After three intensive days, this conference is coming to an end now. Apart from the pleasure of meeting so many friendly faces who share an interest in our discipline, I am enjoying the feeling that I have once again gathered a multitude of fresh ideas – or should I say, loose ends – that I will take home and reflect upon. And I hope you feel the same way. Here are just a few thoughts on today’s keynote and workshops.
Stephen’s bid for the BICC
Stephen Brobst, Teradata’s CTO, made a strong case for the concept of the BI competence centre (BICC) that would serve as a link between IT and business users. The idea is to say good-bye to the project-based implementation approach and form permanent teams with experts from both sides. “Good plans are not set in stone. They embrace change, and don’t prevent it,” he said. The BICC would spread analytical skills and best practice examples throughout the enterprise, and quickly identify new business information needs and find their solutions. This entity would define standards and the overall BI architecture – but more importantly, it would adjust the BI environment to business users’ preferences and requirements, not vice versa.
Healthcare workshop
There was also the healthcare workshop that we set up together with SAS. Jürgen Kellermann and Matthias Kleinschmidt of GKV Spitzenverband, a German association of statutary health insurance based here in Berlin, gave us some insight into the good work both they and their members do. Apparently, they do not only have to make extra sure that they comply with privacy regulations – there is also the competition among its members that they have to take into account. Still, they manage to establish meaningful benchmarks and produce figures that serve as a valuable basis in negotiations with the medical associations. In other words, even in a highly sensitive environment, there is leeway to examine anonymous health data for opportunities to cut costs and increase medical effectiveness. Which is good news considering that practically all healthcare systems (in the Western hemisphere, at least) face similar problems.
Automotive podcast
As for our special automotive track at this conference, I am sorry that I couldn’t find the time to cover it. From what I hear, it has been a very productive encounter of two (up to now) distinctive cultures, engineering and IT. On the one hand, data analysis has already been a common method among engineers, for example in quality assurance. On the other hand, the enterprise-wide approach that Teradata adheres to means: First, that there are many other valuable data warehousing applications for the automotive industry, for example in supply chain management or CRM. Secondly, this leads to more available data, such as reported early warranty cases, opening up new analytical opportunities in quality management. As for the latter, this podcast with Duncan Ross explains the potentials.
Remember the Marauder’s Map?
Finally, just one more remark. I remember that last year, during the Istanbul conference, I was formulating the vision of some kind of Marauders Map on our smart phones that maps the marvels of the city we’re in adjusted to our individual preferences and social networks. Judging from what I have seen on the smart phones of our participants, we have already come halfway here. There is no shortage of apps that help you to find your way through a city you don’t know. As for the analytical part which is necessary to further customize this information, I am sure that we will see a lot more in the future.
For now, let me thank you for your participation. I hope you found this conference as inspiring as I do. I wish you all a safe and comfortable journey home.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Facing and embracing a changing world – with sneakers and energy
If I had to sum up what I’ve learned at yesterday’s Teradata Enterprise Intelligence Summit, it would probably go like this: the world is changing and that’s OK, as long as we respond accordingly. Geoff Burch claimed that managers need to notice when their staff are doing things right – one of the basic rules of motivation. But how do you empower people to get things right in the first place? Hermann Wimmer’s answer during the closing session: By handing them the information they need. He made an impassionate plea: “Set information in your organization free so that every decision is a smart decision”.
The eagerly awaited keynote of Joschka Fischer, the former Vice-Chancellor and Foreign Minister of Germany, was equally passionate. I love the story of Joschka Fischer wearing sneakers at his inauguration as the first minister of the German green party in 1985, which my German colleagues told me. Pretty bold in a surrounding that couldn’t be any more formal! In addition to making a fashion statement, wearing sneakers also demonstrates a dynamic and forward-looking mindset. It seems to me that Fischer started a trend with it. Or do you still find it odd that Steve Jobs always gives his famous presentations wearing sneakers.
