Corporate Culture Transformed – An Insider’s View (Part 4 of 4)

by Keith Smith, Senior Consultant From My Cold Clicking Hands The internal community of QlikView business users at my old company has continued growing, and can be summarized in just a few words:  THEY JUST LOVE USING QLIKVIEW. Many of these business users were familiar with competitive offerings from other BI vendors, as well as …

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Bardess Sponsors NJ SIM Golf Event – May 21, 2012

  On Monday, May 21, 2012, Bardess Group will once again be a major sponsor at the Annual New Jersey SIM Foundation CIO Technology Exchange and Charity Golf Event at the Neshanic Valley Golf Club in Somerset County, NJ.  Last year, the event was a huge success with the charitable foundation raising over $100k. During …

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Corporate Training and the Use of Instructional Design Processes

By Diane Lauer, Bardess Senior Consultant, Lead Instructional Designer and Organizational Development Specialist Effective corporate training courses, regardless of length or instruction type, do not just happen – they are created using a systematic process referred to as Instructional Design. Instructional design is more than just putting information in front of the learner. It is …

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Corporate Culture Transformed – An Insider’s View (Part 3 of 4)

by Keith Smith, Senior Consultant Witnessing the Transformation One of QlikView’s greatest strengths is the ability to connect to multiple data sources of interest (ex: Oracle, Excel, *.csv, *.txt, etc.) and load all of this data into QlikView as part of one comprehensive data model.  QlikView can truly become a “one-stop shopping destination” for all …

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Corporate Culture Transformed – An Insider’s View (Part 2 of 4)

by Keith Smith, Senior Consultant Conversations change when the information is instantly available After loading our company data into QlikView and developing a simple dashboard, I was amazed at the things I could do, and how quickly I could do them.  Reports that previously took one week to assemble now took less than five minutes …

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Corporate Culture Transformed – An Insider’s View (Part 4 of 4) Bardess Sponsors NJ SIM Golf Event – May 21, 2012 Corporate Training and the Use of Instructional Design Processes Corporate Culture Transformed – An Insider’s View (Part 3 of 4) Corporate Culture Transformed – An Insider’s View (Part 2 of 4)

Feb
01

Gartner Says Data Quality before Data Integration

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Gartner recommends that companies implementing data integration projects should find a vendor that focuses on the quality of a customer’s data.

Ted Friedman, a Gartner vice president and information management analyst said that “organizations cannot be successful in their data integration work unless they have a very strong focus on data quality built in. That’s because it’s not only about delivering stuff from here to there. You also have to make sure you’re delivering the right stuff.”

Friedman also said that “organizations considering an investment in new data integration tools should first look for vendors that can support a wide range of integration technology ‘delivery styles’ because needs are likely to change over time.

Data is a critical corporate asset that gets synthesized into Information, which is the basis for knowledge within your organization.  Quality Data is the foundation for all processes and activities within a corporation.

Bardess Group has data management solutions that will help you use your data for competitive advantage.  Our data solutions are tailored to assess, improve, and ensure data quality in your organization.  This is how we do it.

Read our data management success stories here.

For more information, contact us.

 

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Jan
25

Shine a Light: Advanced Analytics, Big Data and Business Discovery

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One night, a man was searching for his keys under a streetlamp when another man stopped and offered to help.
“Where did you drop them?” said the second man.
“Right over there,” said the first, motioning farther down the dark street.
Puzzled, the second man asked, “Then why are you looking here?”
“Because this is where the light is.”

Billions of dollars are spent on Business Intelligence tools that look in one direction: backwards.  Why are we staring at the past when we want to know the future?  We’re driving around and staring at the rear-view mirror.  We know it, but we do it anyway.

Why?

  • everyone else is doing it
  • we have lots of information about the past
  • no one is telling us to do it another way
  • we’ve invested in tools that do it really, really well

And we worry that someone else’s rear-view mirror sees farther than ours.  This can’t go on.

