A Blog by Jonathan Low

 

Sep 18, 2012

Analytics in Real Time: How the Cloud, Big Data and the Shrinking Business Time Frames Are Affecting Corporate Tech Needs

Bigger decisions with greater financial implications made with less information in shorter periods of time.

Welcome to this world. There was a time when silos meant more than they do today. CIOs - corporate Chief Information Officers used to worry about what technology to buy and how to train the staff to use it. Now? Their decisions encompass strategy, human resources, supply chain, customer relations and investor communications.

Organizations get the change and they get the pressure. But that does not mean every entity is able to execute with the same degree of effectiveness. Data is everywhere. So are the means to access it. The emphasis on analysis and interpretation is a reflection of the need to derive meaning from speed and information.

The challenge is to process all of that increased velocity and knowledge into understanding that can be converted into actionable wisdom. JL
Louis Columbus comments in Forbes:
The luxury of long technology evaluation cycles, introspective analysis of systems, and long deployment timeframes are giving way to rapid deployments and systems designed for accuracy and speed. Customers are quickly reinventing how they choose to learn about new products, keep current on existing ones, and stay loyal to those brands they most value. The best-run companies are all over this, orchestrating their IT strategies to be as responsive as possible. CIOs need to be just as strong at strategic planning and execution as they are at technology. Many are quickly prioritizing analytics, cloud and mobile strategies to stay in step with their rapidly changing customer bases. This is especially true for those companies with less than $1B in sales, as analytics, cloud computing and mobility can be combined to compete very effectively against their much bigger rivals. What’s Driving CIOs – A Look At Technology Priorities - Gartner’s annual survey of CIOs includes 2,300 respondents located in 44 countries, competing in all major industries. As of the last annual survey, the three-highest rated priorities for investment from 2012 to 2015 included Analytics and Business Intelligence (BI), Mobile Technologies and Cloud Computing. How Industries Prioritize Analytics, Cloud and Mobile - When these priorities are analyzed across eight key industries, patterns emerge showing how the communications, media and services (CMS) and manufacturing industries have the highest immediate growth potential for mobility (Next 2 years). In Big Data/BI, Financial Services is projected to be the fastest-developing industry and in Cloud computing, CMS and Government. In analyzing this and related data, a profile of early adopter enterprises emerges. These are companies who are based on knowledge-intensive business models, have created and excel at running virtual organization structures, rely on mobility to connect with and build relationships with customers, and have deep analytics expertise. In short, their business models take the best of what mobility, Big Data/BI and cloud computing have to offer and align it to their strategic plans and programs. How Mobility Could Emerge As the Trojan Horse of Enterprise Software Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), the rapid ascent of enterprise application stores, and the high expectations customers have of continual mobile app usability and performance improvements are just three of many factors driving mobility growth. Just as significant is the success many mid-tier companies are having in competing with their larger, more globally-known rivals using mobile-based Customer Relationship Management (CRM), warranty management, service and spare parts procurement strategies. What smaller competitors lack in breadth they are more than making up for in speed and responsiveness. Bottom Line – By excelling at the orchestration of analytics, cloud and mobile, enterprises can differentiate where it matters most – by delivering an excellent customer experience. Mobility can emerge as an enterprise Trojan Horse because it unleashes accuracy, precision and speed into customer-facing processes that larger, complacent competitors may have overlooked.

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