Apart from his forward-looking “sneakers-attitude”, Fischer is also known for being a strong advocate of environmental protection. That doesn’t mean he longs for pre-industrialized times, he rather embraces high tech as part of the solution. You could have heard a pin drop when Fischer drew an impressive picture of the ongoing shift in power from the Western countries to the emerging new economic powerhouses in Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe. At last, billions of people are reaching a decent standard of living through progress in society and technology – and that is definitely a good thing, a dream coming true! There are downsides to this development however. They include shortages in energy and water supply as well as worldwide environmental pollution and climate change – quite severe consequences. Fischer’s conclusion: Since we only have one world, the challenges of this century can only be managed if all mankind act as one, which so far has never been the case. Waste of resources, especially energy, must come to an end quickly, because we are definitely running out of time. Instead, we urgently need to make energy supply more efficient and to enforce the adoption of renewables.
We at Teradata share this view. And we strongly believe that data warehousing is indispensible here. The “smart grid”, for example, would not work without a precise and dynamic, real-time picture of the electricity networks. The same applies if you want to give your customers an opportunity to find out about the carbon footprint for, let’s say, flying from Milan to Berlin, and to choose the “greenest” option accordingly. In addition to saving energy and enabling ecologically responsible decisions, data warehousing also makes energy supply more reliable. After all it is, in a way, a long supply chain, in which you need to forecast demand and order pre-products timely and accurately, for example. This is definitely one field in which advanced analytics will play a crucial role in the next ten years.
The eagerly awaited keynote of Joschka Fischer, the former Vice-Chancellor and Foreign Minister of Germany, was equally passionate. I love the story of Joschka Fischer wearing sneakers at his inauguration as the first minister of the German green party in 1985, which my German colleagues told me. Pretty bold in a surrounding that couldn’t be any more formal! In addition to making a fashion statement, wearing sneakers also demonstrates a dynamic and forward-looking mindset. It seems to me that Fischer started a trend with it. Or do you still find it odd that Steve Jobs always gives his famous presentations wearing sneakers.
Apart from his forward-looking “sneakers-attitude”, Fischer is also known for being a strong advocate of environmental protection. That doesn’t mean he longs for pre-industrialized times, he rather embraces high tech as part of the solution. You could have heard a pin drop when Fischer drew an impressive picture of the ongoing shift in power from the Western countries to the emerging new economic powerhouses in Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe. At last, billions of people are reaching a decent standard of living through progress in society and technology – and that is definitely a good thing, a dream coming true! There are downsides to this development however. They include shortages in energy and water supply as well as worldwide environmental pollution and climate change – quite severe consequences. Fischer’s conclusion: Since we only have one world, the challenges of this century can only be managed if all mankind act as one, which so far has never been the case. Waste of resources, especially energy, must come to an end quickly, because we are definitely running out of time. Instead, we urgently need to make energy supply more efficient and to enforce the adoption of renewables.We at Teradata share this view. And we strongly believe that data warehousing is indispensible here. The “smart grid”, for example, would not work without a precise and dynamic, real-time picture of the electricity networks. The same applies if you want to give your customers an opportunity to find out about the carbon footprint for, let’s say, flying from Milan to Berlin, and to choose the “greenest” option accordingly. In addition to saving energy and enabling ecologically responsible decisions, data warehousing also makes energy supply more reliable. After all it is, in a way, a long supply chain, in which you need to forecast demand and order pre-products timely and accurately, for example. This is definitely one field in which advanced analytics will play a crucial role in the next ten years.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Faraway, so close
Before I dart off to my first of our Enterprise Intelligence Summit, let me share some impressions from day one. Having ploughed through a packed agenda, we let the evening wind down at Tempelhof Airport, which was closehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifd in 2008 and has since earned a reputation as an event location. It has been the setting of a number of films like Billy Wilders “A foreign affair”, or Wim Wenders’ ingenious “Faraway, so close” with the famous U2-Song “Stay”. More importantly, it was the centre of the Berlin airlift in 1948/9 when railway and road access to the Western parts of the city were blocked. It was Tempelhof where the so-called “Raisin Bombers” landed and supplied the people of Berlin with food and other essentials for nearly eleven months.
