Customer Relationship Metrics Launches Business Intelligence Managed Service to Analyze Desktop Activity

0

Posted on : 26-04-2012 | By : Ben Stinner | In : Analytics

STERLING, Va.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–

Customer
Relationship Metrics, L.C.
has launched Desktop Activity BI™, the
latest in a suite of managed analytics services offered by the company.
Desktop Activity BI analyzes desktop activity and application
performance data to provide insight into trends, best practices and
needed improvement. This data can guide customers in improving company
policies, compliance and application usage.

Dr. Jodie Monger, founder and president of Customer Relationship
Metrics, says, “Many call center managers think they’re in need of more
training programs to teach agents how to better utilize the multitude of
applications and programs necessary to do their jobs. But instead, they
would receive more than a ten-fold business benefit by better
streamlining processes, making the jobs of call center agents easier,
and in turn improving customer experience.”

“Desktop Activity BI gives call center-based enterprises a window into
the life of a call center agent. They can see where workflows are being
interrupted by slow-to-respond desktop apps, hardware or software
issues, which apps are used most often and actively, and which are not
used at all. They can see how much copying and pasting between
applications is required. They can see time wasted on non-work related
activities,” continued Dr. Monger. “All of this can ultimately drive
corrective actions and changes to how agents work and performing legal
compliance. By addressing these problems, companies can often increase
efficiency, lower costs, and reduce the need for training, while at the
same time making the experience better for both employees and customers.”

Deployment of Desktop Activity BI begins with a thorough assessment of
the company’s current customer experience-based business intelligence
solutions, followed by the creation of a targeted project. Based on this
plan, Customer Relationship Metrics puts the proper tools in place to
collect and analyze data. Once the findings and impacts are calculated,
clients meet with analysts who are trained to review and interpret the
data.

ABOUT CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP METRICS, L.C.

Customer Relationship Metrics, L.C., headquartered in Sterling, Va., is
a provider of managed call center analytics and advisory services.
Customer Relationship Metrics’ business intelligence solutions use SaaS
data collection and reporting tools combined with subject matter
expertise to significantly lower the in-house total cost of ownership
and to eliminate the skilled personnel gap.

For more information, visit http://www.metrics.net/blog
or http://www.metrics.net.

Article source: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/customer-relationship-metrics-launches-business-111100186.html

Interactive Intelligence Reports First-Quarter 2012 Financial Results

0

Posted on : 26-04-2012 | By : Ben Stinner | In : Analytics

INDIANAPOLIS–(BUSINESS WIRE)–

Interactive Intelligence Group Inc. (ININ – News), a global provider of
unified IP business communications solutions, has announced financial
results for its first quarter ended March 31, 2012.

“Our first quarter was highlighted by rapid growth in cloud-based
revenue, which continues to have a positive impact on the growth and
scale of our overall recurring revenues,” said Interactive Intelligence
founder and CEO, Dr. Donald Brown. “For the first quarter, a higher mix
of cloud-based orders and the structure of certain product orders
resulted in more revenues being deferred to future quarters. These
factors also contributed to the 48 percent year-over-year growth in our
total billed and unbilled deferred revenues. We are optimistic about our
outlook for the remainder of the year, and we are maintaining our
revenue, order growth and profitability guidance for 2012.”

Brown added: “Our pipeline of opportunities is strong and growing, and
we believe we are well positioned to leverage the sales and marketing,
and research and development investments we are making in our business.
We continue to gain share at the high end of the contact center market,
and we believe our continued success in winning large cloud customers
supports our view that we have a sustainable long-term advantage in the
fastest growing segment of the overall contact center market.”