That rumbling you hear is the groundswell.  You thought the Internet was big?  Well that was just the foundation.  What has been built on that foundation will blow your mind, if it hasn’t already.

Get inspired by what’s possible with data.  Watch one of these and you’ll want to watch them all.

So here’s the big question:  How can you have an experience like that with your data?  How can you have an illuminating, transformative “insight machine” that tells powerful stories.  Stories that inspire action.

Let’s call the answer the Threefold Path…

  • Advanced Analytics
  • Big Data
  • Business Discovery

Hey, hang on, isn’t that just…

  • data
  • math
  • and visualization?

Sure.  But everything has changed!  Like oil buried deep under the sea, advancements in computation, memory and storage have made digging for insight achievable and profitable.

  • The tools to achieve these results are available to the masses.
  • The path has been followed by many companies in different industries with great results that prove the value.
  • The Internet’s culture of sharing and cross-pollination is driving innovation faster than we could have imagined.

In this series we will look at Advanced Analytics, Big Data and Business Discovery.  What do they offer?  What is the value?  How do you take advantage of them?

Until next time…

 

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Jan
18

10 Steps to Achieve Data Quality

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Many organizations can achieve data quality by applying the most effective methodology for accelerating the data cleansing and control processes.

The ten major steps that must be taken to achieve Data Quality are:

  1. Acknowledge the problem
  2. Identify the root causes
  3. Determine the scope of the problem by prioritizing data importance and performing the necessary data assessments
  4. Estimate the anticipated ROI, focusing on the difference between the cost of improving Data Quality vs. the cost of doing nothing
  5. Establish a single owner of Data Quality with accountability (e.g., make it a senior management role, such as a Data Officer/DQ COE)
  6. Create a Data Quality vision and strategy
  7. Identify the key change drivers
  8. Develop a formal Data Quality improvement program based on specific tools wherever possible
  9. Use a value-driven approach for large projects
  10. Make it a priority to move your organization up through the levels of the Data Maturity model

Need help with achieving data quality.  Bardess Group provides Data Quality solutions for Fortune 500 and middle-market corporations that are targeted at:

  • Increasing Customer Satisfaction
  • Increasing Revenue and Margins
  • Increasing Collaboration between Functional Departments
  • Improving Operational Efficiency

Contact us today for more information.

 

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Jan
11

Top 10 Reasons Why QlikView is Best in BI

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According to IDC, QlikView is the fastest growing BI software in the world and it is now adding 14 customers per working day across the globe.  Here’s why…

1.  QlikTech ranks first in customer loyalty taking top honors in:

  • performance satisfaction
  • inclination to purchase more licenses
  • bought for features
  • overall competitiveness and product quality

2. QlikView is a single application platform for all your BI needs with demos and proof of concepts that provide a wow factor that astounds prospects and clients giving them insight in a fraction of the time they expect.

3. It is the most rapidly deployable, customizable and comprehensive business analysis package.  It can be deployed within weeks, days and sometimes hours. This results in an unmatched ROI.

4. QlikView was created on the premise that analysis should work the way your brain does.  That’s where its patented and powerful associative technology comes into play.  It shows you information traditional business intelligence solutions cannot.

5. Development cost for QlikView is almost half as compared to traditional BI software, and it delivers two times the value.  The initial investment can be only one eighth of other traditional BI software

6. User training takes seconds.  It’s very similar to a program most end users already know – Excel.  Gartner rates QlikView’s ease of use among end users as most important selection criteria when choosing BI tools.

7. QlikView doesn’t use cubes.  You load all original tables and design all charts you ever want.  It lets users access all the data they’ll ever need and ask the questions they want answered.  It holds all the data in memory allowing it to create associatively which is not supported by other tools.

8. QlikView is the market leader in in-memory based software.  Gartner says by 2012 almost 70 % of Global to 1000 companies would bring their data in to the memory for analysis.