How times have changed! Groceries and consumer goods are abundant – and retailers have to compete for the customer by creating the best shopping experience. Which basically means offering a consistent customer dialogue across sophisticated sales channels, as Dr. Gerd Wolfram, Head of CIO-office, METRO Group, explained. Metro’s future store initiative is following the Zeitgeist by offering customers a mobile shopping assistant (MSA) that creates shopping lists and provides additional product information. As for the relevant data, no one would seriously complain that they have become generally scarce recently; the real question is how to leverage the data as a strategic asset for the organization. With data at your disposal you’re as close as you can be to understanding every aspect and process of your business. But if you’re not able to unearth the treasure, meaning to draw the information from the data – you’re far away from it, maybe even further than if the data didn’t exist at all…Faraway, so close.
Certainly Professor Hans Rosling would agree with that. He impressively demonstrated that decisions based on presumptions are no better than those made by chimpanzees. There is no alternative to considering all the available data out there if you want to understand what is happening out there. Forget about gut decisions.
Trend-spotter Markus Lindkvist is in line with Rosling. He claims that our thinking can be at odds with reality. Do you still feel like twenty, although you’re already past your fifties? A common attitude, according to Lindkvist. This is because we all tend to see things not as they are, instead we see them as we are and call that being focused. Future is about unpredictability and things we’ve never thought about, says Lindkvist. And I would like to add: you’d better take care that you are really aware of what’s going on right now, because it will be challenging your status quo.
Before I’ve got to go, let me quickly call your attention to some of my personal highlights of today, which are the general sessions with Bob Pritchard, Joschka Fischer and Geoff Burch. I definitely won’t miss those.
How times have changed! Groceries and consumer goods are abundant – and retailers have to compete for the customer by creating the best shopping experience. Which basically means offering a consistent customer dialogue across sophisticated sales channels, as Dr. Gerd Wolfram, Head of CIO-office, METRO Group, explained. Metro’s future store initiative is following the Zeitgeist by offering customers a mobile shopping assistant (MSA) that creates shopping lists and provides additional product information. As for the relevant data, no one would seriously complain that they have become generally scarce recently; the real question is how to leverage the data as a strategic asset for the organization. With data at your disposal you’re as close as you can be to understanding every aspect and process of your business. But if you’re not able to unearth the treasure, meaning to draw the information from the data – you’re far away from it, maybe even further than if the data didn’t exist at all…Faraway, so close.
Certainly Professor Hans Rosling would agree with that. He impressively demonstrated that decisions based on presumptions are no better than those made by chimpanzees. There is no alternative to considering all the available data out there if you want to understand what is happening out there. Forget about gut decisions.
Trend-spotter Markus Lindkvist is in line with Rosling. He claims that our thinking can be at odds with reality. Do you still feel like twenty, although you’re already past your fifties? A common attitude, according to Lindkvist. This is because we all tend to see things not as they are, instead we see them as we are and call that being focused. Future is about unpredictability and things we’ve never thought about, says Lindkvist. And I would like to add: you’d better take care that you are really aware of what’s going on right now, because it will be challenging your status quo.
Before I’ve got to go, let me quickly call your attention to some of my personal highlights of today, which are the general sessions with Bob Pritchard, Joschka Fischer and Geoff Burch. I definitely won’t miss those.
Teradata prepares universities for the digital decade
Business intelligence is the key differentiator that will make or break businesses in the near future, Hermann Wimmer, Teradata president EMEA, impressively argued in his welcoming address this morning. He cited eBay as an outstanding example of an analytical company. At the same time, data volumes continue to explode: “Storage has become so affordable, you cannot afford not to use it,” Wimmer said. With abundant data, new opportunities arise. For example, a single car nowadays has 60 processors under its lid that produce a permanent data stream recording component functions. “Imagine an early warning system that alerts you about vehicle system failures after 500 cars have rolled off the line – not 50,000,”he said. There is, in fact, a system like this up and running at one Teradata customer.
