelligence and analytics solutions are 51% more likely than peers to expect revenues to rise. Likewise, in the IBM-Oxford University study, three out of five midmarket respondents using business and analytics solutions reported that they are realizing significant advantages, most notably to “identify new opportunities in the marketplace” and to “understand and respond to customers better.”

Take the example of the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden. With one of the lowest public subsidies in the U.S., the zoo needed to increase attendance and boost food and retail sales to operate profitably. But the zoo was unable to easily access the data–which resided on different systems–so it could plan how to do this. The zoo implemented a business intelligence solution to get better insight into customer trends and its own operations, and answer questions such as, “How many people spend money outside of admissions costs?” and “What time of day do ice cream sales peak?” By answering these questions and others, the zoo was able to increase retail and food sales by 35%, save more than $140,000 per year in marketing dollars through more targeted, successful campaigns, and increase overall zoo attendance by 50,000 in one year.

Unfortunately, many SMBs are lagging large enterprises in this area. The IBM-Oxford Study revealed that the gap between large enterprises and the midmarket is increasing, and the SMB Group 2012 Routes to Market Study shows that the smaller the company, the less likely they are to use or plan to use BI solutions.

Perspective

Businesses have always needed the ability to measure critical success metrics and make sound business decisions. Big data solutions are designed to help businesses to do this in a world where the volume and variety of data is growing at breakneck speed.

When you look at the realities that are driving the big data bandwagon, its clear that long after the buzz fades, these realities will have a long-lasting impact on how businesses of all sizes operate. Over time, the performance gap will widen between businesses that can readily get the insights they need, when they need them, and those that can’t.

That said, figuring out where and how to start isn’t easy, especially for SMBs who are often resource-constrained. The good news, however, is that this is definitely an area where you want to take small steps first. In the next blog of this series, we’ll draw on conversations with IBM business partners to learn how they are helping SMBs to chart the big data journey.

This is the first of a three-part blog series by SMB Group and sponsored by IBM that examines big data and its implications for SMBs. In the next post, I’ll discuss how IBM business partners are helping SMBs take practical steps to put big data to work for their businesses.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Will Actian Connect, Analyze and Act on the SMB Market Opportunity?

Posted on April 19, 2013 by lauriemccabe

After marking my calendar to attend Pervasive’s 2013 Integration World, I had to wonder whether or not Actian’s pending acquisition of Pervasive would be a done deal–or not–by April 14, when the conference was due to kick off.

After all, I figured that if things were still up in the air, I’d probably leave with more questions than answers. Although it seemed pretty clear to me that the combined entity would be able to bring a lot more to the table in the large enterprise big data space, it wasn’t clear to me what it would mean for the merged company’s future in the SMB market.

Evidently, the events team wasn’t sure about whether or not the acquisition would be a done deal in time for the event either, as they had two sets of signage and materials printed up and ready to go for either eventuality.

Fortunately, the acquisition became final on April 11, three days in advance of the event, and the events team got to use the Actian version. And although it’s too soon to expect a roadmap from the freshly combined entity, the event did give me a chance to think about what may be on tap.

 Actian Connects with Pervasive

actian pervasive imagesFirst, the background. Privately held Actian Corp closed the deal to acquire Pervasive, which had prior to this been publicly traded on NASDAQ, on April 11 for $161.7 million. Under the agreement, Pervasive becomes a wholly owned subsidiary of Actian. In total, the merged company employs about 510 people.

Each company has been around a long time and has deep roots in the database world. Actian got its start from a predecessor company named Ingres in the late 1980s, which went through two acquisitions and a divestiture to then emerge as the new Ingres Corporation, best known for Ingres Database, an SQL relational database management system, available in community (open-source) and enterprise versions. On a quest to evolve into a big data company, the company acquired VectorWise, an analytical database in 2010. In 2011, the company rebranded itself as Actian and in 2012, it bought object-store database vendor Versant.

Likewise, Pervasive began as a database company in 1982, with its Btrieve offering. After a few acquisitions, spinouts and name changes, the company became Pervasive Software in 1997, when Btrieve evolved into Pervasive PSQL. In 2003, Pervasive entered the integration business when it purchased Data Junction (now Pervasive Data Integrator). Today, many SMB-oriented ISVs use Pervasive data integration solutions in their offerings. Data Integrator technologies are also at the core of Galaxy Marketplace, which Pervasive launched in 2011 (see Pervasive Puts Its Galaxy Integration Community Into Orbit). In addition, Pervasive jumped into the big data arena, most notably with DataRush, a predictive data analytics engine, in 2006.

In both companies, legacy database products still account for a big chunk of revenues, and have funded expansion to develop and/or acquire the big data solutions that they are targeting to fuel future growth. As noted by Steve Shine, Actian CEO in the press release announcing the deal, that target is to deliver big data solutions for enterprises of all sizes:  “Every moment, people, businesses and machines generate explosive volumes and varieties of data leveraging their existing networks and, more increasingly, the cloud. Companies that embrace this data as their most strategic asset will thrive, while those that don’t lose their competitive advantage.”

Giving companies the ability to “Connect, Analyze and Act” is Actian’s corporate mantra. Pervasive gives Actian the strong integration capabilities that it needed to fill out the connect piece of its big data story. Meanwhile, DataRush’s high-powered BI and analytics solutions should significantly beef up analytics and processing capabilities.