First Quarter 2012 Financial Highlights:

  • Orders: Cloud-based orders increased 19 percent and total
    orders increased 6 percent, both compared to the first quarter of
    2011. The company signed 60 new customers during the first quarter of
    2012, including 11 new customers for its cloud-based offering. The
    average new customer cloud-based order was $748,000, up from $488,000
    during the same quarter last year.
  • Revenues: Total revenues were $52.8 million, an increase of 11
    percent on a year-over-year basis. Recurring revenues, which include
    both maintenance and cloud revenues, increased 31 percent to $27.6
    million and accounted for 52 percent of total revenues. Cloud-based
    revenues increased 81 percent year-over-year to $5.0 million. Product
    revenues were $19.4 million and services revenues were $5.7 million,
    compared to $20.4 million and $6.2 million, respectively, for the
    first quarter of last year.
  • Total Deferred Revenues: Deferred revenues increased to $77.8
    million as of March 31, 2012 compared to $61.0 million as of March 31,
    2011. The amount of unbilled future cloud-based revenues as of March
    31, 2012 increased to $40.6 million from $18.6 million as of March 31,
    2011. The combination of deferred revenues and unbilled future cloud
    revenues was $118.4 million as of March 31, 2012, up 49 percent
    compared to $79.6 million as of March 31, 2011.
  • Operating Income: GAAP operating income for the first quarter
    was $0.3 million, compared to $4.9 million for the first quarter of
    2011. Non-GAAP operating income was $2.4 million, compared to $6.8
    million for the first quarter of 2011. The year-over-year decline in
    operating income was primarily due to the shift toward cloud-based
    orders, which are recognized over the life of the contract. In
    addition, as previously discussed, the company increased investments
    in sales and marketing and research and development during the first
    quarter of 2012 to expand its product leadership and its share in the
    cloud-based market.
  • Net Income: GAAP net income for the first quarter was $0.2
    million, or $0.01 per diluted share based on a 34 percent effective
    tax rate and 20.0 million weighted average shares outstanding. This
    compares to GAAP net income of $3.1 million, or $0.16 per diluted
    share based on a 35.5 percent effective tax rate and 19.8 million
    weighted average shares outstanding for the same period last year.

    Non-GAAP
    net income for the first quarter was $1.9 million, or $0.09 per
    diluted share based on a 24 percent annual effective non-GAAP tax
    rate. This compares to non-GAAP net income of $5.5 million, or $0.28
    per diluted share for the same period last year.

A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP financial measures has been
provided in the financial statement tables included with this press
release. An explanation of these measures is also included below under
the heading “Non-GAAP Measures.”

Additional First Quarter 2012 and Recent
Highlights:

  • The company acquired certain assets of its South African reseller,
    ATIO Corp. Pty Ltd. in January, and acquired its Netherlands reseller,
    Brightware B.V. in April, continuing its strategy of growing its
    operations in key international markets.
  • CRM magazine named Interactive Intelligence Contact Center
    Infrastructure Service Leader winner for 2012, beating out larger
    competitors based on company direction, customer satisfaction and cost.

Interactive Intelligence will host a conference call today at 4:30 p.m.
Eastern time (EDT) to review the company’s financial results for the
first quarter of 2012. To access the teleconference, please dial 1
877.324.1969 at least five minutes prior to the start of the call. Ask
for the teleconference by the following name: “Interactive Intelligence
first quarter earnings call.”

The teleconference will also be broadcast live on the company’s investor
relations’ page at http://investors.inin.com.
An archive of the teleconference will be posted following the call.

About Interactive Intelligence

Interactive Intelligence Group Inc. (ININ – News) is a global provider
of contact center automation, unified communications, and business
process automation software and services. The company’s unified IP
business communications solutions, which can be deployed on-premise or
via the cloud, are ideal for industries such as financial services,
insurance, outsourcers, collections, and utilities. Interactive
Intelligence was founded in 1994 and has more than 4,500 customers
worldwide. The company is among Forbes Magazine’s 2011 Best Small
Companies in America and Software Magazine’s 2011 Top 500 Global
Software and Service Providers. It employs more than 1,000 people and is
headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. The company has offices
throughout North America, Latin America, Europe, Middle East, Africa and
Asia Pacific. Interactive Intelligence can be reached at +1 317.872.3000
or info@inin.com; on the Net: www.inin.com.