Universities struggle to teach BI
While business intelligence is conquering organizations at every level, companies experience difficulties in finding qualified employees who have the skills to make sense of query results. One of the reasons is that students shy away from tough statistics courses and are ill-prepared for rigorous statistical analysis as they leave university. Another reason is that universities are under-equipped to teach analysis in a way that reflects the rapid growth of business data. They lack access to larger systems and data sets as well as real-world business problems. This is the result of a survey that was presented at the media briefing earlier today. Teradata is partnering with several universities around the world to provide free access to data warehouses, databases and data sets via Teradata University Network, a web-based portal for faculty and students. Led by academics, it currently has more than 2,300 registered faculty members from over 1,200 universities in 80 countries and thousands of student users.
Teradata – a top strategic IT vendor
Teradata fared well in the uneasy waters of 2009: EMEA revenues grew by 2 percent and earnings-per-share increased by 4 percent last year – a truly strong performance! Teradata is now ranked among the top ten US software companies and, according to a survey by Information Week, among the seven most strategic IT vendors, as Teradata President and CEO Mike Koehler pointed out during today’s media briefing.
Moreover, Teradata revenues continue to grow even at a high level of market penetration as enterprises keep expanding their analytical capabilities to accommodate new types of data, using them for more and more applications. CTO Stephen Brobst said that Teradata has “analytics in the DNA”, thus continuously outpacing the capabilities of the competition.
Thus Teradata continues to develop its customer base across various industries:
- Banque Populaire Group migrated from DB2 to Teradata in 2005. Now the bank has upgraded its Teradata enterprise data warehouse to improve the strategic and operational decision-making capability of its business intelligence environment. The group is currently integrating data from 21 regional retail banks in its central platform, which it will use for customer profitability analysis, sales lead administration, marketing, customer relationship management, risk management, fraud prevention and anti-money laundering analysis.
- Pannon: Hungary’s leading mobile operator has upgraded to Teradata Relationship Manager (TRM) 6.0. The enhanced system optimizes marketing analysis and outreach. It will enable Pannon to pursuit new approaches such as customer lifecycle and inbound marketing.
- Swisscom (Schweiz) AG: Switzerland’s Telco number one is consolidating its business intelligence (BI) data platforms to result in one integrated, centralized data warehouse running on a Teradata platform. This will give the company a comprehensive and detailed view of its customers, products and financial economics, while also reducing operational costs.
Keep checking this blog for more conference news.
Universities struggle to teach BI
While business intelligence is conquering organizations at every level, companies experience difficulties in finding qualified employees who have the skills to make sense of query results. One of the reasons is that students shy away from tough statistics courses and are ill-prepared for rigorous statistical analysis as they leave university. Another reason is that universities are under-equipped to teach analysis in a way that reflects the rapid growth of business data. They lack access to larger systems and data sets as well as real-world business problems. This is the result of a survey that was presented at the media briefing earlier today. Teradata is partnering with several universities around the world to provide free access to data warehouses, databases and data sets via Teradata University Network, a web-based portal for faculty and students. Led by academics, it currently has more than 2,300 registered faculty members from over 1,200 universities in 80 countries and thousands of student users.
Teradata – a top strategic IT vendor
Teradata fared well in the uneasy waters of 2009: EMEA revenues grew by 2 percent and earnings-per-share increased by 4 percent last year – a truly strong performance! Teradata is now ranked among the top ten US software companies and, according to a survey by Information Week, among the seven most strategic IT vendors, as Teradata President and CEO Mike Koehler pointed out during today’s media briefing.
Moreover, Teradata revenues continue to grow even at a high level of market penetration as enterprises keep expanding their analytical capabilities to accommodate new types of data, using them for more and more applications. CTO Stephen Brobst said that Teradata has “analytics in the DNA”, thus continuously outpacing the capabilities of the competition.
Thus Teradata continues to develop its customer base across various industries:
- Banque Populaire Group migrated from DB2 to Teradata in 2005. Now the bank has upgraded its Teradata enterprise data warehouse to improve the strategic and operational decision-making capability of its business intelligence environment. The group is currently integrating data from 21 regional retail banks in its central platform, which it will use for customer profitability analysis, sales lead administration, marketing, customer relationship management, risk management, fraud prevention and anti-money laundering analysis.