Where SMBs Have Fit Into the Story to Date

Small and medium businesses (SMBs) have been vital to Pervasive. The company has relied primarily on indirect channel partners to reach SMBs. ISVs in particular have been integral to its success. It has partnered with vendors such as Intuit, Salesforce, UserVoice and others who sell through embedded integrations and connectors built with Pervasive Data Integrator and with ISVs, such as GlobalShop, EBP, and Abacus, that build their solutions on Pervasive SQL database. A good strategy, as SMBs don’t often have the bandwidth, expertise or resources to tend to the integration plumbing necessary to connect financials, marketing, CRM and other solutions.

Screen shot 2013-04-19 at 2.41.23 PMIn 2011, Pervasive also introduced Galaxy Integration Marketplace, a portal where users can find integration guidance and buy pre-built integration solutions in Amazon-like fashion. On the flip side, the portal gives integration developers a window into what integrations people are looking for, as well as a lot of very handy tools–including a storefront–to provision and manage products, subscriptions, payment processing, etc.

Currently, Galaxy has about 100 integration apps, from Freshbooks to Salesforce, which is priced at $25 per month, to integrations that are priced at $5000 or $6000 per year.

Pervasive is also working on a new capability, code-named Maestro, that will have a simple mapping interface so providers can map custom fields on top of pre-built connectors. Again, the Galaxy approach makes it easy for under-resourced SMBs to tackle the complicated integration problem.

On the other hand, Pervasive’s big data offerings, such as DataRush, have pretty much been a large enterprise play, and Actian’s primary focus and customer base has resided with large enterprises to date.

Where Will SMBs Fit in the Future?

Will Actian continue to maintain a strong focus on SMBs? In conversations at Integration World, as well as in the press release, Shine indicated that Actian intends to cover the spectrum from large to small: “Actian’s innovations make it easy for organisations large and small to connect, analyse and act on their fast-changing and fast-growing diverse data assets throughout the entire data lifecycle.”

Furthermore, Pervasive has an established and successful model of working with ISVs to embed and sell through its solutions–a solid approach to reach and serve SMBs, who need  integration solutions that they can quickly deploy and from which they can get value. The Galaxy Marketplace complements this approach by adding the value of community insight and new ways to source and purchase integration solutions.

However, Actian will face many challenges as it tries to span from large enterprises to small–especially in increasingly crowded and hyped integration, analytics and big data markets. And, as more SMBs become aware of and educated about what big data is and why they need to have a strategy for it, how will Actian push through the noise and surface to get into consideration in that arena?

Easier said than done–both on engineering and marketing fronts, especially as large customers tend to have a lot more pull than small ones, and the fragmented nature of the market makes SMBs much harder to reach and serve.

Actian will need to make a bold statement. It must double down on engaging SMB-focused developers, SIs and other sell-through partners both within, as well as beyond its current integration ecosystem. If Actian could, for instance, apply low-friction approaches such as Galaxy into other areas, such as analytics, it could prove a powerful play for helping SMBs not only connect, but to also analyze and act on their data once its integrated.

I’ll be watching to see if Actian chooses to make some significant moves in SMB directions as well as in the large enterprise space. Will SMBs be treated as a strategic market focus, or as business as usual? Actian’s decisions will signal whether it intends to pursue a broader play in the SMB market–or not.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

SAP Shines the Spotlight on Small and Medium Businesses

Posted on January 15, 2013 by lauriemccabe

SAP SME SummitSAP’s stellar success in building its blue-chip large enterprise business has often overshadowed its considerable but quieter achievements in small and medium business (SMBs) markets. But SAP is not a household name in the SMB community. Even technology insiders are often surprised to learn that SMBs (or as SAP refers them, small and medium enterprises, or SMEs) account for the majority of SAP’s 197,000 customer base.

But at SAP’s first small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) summit, hosted at the company’s New York offices in late November, co-CEO Bill McDermott and other key SAP execs made it clear that SAP is intensifying its aspirations and endeavors with new programs and initiatives that reach well beyond its conventional solutions.

From SME Solutions to an SME Ecosystem

Over the last few years, SAP has steadily grown its SME business with its traditional solution offerings. For instance, year-over-year revenues have grown 20% for SAP Business One, SAP’s flagship ERP offering for small businesses. As discussed in The Progressive SMB: Customer Stories are Worth 1,000 Analyst Words, SAP has been particularly attractive to Progressive SMBs, who realize the increasingly direct connection between strategic IT investments and successful business outcomes.

The steady growth of SAP solutions has been admirable, but, as we learned at the SME Summit, SAP is casting a much wider net through a series of different initiatives that bring SAP’s big data, mobile and cloud capabilities to smaller organizations in a more accessible manner. Together, these are starting to take the shape of a growing SAP SME ecosystem. For instance, SAP is:

  • Growing and enabling the traditional partner channel. SAP channel partners currently account for one-third of SAP SME sales. SAP intends to raise this to 40% by 2015. To help accomplish this, SAP is enabling more of its traditional partners (VARs, SIs, MSPs, etc.) with Rapid Deployment Solutions (RDS).  Currently, SAP offers 150 RDS solutions, which provide businesses with fixed cost, fixed scope preconfigured software, best practices and implementation services that give customers everything they need to get up and running in just a few weeks. RDS has proven to be very instrumental in driving SAP’s growth in the SME sector. In the past year, RDS deployments in SME have outpaced the 500%+ overall RDS growth rate over the prior year. The importance of building and enabling the channel cannot be underestimated: according to SMB Group’s 2012 SMB Routes to Market Study, over half of SMBs purchase business applications through indirect channels.
  • Recruiting partners to build micro-vertical solutions on Business One. The small business market is actually very fragmented. While all small businesses share some common needs, each micro-vertical has unique requirements and needs specific capabilities when it comes to business software. SAP is building a development-focused partner channel to zero in on the needs of each micro-vertical. For instance, SAP partner Orchestra is building specialized solutions on Business One for small businesses in the fuel, beer and food industries. OrchestraBeer was showcased at the Summit. In this video interview, Ryan Hilliard, CEO of Hilliard’s Beer, a small startup with less than 10 employees, explains to me why he selected OrchestraBeer. Ryan plans to grow his business, and wanted a solution that would grow with him, and one over the lifetime of his business. But he also needed a turnkey solution geared to his business, and able to track specific metrics–such as batches and barrels of beer for visibility into his supply chain and production.
  • Empowering startups with SAP HANA. At the Summit, SAP announced that it has powered over 150 startups in Silicon Valley with SAP HANA. These startups are using HANA as a development platform to provide SMBs with a new, user-friendly generation of real-time analytics and advanced predictive solutions. For instance, Vish Canaran, CEO of Liquid Analytics, talked about his company’s cloud-based, mobile analytics applications for iPhone, iPad, Blackberry and Android users.  As Vish explained to me in this video discussion, Liquid Analytics starts with the user experience to help optimize productivity. Liquid Analytics apps use gamification and predictive analytics to help make it easier, quicker and more fun for wholesale industry sales reps to place orders and set and meet sales goals. As noted in SMB Group’s 2012 SMB Routes to Market Study, the data fire hose is running at full blast and shows little signs of abating. But, the big gap in big data is painfully evident for small businesses: Just 18% have purchased/upgraded a business intelligence solution in the past 24 months, and only 17% plan to do so in the next 12 months. Solutions such as Liquid Analytics show promise to offer small businesses an accessible, user-friendly ways to harness big data for business good.
  • Extending the Ariba network effect. As part of SAP’s recent Ariba acquisition, every SAP customer gets a free connection into the Ariba network (and any company, whether an SAP customer or not, can enroll as a Supplier on the Ariba Network). As revealed in our 2012 SMB Routes to Market Study, about one-quarter of SMBs sell goods and services to large enterprises. Since attracting new customers, growing revenues, and increasing profitability are perennial SMB challenges, we expect that SMB interest and involvement in big company supplier networks to heat up in 2013. As discussed in SMB Group’s Top 10 SMB Technology Predictions for 2013, access to the Ariba network is one opportunity that SMBs can leverage to compete for their share of the $300 billion dollars that large businesses spend annually on goods and services.

Looking Beyond Technology

SAP is also expanding its engagements with influencers, venture capitalists, governmental agencies and other vital SME catalysts. The Summit’s “Power of Small” panel featured speakers with wide-ranging perspectives and influence in the SME market, and underscored that SAP’s focus will go well beyond technology to include initiatives focused on policy, people, capital to help create an environment in which SMEs can thrive.

For example, Linda Rottenberg of Endeavor, who pioneered the examination of how high-growth business can transform economies, discussed the necessity of “mentor capital” for SME success. At the event, Bill McDermott announced that SAP has committed to help Endeavor select, mentor, and accelerate high-impact entrepreneurs on a global scale. Sunil Hirani of trueEX examined the effect of immigration policies on entrepreneurship in the U.S., and the importance of aligning governmental policies to help SMEs prosper.

Perspective

With these initiatives, SAP is tapping into a very important trend. As discussed in SMB Group’s Top 10 SMB Technology Predictions for 2013, Progressive SMBs, who invest more in technology and use technology for competitive advantage are also much more likely to anticipate revenue gains than peers whose tech investments are flat or declining. We also see this gap widening year over year, and expect that it will continue to do so.

Although not everyone at SAP may yet “get” small business, it was clear from the event that Co-CEO Bill McDermott does understand them, and also values the increasingly make or break role that technology plays for SMEs. SAP’s commitment to enabling partners to expose it technology in a relevant way, and its investment in the broader SME community were on display at this high-profile event, making it clear that McDermott wants to make SAP a household name among SMEs.  A lofty goal, to be sure, but one that SAP is very committed to aspiring to.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

BI and Analytics for Mid-Market Businesses: My Podcast with SAP

Posted on December 11, 2012 by lauriemccabe

I recently joined Paul Clark from SAP in a thought leadership podcast to discuss the topics of Business Intelligence (BI), Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), and Social Analytics for Mid-market companies.

In the podcast, we discuss the various aspects and uses of Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), Business Intelligence (BI), and Social Analytical tools within the dynamics of a mid-market business. We talk about how the proper use of EPM and BI tools and software by companies in the mid-market can achieve a higher level of corporate consistency and efficiency in performance management.
Our conversation also turned to a newer area of business intelligence–Social Analytics. Social Analytics tools monitor and analyze market and brand sentiment and the return on social engagement with consumers. They can help mid-market companies monitor and engage with customers in the areas of support, sales and ongoing relationship development.

We offer some final advice on the “first steps” towards achieving an improved level of performance management within the mid-market corporation.

I hope you enjoy the podcast!