Non-GAAP Measures

The non-GAAP measures shown in this release include revenue which was
not recognized on a GAAP basis due to purchase accounting adjustments
and exclude non-cash stock-based compensation expense for stock options,
the amortization of certain intangible assets related to acquisitions by
the company and non-cash income tax expense. Reconciliations of these
non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are
included with the financial information included in this press release.
These measures are not in accordance with, or an alternative for, GAAP
and may be different from non-GAAP measures used by other companies.
Stock-based compensation expense and amortization of intangibles related
to acquisitions are non-cash and certain amounts of income tax expense
are non-cash. Management believes that the presentation of non-GAAP
results, when shown in conjunction with corresponding GAAP measures,
provides useful information to management and investors regarding
financial and business trends related to the company’s results of
operations. Further, management believes that these non-GAAP measures
improve management’s and investors’ ability to compare the company’s
financial performance with other companies in the technology industry.
Because stock-based compensation expense, non-cash income tax expense
amounts and amortization of intangibles related to acquisitions can vary
significantly between companies, it is useful to compare results
excluding these amounts. Management also uses financial statements that
exclude stock-based compensation expense related to stock options,
non-cash income tax amounts and amortization of intangibles related to
acquisitions for its internal budgets.

This release may contain certain forward-looking statements that involve
a number of risks and uncertainties. Among the factors that could cause
actual results to differ materially are the following: rapid
technological changes in the industry; the company’s ability to maintain
profitability; to manage successfully its growth; to manage successfully
its increasingly complex third-party relationships resulting from the
software and hardware components being licensed or sold with its
solutions; to maintain successful relationships with certain suppliers
which may be impacted by the competition in the technology industry; to
maintain successful relationships with its current and any new partners;
to maintain and improve its current products; to develop new products;
to protect its proprietary rights adequately; to successfully integrate
acquired businesses; and other factors described in the company’s SEC
filings, including the company’s latest annual report on Form 10-K.

Interactive Intelligence is the owner of the marks INTERACTIVE
INTELLIGENCE, its associated LOGO and numerous other marks. All other
trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their
respective owners.

Interactive Intelligence Group, Inc.

Condensed Consolidated Statements of Income

(in thousands, except per share amounts)

(unaudited)

 

 

 

 

Three Months Ended

March 31,

2012

2011

Revenues:

Product

$

19,435

$

20,424

Recurring

27,639

21,088

Services

 

5,694

 

 

6,218

 

Total revenues

 

52,768

 

 

47,730

 

Costs of revenues:

Product

5,652

6,196

Recurring

7,240

5,282

Services

4,574

3,712

Amortization of intangible assets

 

35

 

 

35

 

Total cost of revenues

 

17,501

 

 

15,225

 

Gross profit

 

35,267

 

 

32,505

 

Operating expenses:

Sales and marketing

17,422

14,157

Research and development

10,380

8,147

General and administrative

6,888

5,095

Amortization of intangible assets

 

301

 

 

184

 

Total operating expenses

 

34,991

 

 

27,583

 

Operating income

276

4,922

Other income (expense):

Interest income, net

182

43

Other expense

 

(184

)

 

(166

)

Total other income (expense)

 

(2

)

 

(123

)

Income before income taxes

274

4,799

Income tax expense

 

85

 

 

1,704

 

Net income

$

189

 

$

3,095

 

 

Net income per share:

Basic

$

0.01

$

0.17

Diluted

0.01

0.16

 

Shares used to compute net income per share:

Basic

19,099

18,417

Diluted

20,020

19,780

 

 

 

 

 

Three Months Ended

March 31,

2012

2011

 

Recurring revenue, as reported

$

27,639

$

21,088

Purchase accounting adjustments

 

130

 

 

59

 

Non-GAAP recurring revenue

$

27,769

 

$

21,147

 

 

Recurring revenue gross profit as reported

$

20,399

$

15,806

Purchase accounting adjustments

130

59

Non-cash stock-based compensation expense

 