- Pannon: Hungary’s leading mobile operator has upgraded to Teradata Relationship Manager (TRM) 6.0. The enhanced system optimizes marketing analysis and outreach. It will enable Pannon to pursuit new approaches such as customer lifecycle and inbound marketing.
- Swisscom (Schweiz) AG: Switzerland’s Telco number one is consolidating its business intelligence (BI) data platforms to result in one integrated, centralized data warehouse running on a Teradata platform. This will give the company a comprehensive and detailed view of its customers, products and financial economics, while also reducing operational costs.
Keep checking this blog for more conference news.
What Toyota could have done better
Beye network has already turned up in Berlin and quickly produced an audio podcast with Duncan Ross, Teradata’s EMEA director of advanced analytics. In the interview, Duncan explains how data warehousing might have helped Toyota handle its recent quality problems in a better way. Mind that he doesn’t say that problems could have been avoided in the first place, given the complexity of engines, electronics etc. you find in cars these days. Rather he says that the scale of the problems, and possibly the cause, could have been identified earlier.
If you want to get an idea of what the automotive track on Tuesday morning is all about, take 10 minutes and listen to this podcast: http://www.b-eye-network.com/listen/13067.
If you want to get an idea of what the automotive track on Tuesday morning is all about, take 10 minutes and listen to this podcast: http://www.b-eye-network.com/listen/13067.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Get started with drive
Good morning Berlin – it’s conference time. As exhausting as these days tend to be, they are certainly exciting, and I simply love them! I already had the chance to talk to some of the conference participants yesterday during our traditional welcome party, this year at Potsdamer Platz, in the heart of Berlin. On my way back to the hotel I found myself whistling a simple tune that I identified as “Wind of Change” by the Scorpions. Pure coincidence? I don’t think so. Wind of change was the hymn of the ’89 revolution and Berlin was its epicenter. Everyone knew that after the wall had come down the world was subject to radical change, and people were positive about it.
Today, many industries are in profound transformation processes. In contrast to last spring, when everyone was just wondering how to best weather the economic storm, experts in business and IT this year are displaying a kind of “future’s in the air” attitude. It seems that everybody is willing to ride the tiger. Companies are out to fully exploit the potential of cutting-edge analytical technologies to manage the change that comes both from economic challenges and new business models fuelled by technical progress. And, as Hermann Wimmer and Mike Koehler will point out at their opening sessions later this morning, we are in pole position to support these efforts. Teradata has proven that it can help companies to grow even in tough economic environments and will continue to do so – wherever the ride will take us.
Yesterday, we started out riding the “Trabi”, the cult vehicle of the former GDR that we took for our sightseeing tour through Berlin.
I do hope though that the cars of the future won’t have much in common with it. By the way: amidst a fundamental ongoing change process, the automotive industry is a remarkable example of new drive in every sense of the word. A lot of ideas that have been around for a while are now on the verge of becoming reality. And this is not only about innovative engineering but about entirely new mobility concepts, influenced by new web and mobile communications technologies – a “smart-phonisation” of individual cars and traffic management. Looking out of my window I find that is some way away yet, at least here in Berlin. But for now, let’s get started – with drive!
Today, many industries are in profound transformation processes. In contrast to last spring, when everyone was just wondering how to best weather the economic storm, experts in business and IT this year are displaying a kind of “future’s in the air” attitude. It seems that everybody is willing to ride the tiger. Companies are out to fully exploit the potential of cutting-edge analytical technologies to manage the change that comes both from economic challenges and new business models fuelled by technical progress. And, as Hermann Wimmer and Mike Koehler will point out at their opening sessions later this morning, we are in pole position to support these efforts. Teradata has proven that it can help companies to grow even in tough economic environments and will continue to do so – wherever the ride will take us.