9. You don’t need to call IT every time you want a new report.  Once a solution is deployed, users are in total control of the information they want and how they want it.

10. Project  success rate is 98%  vs. 38 % project success rate of OLAP based tools.

Seeing is believing.  Download a free Personal Edition of QlikView or contact us now for a Webex demo to learn how QlikView may be applied to your organization.

 

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Jan
04

Data Quality Facts and Insights

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Most organizations today don’t monitor or analyze the quality of their data and information.  Most do not have any formal processes to address data quality issues.  In fact, most organizations cannot even identify who is responsible or accountable for the accuracy of the information utilized by their given business units.

Data Quality IS absolutely necessary to the growth, efficiency and productivity of your organization.  Here’s why…

  • Experts estimate that poor data quality can cost organization’s between 20% to 35% of their operating revenue due to process failures and information scrape and rework.  This number could increase up to 40% for organizations which are information intensive, such as banks, insurance and pharmaceutical companies.
  • For the past 10 years, it has been said that the cost of poor data quality on American businesses is $600 billion annually.  The source is a 2002 study by The Data Warehousing Institute.  And according to this study, that was only the tip of the iceberg.  If that number is anywhere near accurate, then it is safe to consider that the cost is significantly higher now.
  • Research has shown that the amount of data and information acquired by companies has close to tripled from 2003-2007, while an estimated 10 to 30 percent of it may be categorized as being of “poor quality” (i.e., inaccurate, inconsistent, poorly formatted, entered incorrectly, etc.).  This paints a pretty grim picture of what the statistics must be today.
  • Half of procurement managers admit their spend data is poor and they are unable to measure its quality – even though 95% of the information is key to achieving their goals.  (Supply Management.com – September 16, 2011)

Gartner says dirty data is a business problem, not an IT problem.

The implementation of a Data Quality initiative can ultimately lead to:

Reductions ranging from:

  • 10 – 20% of corporate budgets,
  • 40 – 50% of the IT budget, and
  • 40% of operating costs;

And increases of:

  • 15 – 20 % in revenues, and
  • 20 – 40% in sales

When You Think Quality Data…Think Bardess

 

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Dec
21

Data Quality – Are You in the Race?

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One question every organization should ask is, “Is our data quality data?”  Your initial answer may be, “Well that’s IT’s issue not mine.”  Bad data can affect every division of an organization, from Sales all the way down to HR.  Several studies have estimated that bad data quality costs U.S. businesses over $600 billion per year due to inefficiency and lost customers. In fact, a recent Gartner survey revealed that:

  • 140 companies surveyed lost an average of $8.2M annually due to bad data quality
  • 30 companies surveyed estimated their losses at $20M
  • 6 companies surveyed estimated their losses to be more than $100M annually

So how could bad data create such a huge cost?

  • Bad data quality quickly results in inadequacies in business processes that rely heavily upon data—reports, inventory systems, etc.  Large companies often have more than 400 applications in their information technology portfolio. Up to 200 of the applications read or update product data. Ultimately, poor data quality will result in the rework of all data to ensure they are meeting requirements of all your organizations source systems.
  • Bad data quality gives leads to incorrect decisions.  As they say, GIGO (Garbage In Garbage Out), decisions based on poor data are poor decisions and critical decisions based on poor-quality data can have very serious consequences.
  • Poor data quality can have external effects on your organization as well.  Bad data can lead to mistrust with your clients/customers who will quickly lose confidence in your organization’s abilities once your bad data becomes exposed.

Whether bad data is projecting your sales/costs as a million more, or a million less, you can clearly see that data either helps you earn money or waste it.  Over the next few weeks, I will detail the five key standards of data quality and what each exactly means to your organization – Completeness, Accuracy, Timeliness, Uniqueness, and Consistency.

Bardess Group is an established group of senior professionals with significant experience and success in providing Data Management solutions.  Watch our video and contact us for more information on how we can help your organization win The Race for Data Quality.