Podcast Segments and Timeline:

00:00 – 01:10: Introductions and backgrounds

01:10 – 16:50: Enterprise Performance Management and Business Intelligence. Here’s what we covered:

  • Defining Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) and Business Intelligence (BI) and the role it can play in helping mid-market(*) companies and where
  • The rate of adoption of performance management practices and business intelligence in mid-market organizations
  • Key issues facing mid-market leadership teams when it comes to enterprise wide performance management practices
  • Some guidance for mid-market company leaders with respect to improving corporate performance and long-term success
  • What results are mid-market companies seeing from EPM and Business Intelligence solutions?

16:50 – 30:00: Social Analytics. What we covered:

  • Defining Social Analytics and the role it can play in helping mid-market companies and where
  • Whether mid-market companies are becoming interested in monitoring social networks and social media. If so, what they plan to do with this information and insight
  • Whether the data from social networks is an opportunity for mid-market companies
  • Final advice for CFO’s first steps to improve corporate performance management.

Thanks to Paul Clark and Chris Herbert (discussion moderator) for participating in this conversation. Below are their bios.

Paul Clark

Paul Clark is responsible for the messaging and deliverables that describe the business analytics solutions from SAP, from business intelligence and enterprise information management to enterprise performance management and governance, risk, and compliance. Paul has over 20 years’ experience in marketing, specializing in product and solution marketing. He holds a BSc from the University of Bristol, UK and a Management DESS from the Université de Savoie, France.

Chris Herbert

Chris Herbert is the manager of the CFO Intellectual Exchange Network which brings thought leaders together to share experiences and engage in conversations around the office of finance and the role technology is playing to improve business performance, compliance and overall success.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

The Technology—Performance Connection for Midmarket Businesses

Posted on September 10, 2012 by lauriemccabe

In today’s always-on, hyper-connected world, technology has become a critical lynchpin for business success. Increasingly, businesses of all sizes view technology as an essential to improving customer engagement, raising employee productivity, and creating innovation and differentiation—all vital ingredients for building economic value.

You don’t need to take my word for it. For the first time since IBM began conducting its Global CEO Study eight years ago, study respondents identified technology as “the most important external force impacting their organization” in the most recent 2012 IBM study.

It looks like these respondents are right. In the SMB Group’s 2011 SMB Routes to Market Study, we identified a distinct category of midmarket companies that we’ve termed “Progressive SMBs.” Despite or perhaps because of economic uncertainties, Progressive SMBs invest more in technology and have higher revenue expectations than peers whose tech investments are flat or declining.  For instance, 73% of midmarket companies (medium businesses with 100 – 999 employees) that plan to invest more in technology anticipate revenue increases in 2012, compared to just 17% among those planning to decrease IT spending. Progressive SMBs view technology as a vital tool for business transformation, a mechanism to create market advantage, and a way to level the playing field against bigger companies.

Figure 1: Increased IT Investments Pay Off For Midmarket Businesses

As a result, Progressive midmarket companies can leverage key technology trends to fuel better business returns. As they do, they make the case for the value of these technologies, and in turn, will spark broader adoption across the midmarket spectrum.

Cloud Computing and Virtualization Become the New Normal

The pace of technological change is in overdrive, and the requirement to harness technology-based solutions to gain market advantage is rising. As a result, demand for cloud-based solutions is accelerating (Figure 2).  The business application areas that show the strongest near-term potential for midmarket cloud growth are marketing automation, business intelligence/analytics, and collaboration.

Figure 2: Applications Moving to the Cloud

The promises of cloud computing—reduced capital costs, speed to deploy, real-time collaboration and data visibility—tap into key midmarket business needs and constraints. By offloading deployment, management and support to a cloud service provider, midmarket businesses can free up internal resources to focus on core business requirements. Users can reap the benefits of anytime, anywhere, any device access to applications. And, companies can achieve solution benefits more quickly than if they had to vet, buy, install and deploy a new solution in-house.

But that doesn’t mean everything will go to the public cloud; it will continue to be a hybrid world for a very long time. Many midmarket businesses will continue to choose on-premises apps as security, regulatory, customization or other needs dictate, but will turn to desktop and server virtualization solutions to gain benefits similar to the public cloud. With IT staffs stretched thin, midmarket businesses will turn to managed service providers (MSPs) to offload IT infrastructure planning, implementation and management more frequently.

Mobile Mania Accelerates

The growth of smart mobile devices and applications has been nothing short of spectacular. The SMB Group’s 2012 SMB Mobile Solutions Study shows that 81% of midmarket businesses already equip their employees with mobile devices and solutions–and the other 19% plan to do so within the next 12 months.

Midmarket businesses want to give employees more and better mobile solutions to boost productivity, streamline information access and improve customer service (Figure 3). With use of mobile collaboration apps (email, calendar, etc.) is already mainstream, these companies are now deploying customer relationship management, social media marketing, time management, and field service apps.

Figure 3: Top Drivers and Obstacles For Mobile Solutions

They are also ramping up external mobile application development to interact with customers, partners and suppliers. External-facing mobile apps in areas such as mobile marketing, payments, scheduling and customer service apps help businesses improve customer responsiveness, grow revenue and streamline service.

However, mobile apps also creates several challenges. With limited IT resources and mobile expertise, many midmarket businesses need outside help to ensure security, manage mobile applications and devices, and integrate new mobile apps with their existing business solutions.

The Social Imperative Grows

Social network-based technology has grown from curiosity to niche to new paradigm in a very short time, and is becoming indispensable to many midmarket businesses. According to our 2012 SMB Social Business Study, social media use among midmarket businesses increased to 63% in 2012–up from 52% in our 2011 study.