Yesterday, we started out riding the “Trabi”, the cult vehicle of the former GDR that we took for our sightseeing tour through Berlin.
I do hope though that the cars of the future won’t have much in common with it. By the way: amidst a fundamental ongoing change process, the automotive industry is a remarkable example of new drive in every sense of the word. A lot of ideas that have been around for a while are now on the verge of becoming reality. And this is not only about innovative engineering but about entirely new mobility concepts, influenced by new web and mobile communications technologies – a “smart-phonisation” of individual cars and traffic management. Looking out of my window I find that is some way away yet, at least here in Berlin. But for now, let’s get started – with drive!
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Getting started for Berlin…
„Berlin is the newest city I have come across“, wrote Mark Twain about 150 years ago, and I think it’s still true. This city is the embodiment of German history and the upheavals it has seen since the American writer has travelled the country. It seems that it keeps making fresh starts, never finishes, and is always under (re)construction. We were there for a few days to prepare the Teradata Enterprise Intelligence Summit, and when I looked around I saw recently built office blocks, old houses being renovated even though there are newer houses that looked even more decayed, empty sites, some of them having been empty for months or even decades, and so on. My German colleagues didn’t think all this activity was anything special. They remember that a decade ago the Berlin skyline was shaped by whole armies of cranes. And they showed me a few places where the locals retreat to relax as Berlin is one of the greenest capitals in Europe.
It’s this mixture that makes Berlin such an interesting place to be – at least for those who try to figure out a meaningful structure that captures life’s disorder. This is, in a way, what we are doing. I hope that this challenging mood will carry over into our conference sessions and fuel open, fruitful discussions.
Just like in the past years, the conference schedule is fully packed, so that some sessions take place in parallel. Also there are some special tracks that I would like to highlight:
- Automotive: On Tuesday morning, you can join our special automotive track with a number of sessions that focus on quality management and supply chain management in the industry. Various representatives of car manufacturers and Teradata will explain how data warehousing helps to identify quality problems and their causes faster.
On Wednesday, you can choose between our three User Group sessions:
- Healthcare: How can data analyses help improve quality of care while reducing costs? Representatives of GKV Spitzenverband, SAS and Teradata will debate this.
- Advanced Analytics: Data analyses have become critical for the success of many enterprises in the past decade. Panellists from Migros, SFR France, Indicium and Telefonica O2 will discuss which tools and models will shape the next 10 years.
- Customer Management and Insight: In this panel, representatives of Metro, Lloyd's and Pannon will tell us what they do in CRM. A Webtrends guest speaker will explain the latest developments in integrating online and offline channels to create a single customer experience.
Whatever your choices will be, you can always check out this blog for more news during the conference.
See you in Berlin!
Mario Bonardo
It’s this mixture that makes Berlin such an interesting place to be – at least for those who try to figure out a meaningful structure that captures life’s disorder. This is, in a way, what we are doing. I hope that this challenging mood will carry over into our conference sessions and fuel open, fruitful discussions.
Just like in the past years, the conference schedule is fully packed, so that some sessions take place in parallel. Also there are some special tracks that I would like to highlight:
- Automotive: On Tuesday morning, you can join our special automotive track with a number of sessions that focus on quality management and supply chain management in the industry. Various representatives of car manufacturers and Teradata will explain how data warehousing helps to identify quality problems and their causes faster.
On Wednesday, you can choose between our three User Group sessions:
- Healthcare: How can data analyses help improve quality of care while reducing costs? Representatives of GKV Spitzenverband, SAS and Teradata will debate this.
- Advanced Analytics: Data analyses have become critical for the success of many enterprises in the past decade. Panellists from Migros, SFR France, Indicium and Telefonica O2 will discuss which tools and models will shape the next 10 years.
- Customer Management and Insight: In this panel, representatives of Metro, Lloyd's and Pannon will tell us what they do in CRM. A Webtrends guest speaker will explain the latest developments in integrating online and offline channels to create a single customer experience.
Whatever your choices will be, you can always check out this blog for more news during the conference.
See you in Berlin!
Mario Bonardo
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