 

 

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Dec
14

What Does a QlikView Development Team Look Like?

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Our clients often request our help in developing a strategy around staffing their QlikView development teams. Bardess is uniquely positioned among the QlikView partners to offer this advice because of our experience working with large enterprise clients and because we prefer to add value to our clients as a trusted advisor rather than augment their staffing requirements.

QlikView is radically easier and faster to deploy than traditional Business Intelligence (BI) solutions. Most organizations find they can be up and running in a few weeks. In addition, QlikView deployments tend to be iterative—we work with extremely fast cycle times to create exactly the solution the customer requires. The speed and collaborative nature of QlikView projects mean they should be staffed differently to traditional BI projects.

The ideal QlikView team should have business analysts that are close to the business, skilled in gathering business requirements and adept at both the user interface and the requisite data modeling in QlikView (i.e., strong at both client engagement and QlikView development). These front-line developers must be able to quickly understand a requirement and then be able to mock up a working example of the request in front of the business user. The end result is a prototype that accurately reflects the needs of the business user in a working application.

Supporting the front-line Qlikview developers should be a technical team, with deeper QlikView experience, including the use of extension objects, QV Server/Publisher, big data and incremental loads from multiple data sources. It has been our experience that a QlikView technical guru can support 6-8 QlikView developers, depending on the depth of knowledge they possess. The capacity of the development team is constrained therefore, by the number of skilled front-line QlikView developers able to engage business users and having a strong technical team backing them up. At Bardess, our experienced onsite QlikView consultants are backed up by a strong technical team, so we practice what we preach.

Take the first step and contact us now for a Webex demo of QlikView to learn how it can be applied to your organization.

See what Gartner thinks about QlikView.

 

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Dec
07

Insight to Improving Cash Flow

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Revenue Management

The goal of Revenue Management is to improve cash flows by improving key revenue impacting processes, reports and systems interfaces. Solutions are not always found in ERP systems which tend to focus on expense-related processes rather than the end-to-end quote-to-cash processes.

Revenue Management involves the entire revenue cycle in the Enterprise including maintenance revenue flows, revenue reporting and analysis, revenue allocation and recognition, contract management and billing.

Why Revenue Management?

Increases in government regulations (FASB, SEC, Sarbanes-Oxley Act), the economy and the disappointments of massive ERP solutions have led companies to focus on managing the flow of revenues as a way to improve the bottom line. In many corporations, the financial processes do not match to IT solutions resulting in inefficient workarounds using spreadsheets and manual tools. Moreover, poor revenue management processes negatively impact companies in several ways:

Poor Revenue Management Processes

  • Missed Billing Due Dates
  • Elapsed Maintenance Contracts
  • Poor Customer Installed Base Management

Impacts to Companies

  • Inaccurate Revenue Reporting (Misstatement of Revenues)
  • Decreased Cash Flow-(Missed Billing)
  • Inefficient Manual Work around Processes

The Best Approach

Identify the most effective and least costly solution to revenue shortfalls whether it is an improved revenue process, systems interface or data flow. Develop an approach to recover revenue lost in poor data quality or inefficient processes.

Identify and create effective solutions to resolve Revenue Management issues. Determine the best way to replace disparate spreadsheets, redundant data entry, weak reporting and other manual legacy processes to more effectively track and manage revenue streams to and from customers and suppliers. “Close the loop” between critical business processes and functions across the Enterprise and create visible audit trails for Revenue flows.

To find out more about Bardess Group and how its Revenue Management services can help you, contact us now for a free consultation.

 

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Nov
30

Business Intelligence Starts Here

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The goal of Business Intelligence is to turn Data into information that is useful to the organization.  It is a business strategy that integrates and analyzes operational data from all business functions in an enterprise. BI enables your organization to quickly access, analyze and share information in order to assess business performance, improve decision-making, predict outcomes and ultimately increase profitability.