Use of social tools is already exceeding that of purpose-built software for functions such as to “connect with people who aren’t customers” “generate more web site traffic” “generate more/better interaction with customers/prospects” and “new employee recruitment,” as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4: Social Media Use Gaining Ground for Accomplishing Many Business Functions

But, while social media use is up, the percentage of midmarket businesses taking a planned, strategic approach has pretty much remain stuck. 51% of midmarket social media users still pretty much throwing the proverbial spaghetti on the Facebook wall—or into the Twitter stream. This is a critical distinction because strategic users are significantly more satisfied with the outcomes they get from their social efforts than counterparts with an ad hoc approach.

For instance:

  • 62% of strategic users, compared to 42% of informal users are very satisfied with social to “improve market awareness/reputation.”
  • 55% of strategic users, compared to 45% of informal users are very satisfied with social to help them “connect with people who aren’t customers.
  • 58% of strategic users, compared to 28% of informal users are very satisfied with social to help “generate more leads.”

As midmarket businesses invest more time and money into social efforts, the need to incorporate social into corporate planning in a more strategic way will increase. Midmarket businesses will need guidance to select the best tools for their requirements, train employees, integrate social with business solutions, monitoring social interaction, and measuring return on social initiatives.

Turning the Information Explosion into A Fountain of Wisdom

Many SMBs have plenty of data, but find it challenging to get the insights they need from it. The social-mobile-cloud triumvirate adds more fuel to the data explosion. In our 2011 SMB Routes to Market Study, respondents cited “getting better insights from the data we already have” as a top technology challenge.

To plow through the growing data avalanche, businesses are beefing up their intelligence investments. 29% of midmarket businesses purchased/upgraded a BI solution within the past 24 months, and 28% plan to do so in the next 12 months. The need will only grow as midmarket companies integrate new customer and prospect data from social media into the information flow of existing business solutions to bring market and individual customer trends, requirements and behavioral patterns into sharper focus.

Getting the Job Done

The ability to strategically apply cloud, mobile, social and business intelligence solutions to their businesses will increasingly distinguish high-performance midmarket businesses from lesser perfuming counterparts. But with an average full-time IT staff of eight, most midmarket businesses simply don’t have the staff, expertise or budget for do-it-yourself IT in these areas. These IT shops have their hands full simply grappling with the day-to-day problems of their current IT environment.

However, these midmarket challenges offer managed service providers (MSPs) and other solution providers with ample opportunity to provide these businesses with a broader portfolio of automated, integrated managed services for both infrastructure and business application requirements, along with professional services guidance and training. In our next post, I’ll explore some of these opportunities in more detail.

This is the first of a five-part blog series by SMB Group that examines the evolution of midmarket business technology trends and IBM’s Managed Service Provider channel programs. In the next post, we’ll look at the opportunities and challenges these trends create for MSPs to serve midmarket businesses as they navigate to these solution areas.

Filed under: cloud computing, mobile solutions, SMB, Social Business, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

SAP Business One, Chapter Two: Raising the Small Business Bar

Posted on June 29, 2012 by lauriemccabe

In the world of SAP enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions for small and medium businesses (SMBs), SAP Business One is sometimes overshadowed by SAP Business All-in-One (BAiO), which has SAP’s large enterprise ERP at its core, and by and SAP Business ByDesign, which is SAP’s first software-as-a-service (SaaS) ERP entry.

But Business One, which is designed from the ground up to meet the needs of small businesses with fewer than 100 employees, has quietly kept growing both its capabilities and in new customer acquisition. During the past year or so, SAP has also made some significant new investments in three key areas: mobile, on demand and big data.

Taken together, these developments could open a new chapter for Business One–and for small businesses that want to use IT to transform their businesses.

Chapter One–A Brief History

Business One has its roots in SAP’s acquisition of TopManage Financial Systems in 2002. SAP made the acquisition to provide small businesses (and subsidiaries in larger companies) with an affordable way to move up from entry-level accounting solutions to a single, integrated business management offering.

The solution is designed for small businesses that have little or no IT resources. It provides a unified suite of financials, sales, customer relationship management, inventory and operations capabilities, along with embedded analytics and reporting capabilities.

Over the years, SAP has continued to invest in Business One to keep pace with changing market requirements and global demands. Business One is now available in 27 languages and 40 localizations. To help partners more easily extend solution functionality, SAP built an integration platform for Business One that has since attracted over 550 add-on solutions. Today, Business One has over 35,000 customers in over 80 countries. At its current pace, SAP estimates that it is on track to add about 5,000 new customers per year.

Chapter Two–Mobile, On Demand and Big Data

Fast forward to today. SAP is infusing Business One with the new mobile, on demand and big data capabilities it needs to take the solution to the next level.

On the mobile front, SAP launched Version 1.5 of its Business One mobile app in February 2012. The mobile app gives customers access to key Business One functionality, such as alerts and approvals, real-time Crystal Reports, customer and supplier data and inventory information via mobile devices. The app is available for the iPhone and iPad via SAP, and for Android devices through its partners. Looking ahead, SAP plans to add new mobile functionality for as sales document creation so that sales reps can do more on the go. SAP is also updating the user interface (UI) so that mobile users can have multiple windows open the same time so they can more easily view the information they need.

In March, SAP introduced Business One OnDemand to offer Business One in a cloud-based, subscription model. The OnDemand version has and will maintain the same functionality and interface as the on premise version. SAP is certifying partners to host the solution to ensure that they meet security, performance and quality standards. In most cases, these hosting partners provide the back-end infrastructure, and team with SAP VARs who sell and implement the solution. SAP has also created a Cloud Control Center that supplies partners with automated tools to manage Business One OnDemand throughout the solution lifecycle.

Some pundits have claimed that Business One OnDemand is not a true, multi-tenant, software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution. So I asked SAP for clarification on some of the technicalities and learned that users do need a remote desktop solution (such as those from Citrix or Microsoft) to access Business One OnDemand. And, while the solution is multi-tenant in that users share the same instance of the application and SQL server, each user has its own database schema.

Since Business One OnDemand requires a remote desktop solution and customers don’t share a database schema, cloud purists are likely to discount it. However, these details are much less likely to create issues issue for actual small business customers–and may work in SAP’s favor.

The fact that SAP’s on premise and on demand versions share the same interface and database structure means that existing customers can move to the cloud without complex data conversions or additional user training. Meanwhile, SAP Business One can now get into consideration among prospects that are only considering a cloud solution. And, some of these prospects may prefer to have their own dedicated database schema, along with access to the 550+ partner apps that are in Business One arsenal. Finally, NetSuite, arguably the leading SaaS ERP vendor, has been moving away from its original small business focus to concentrate more on the mid-market and departments of large enterprises, ironically paving the way for SAP to make inroads here.

SAP also announced Analytics powered by SAP HANA for SAP Business One, which will be generally available in late 2012. HANA is SAP’s “big data” solution. It’s a column-based, in-memory database that allows applications to zip through calculations for millions of records in just fractions of a second. SAP HANA for SAP Business One is scaled for the needs of small companies. It combines the SAP HANA-based application with SAP Crystal Reports software so small businesses can get the benefits of speedy data crunching and use the tools that they are already comfortable with to analyze this data. The solution includes a set of predefined, ready-to-run dashboards and reports.

While some small businesses may not require this added horsepower, the offering is relevant for those that need to more effectively analyze more and more complex content–including audio, video, and text–to compete effectively in their markets. These customers will be able to create interactive reports and run ad-hoc analysis much faster than they could before; navigate through various business objects from one screen; and use free-style search to access information more quickly.

The Rest of the Story

SAP Business One isn’t for all small businesses. After all, although the price tag is low compared to other SAP offerings, Business One still represents a significant expenditure compared to the typical small business accounting solutions.

But, even amidst–or maybe because of–economic uncertainties, our SMB Group 2011 Small and Medium Businesses Routes to Market Study indicates that there is sizeable segment of the small business market that plans to increase IT investments. These “progressive” small businesses see IT as a means to create market advantage and achieve their business goals. While price is a factor, they rate other criteria–such as the ability to customize solutions, strong vendor reputation and local support and service–higher than other SMBs when making technology purchase decisions. Business One hits the mark on these criteria, and consequently, is likely to enjoy continued good growth in this segment.

However, this progressive segment is demanding and will expect SAP to stay ahead of the curve. To do so, SAP will need to address a couple of additional areas in this new chapter, including:

  • Collaboration and social. One of the biggest trends in social-collaboration space is to connect collaborative activities with business processes. SAP has already merged its Streamwork team with its newly acquired SuccessFactors’ Jam team, and the combined entity is hammering out SAP’s future direction in this area. SAP needs to add social and collaboration capabilities to Business One sooner, rather than later, to ensure that Business One customers can take advantage of integrating collaborative and business processes.
  • Mobile applications for external users. Business One has a solid solution and game plan for internal (employee) mobile apps, but what’s the plan to extend access to selected functions to external customers, partners and suppliers? The SMB Group’s 2012 SMB Mobile Solutions Study indicates strong plans among small businesses to provide mobile apps for external users for activities such as appointment scheduling, payments, marketing offers and service. Over the long-term, partners should probably be responsible for developing most of these apps, but SAP needs to seed the area to jump-start partner app development.

Overall however, SAP Business One, Chapter Two is off to a good start. The mobile app has already been downloaded more than 34,700 times; about 60 partners are preparing to come on board to offer Business One OnDemand; and over 30 customers are in ramp up with Analytics powered by SAP HANA for SAP Business One.

In addition, while large enterprise solutions will continue to dominate SAP news, SAP’s commitment to and investment in small business solutions is growing. For instance, the vendor recently announced that it is sponsoring a global competition with Ashoka Changemakers, The Power of Small: Entrepreneurs Strengthening Local Economies.  The contest is designed to identify innovative strategies that can help small businesses grow and thrive in underserved communities.

The bottom line? SAP clearly takes small business seriously–and small businesses that are ready to move up from stand-alone accounting solutions should take SAP Business One seriously too.

Filed under: cloud computing, collaboration, mobile solutions, Small Business Software, SMB, Social Business | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Host Analytics’ New Twist on an Old Problem: Connecting CPM and Siloed Data in Midsize Companies

Posted on April 12, 2012 by lauriemccabe

Host Analytics, which provides cloud-based corporate performance management (CPM) software, recently launched Business Analytics, a new business intelligence toolkit designed to give finance departments in midsize companies a more comprehensive view of their businesses–without having to deploy an enterprise BI suite.

With this announcement, Host Analytics is giving companies a new, pragmatic and streamlined approach to solving the very real problem of integrating and analyzing the ever-increasing amounts of data that they need to understand to make better business decisions.