The best BI solutions allow you to turn a vast array of data into valuable information that drives decision-making in your corporation. They ensure that all your data has clear definitions and a fully understandable presentation to users.

Using BI Business Discovery or Advanced Analytical tools provides the means of presenting relevant data to senior management, financial executives, sales, operational managers, etc. at the proper level of detail and within the required time period. In addition, they ensure that critical revenue information is available for reporting through closed-loop processes that deliver the information in a timely manner.

BI tools allow you to capture, analyze and share the critical information in your organization. Our BI solutions offer a full range of services that include activities such as:

  • Information Analysis – analyzing your information to gain insight
  • Performance & Results Monitoring – identifying metrics to monitor business processes and performance results
  • Business Reporting – developing tools and processes to communicate and report information to the Enterprise

Bardess uses a proven internal methodology to quickly get results from your data. You may engage our consultants to focus on one critical aspect of your overall BI plan or engage our team to manage the full scope of the effort. Our consultants will work with your team to ensure that you obtain quality business metrics, forecasts, predictive analytics or reports that meet your needs.

Contact us now for more information on our BI solutions and for a free consultation.

 

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Nov
21

Documentation, Documentation, Documentation

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It is a love/hate relationship: we hate to do it but love having it.  From a development perspective, we typically have the specifications and a design document (in some form) from which we build the application and its surrounding processes.  We may even have some data schema and overall process/logic flows.  Between the delivery of these requirements and high level documentation and the implementation of the process and application is where the details become scarce.

We all know that documentation is required in some form if we are going to transition an application to another person or organization, or it may be a part of the overall project deliverable.  We are often against tight deadlines, and documenting the process and procedures becomes secondary; even putting the comments in the code which will help us figure out the “whats” and the “whys” we created this logic.  Documentation is on the back burner until we rush to gather the information at the end, and wonder what does this code do or do we really need all of these dimensions and variables and why do we have these processes that seem to do nothing.

We have all had the situation where a modification is required; case in point, modify processing to be driven by a fiscal calendar rather than by calendar date.  In this modification, it was determined that changes had to be made to the scripts to incorporate the fiscal day which was not provided in the source data.  Knowing what data was available and what needed to be included, either calculated or extracted from other sources, often expedites the completion of the modification.  Knowledge of all data sources, input and derived, including the variables created in the scripts and through dynamic definition, is invaluable in correctly modifying the user interface and ultimately reducing data bloat by eliminating fields once required and now no longer needed.

Just do it.  Document as you go.  Most development tools provide some method of capturing and exporting schema and other details, field usage, variables, etc.  Review the different forums for tools created by other developers that will retrieve information from your application and processes.  Detailed below is a list of items that we have found useful in our documentation. In the end, the time you save may be your own!!

  • Initialization and set up processing and procedures.  Provide a step-by-step task list for establishing directory structures, libraries, references, etc.  Included in this information are environment and other reference data and files.
  • Security and user access tasks and procedures.
  • File transfer protocols and back-up procedures for data and applications.
  • Process flows with inputs and outputs.  Incorporate the processing explanations as well as exception handling (and not just call support).  Data from external systems should have contact information of the direct and supervisory personnel.  Developer and analyst contacts for the external data are as essential as the support contacts.  Assure that your organization receives change notifications from upstream systems and provides the same for downstream.
  • Create code and process comments in the respective applications and procedures, and then use this information, noting the source, load script, process flow, etc., as the basis for the documentation.  Expand and explain these short descriptions.
  • Complex formulas and expressions should find a home in the documentation.  Not only do these entries serve as examples, but will assist those that have to modify such entries (which always happen) by explaining the logic and processing behind these technical solutions.
  • Detail standards utilized in User Interface, which will form the basis for the UI mechanics and “help” documents.   Document derived values and variables used in selection mechanisms, such as list boxes, buttons, etc.

 

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