First, A Little Background on Host Analytics

In case you’re not familiar with Host Analytics, the company was founded in 2000, and has focused on providing cloud-based CPM solutions to midsize companies. More specifically, Host Analytics’ has geared its efforts to the needs of growing companies with complex requirements, providing a comprehensive CPM suite that includes budgeting and planning, revenue planning, forecasting, financial consolidations, reporting, dashboards, scorecarding, advanced modeling capabilities, executive management reporting and data services.

Host Analytics’ formula includes:

  • A cloud-based approach to relieve companies from having to buy and maintain IT infrastructure, so they can focus on using the solution to help create competitive and market advantages. This also enables faster deployments.
  • An Excel-like user interface to make it easier for new users to get productive quickly.
  • Flexible packaging and pricing options, so that customers can buy the suite or individual functional modules–which can be added to and integrated on as-needed basis.
  • A partner ecosystem that includes technology and implementation partners such as ERP Logic, Cervello and Paradigm Analytics, to help customers optimize Host Analytics solutions.

The formula has been working well: Host Analytics grew 78% year-over-year in 2010 and 118% in 2011, and is approaching 250 customers. Host Analytics plans to expand to the UK shortly.

New Approach to an Old Problem

With its new Business Analytics capability, Host Analytics tackles an old problem with a new approach. The tool gives finance professionals integrated access, views and reporting tools for data that is siloed in other departments–such as hiring from the HR system, or what’s in the pipeline from CRM. This broader view provides users with a more complete, accurate and up-to-date view of business drivers and issues to help them make better decisions. At the same time, the tool can give other line-of-business managers insight into how their information and performance impacts the rest of the organization.

Host Analytics is doing this by embedding new BI functionality, from cloud-based BI partner Birst, directly into the CPM suite, which Host Analytics manages on their servers to give customers a one-stop shop.

Birst connectors also have Hadoop connectors that companies can use to pull in unstructured data. The tool pulls all this data together to give companies a holistic view for reports, dashboards, scorecards, etc. across all their data fields. The tool also features some nice capabilities to enable users to view reports and dashboards from their mobile devices.

Quick Take

Host Analytics Business Analytics solves an important problem for many midsize companies, who want a standardized way to access, view and report across applications, but lack the time, money or expertise to deploy traditional on-premise BI tools. For customers already using a BI solution, Host Analytics’ open architecture enables customers to use their BI tool on the Host Analytics Corporate Performance Management data for broader reporting needs via open database connectivity (OBDC) drivers.

The new offering provides both a one-stop shop to address CPM requirements and the means to get the benefits of a broader BI tool without having to deploy a big BI suite. This should hold clear appeal for existing Host Analytics midmarket customers who want a more integrated and holistic view of the business. It should also help Host Analytics get on the short-list of more midsize companies that are evaluating CPM, as it offers them a flexible way to expand BI functionality into other parts of the organization when they’re ready without having to deploy more complex BI packages.

Filed under: SMB | Tagged: , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Closing the Business Intelligence Gap for Small Businesses

Posted on January 27, 2012 by lauriemccabe

Most small and medium businesses (SMBs) can relate to Albert Einstein’s famous quote that  “Information is not knowledge.”  Many SMBs have plenty of data, but find it challenging to get the insights from it that they need to run their businesses more effectively and efficiently.

Businesses have always needed the ability to track and measure critical success metrics in a quantifiable way. The problem is that when there’s too much information, people find it difficult to fully comprehend it and make decisions. In fact, more than one-quarter of SMBs in our 2011 SMB Routes to Market Study indicated that “getting better insights from the data we already have” as a top technology challenge.

And the problem is growing: Scientists report that more than1.2 zettabytes of digital information were created in 2010. What’s a zettabyte, you may wonder? (I know I did.) A zettabyte is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes–yes, that’s 21 zeroes! Online video, social networking sites, digital photography, and smart phone data are all contributing to the data pile-up. If that’s not enough to make your head spin, researchers also predict that the annual rate at which we collectively produce data will soar 44 times over the next decade.

The Gap Between BI Haves and Have-nots

Business intelligence and analytics solutions are designed to help make sense of all of this information. However, many SMBs often view these solutions as too complex and/or expensive. And companies without an accurate, consistent and accessible data source face the additional challenge of aggregating and rationalizing data from different sources.

SMB Group surveys reveal that the smaller the company, the less likely they are to use or plan to use BI solutions (Figure 1).  Our 2011 SMB Routes to Market Study showed that while 33% of midsize businesses currently use and 28% plan to use BI solutions, among small businesses, just 16% currently use and 16 % plan to use BI solutions.

Figure 1: SMB Use and Plans for Business Intelligence Solutions

Source: SMB Group 2011 SMB Routes to Market Study

The danger is that relying on hunches and intuition alone can put you at risk of missing trends and market opportunities or spotting potential problems–all of which can hurt business performance.

Some of the warning signs that your company’s growth may be hampered due to an inadequate ability to analyze data are shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Warning Signs That Your Company Has a Data Analysis Problem

Source: SMB Group

Closing the Gap

Adding a BI solution on top of disparate, inconsistent and unreliable data is like putting lipstick on a pig.  So you need to start by establishing a core foundation of common, trustworthy and accessible data that’s shared across core business applications and processes. If you already run your business with an integrated business solution that pulls everything together into “one version of the truth”, you’ve already fulfilled this requirement. If not, you’ll want to integrate or upgrade the core solutions that your business relies on to ensure that you have a consistent and unified data source.

With this foundation in place, BI tools, dashboards and reports can help you to zero in on the insights you need to move your business ahead. The good news for SMBs is that several vendors now provide BI solutions tailored to meet SMB requirements and budget constraints. The bad news is that it can be difficult to figure out which one will be the best fit for your business.

While there is no “one-size fits all” solution that will be right for all companies, you can start by determining the core metrics that your business needs to measure. Many of these are likely to be areas that you need to measure and track long-term. Depending on the type of business you’re in, these could include things such as:

  • The percentage of income you derive from repeat customers vs. new customers
  • Times for order to ship, ship to invoice and receivables overdue
  • Time to respond to and close customer service calls
  • Procurement and spending analysis
  • Employee turnover rate

Given the pace of change in your industry, your business goals and the overall economy, you’ll probably want to make additions and adjustments over time as well, so look for a BI solution that can adapt to your needs as they change.

Figure 3 provides a checklist of additional questions to ask as a starting point to evaluate different BI solutions.

Figure 3: Key Considerations When Evaluating BI Solutions

Source: SMB Group

Getting the insights you need from a rising avalanche of information isn’t easy–but it is a critical business success factor. With the right BI tools in place, you can harness the data you have to get the wisdom you need to grow your business and stay ahead of the competition.

 

Filed under: Small Business Software, SMB, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

Closing the SMB Business Intelligence Gap

Posted on November 9, 2011 by lauriemccabe

Most small and medium businesses (SMBs) can relate to Albert Einstein’s famous quote that  “Information is not knowledge.”  Many SMBs have plenty of data, but find it challenging to get the insights from it that they need to run their businesses more effectively and efficiently.

Businesses have always needed the ability to track and measure critical success metrics in a quantifiable way. The problem is that when there’s too much information, people find it difficult to fully comprehend it and make decisions. In fact, more than one-quarter of SMBs in our 2011 SMB Routes to Market Study indicated that “getting better insights from the data we already have” as a top technology challenge. And the problem is growing: Scientists report that more than1.2 zettabytes of digital information were created in 2010. What’s a zettabyte, you may wonder? (I know I did.) A zettabyte is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes–yes, that’s 21 zeroes! Online video, social networking sites, digital photography, and smart phone data are all contributing to the data pile-up. If that’s not enough to make your head spin, researchers also predict that the annual rate at which we collectively produce data will soar 44 times over the next decade.

The Gap Between BI Haves and Have-nots

Business intelligence and analytics solutions are designed to help make sense of all of this information. However, many SMBs often view these solutions as too complex and/or expensive. And companies without an accurate, consistent and accessible data source face the additional challenge of aggregating and rationalizing data from different sources.

SMB Group surveys reveal that the smaller the company, the less likely they are to use or plan to use BI solutions (Figure 1).  Our 2011 SMB Routes to Market Study showed that while 33% of midsize businesses currently use and 28% plan to use BI solutions, just 16% of small businesses currently use 16 % plan to use these solutions.

Figure 1: SMB Use and Plans for Business Intelligence Solutions

Source: SMB Group 2011 SMB Routes to Market Study (click to enlarge)

The danger is that relying on hunches and intuition alone can put you at risk of missing trends and market opportunities or spotting potential problems–all of which can hurt business performance.

Some of the warning signs that your company’s growth may be hampered due to am inadequate ability to analyze data are shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Warning Signs That Your Company Has a Data Analysis Problem

Source: SMB Group (click to enlarge)

Closing the Gap

Adding a BI solution on top of disparate, inconsistent and unreliable data is like putting lipstick on a pig.  So you need to start by establishing a core foundation of common, trustworthy and accessible data that’s shared across core business applications and processes. If you’re already run your business with an integrated business solution that pulls everything together into “one version of the truth,” you’ve already fulfilled this requirement. If not, you’ll want to integrate or upgrade the core solutions that your business relies on to ensure that you have a consistent and unified data source.

With this foundation in place, BI tools, dashboards and reports can help you to zero in on the insights you need to move your business ahead. The good news for SMBs is that several vendors now provide BI solutions tailored to meet SMB requirements and budget constraints. The bad news is that it can be difficult to figure out which one will be the best fit for your business.

While there is no “one-size fits all” solution that will be right for all companies, you can start by determining the core metrics that your business needs to measure. Many of these are likely to be areas that you need to measure and track long-term. Depending on the type of business you’re in, these could include things such as:

  • The percentage of income you derive from repeat customers vs. new customers
  • Times for order to ship, ship to invoice and receivables overdue
  • Time to respond to and close customer service calls
  • Procurement and spending analysis
  • Employee turnover rate

Given the pace of change in your industry, your business goals and the overall economy, you’ll probably want to make additions and adjustments over time as well, so look for a BI solution that can adapt to your needs as they change.

Figure 3 provides a checklist of additional questions to ask as a starting point to evaluate different BI solutions.

Figure 3: Key Considerations When Evaluating BI Solutions

Figure 3:

Source: SMB Group

Getting the insights you need from a rising avalanche of information isn’t easy–but it is a critical business success factor. With the right BI tools in place, you can harness the data you have to get the wisdom you need to grow your business and stay ahead of the competition.

 

Filed under: Small Business Software, SMB, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Next Page »
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 6,010 other followers