122

 

 

105

 

Non-GAAP recurring revenue gross profit

$

20,651

 

$

15,970

 

Non-GAAP recurring revenue gross margin

74.4

%

75.5

%

Services revenue, as reported

$

5,694

$

6,218

Purchase accounting adjustments

 

-

 

 

31

 

Non-GAAP services revenue

$

5,694

 

$

6,249

 

 

Services revenue gross profit as reported

$

1,120

$

2,506

Purchase accounting adjustments

-

31

Non-cash stock-based compensation expense

 

34

 

 

25

 

Non-GAAP services revenue gross profit

$

1,154

 

$

2,562

 

Non-GAAP services revenue gross margin

20.3

%

41.0

%

 

Total revenue, as reported

$

52,768

$

47,730

Purchase accounting adjustments

 

130

 

 

90

 

Non-GAAP total revenue

$

52,898

 

$

47,820

 

 

Operating income, as reported

$

276

$

4,922

Purchase accounting adjustments

588

510

Non-cash stock-based compensation expense

 

1,579

 

 

1,318

 

Non-GAAP operating income

$

2,443

 

$

6,750

 

Non-GAAP operating margin

 

4.6

%

 

14.1

%

 

 

 

Three Months Ended

March 31,

2012

 

2011

Net income, as reported

$

189

 

$

3,095

Purchase accounting adjustments:

Increase to revenues:

Recurring

130

59

Services

-

31

Reduction of operating expenses:

Customer relationships

256

139

Technology

35

35

Non-compete agreements

45

45

Acquisition costs

 

122

 

 

201

Total

 

588

 

 

510

Non-cash stock-based compensation expense:

Cost of recurring revenues

122

105

Cost of services revenues

34

25

Sales and marketing

533

392

Research and development

397

408

General and administrative

 

493

 

 

388

Total

 

1,579

 

 

1,318

Non-cash income tax expense

 

(501

)

 

549

Non-GAAP net income

$

1,855

 

$

5,472

 

Diluted EPS, as reported

$

0.01

$

0.16

Purchase accounting adjustments

0.03

0.03

Non-cash stock-based compensation expense

0.08

0.07

Non-cash income tax expense

 

(0.03

)

 

0.02

Non-GAAP diluted EPS

$

0.09

 

$

0.28

 

Interactive Intelligence Group, Inc.

Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheets

(in thousands)

 

 

 

 

 

 

March 31,

December 31,

2012

2011

(unaudited)

Assets

Current assets:

Cash and cash equivalents

$

25,616

$

28,465

Short-term investments

39,076

40,589

Accounts receivable, net

51,679

56,331

Deferred tax assets, net

8,303

8,952

Prepaid expenses

11,910

11,474

Other current assets

 

5,120

 

4,966

 

Total current assets

141,704

150,777

Long-term investments

24,440

23,415

Property and equipment, net

19,454

18,304

Goodwill

28,494

22,696

Intangible assets, net

16,071

15,029

Other assets, net

 

2,423

 

2,581

 

Total assets

$

232,586

$

232,802

 

 

Liabilities and Shareholders’ Equity

Current liabilities:

Accounts payable and accrued liabilities

$

13,329

$

16,545

Accrued compensation and related expenses

6,209

8,870

Deferred product revenues

4,633

3,870

Deferred services revenues

 

58,441

 

57,423

 

Total current liabilities

82,612

86,708

Deferred revenue

14,708

14,141

Deferred tax liabilities, net

876

1,688

Other long-term liabilities

 

300

 

291

 

Total liabilities

 

98,496

 

102,828

 

 

Shareholders’ equity:

Preferred stock

-

-

Common stock

192

190

Additional paid-in-capital

122,956

119,644

Accumulated other comprehensive income (loss)

420

(193

)

Retained earnings

 

10,522

 

10,333

 

Total shareholders’ equity

 

134,090

 

129,974

 

Total liabilities and shareholders’ equity

$

232,586

$

232,802

 

 

Interactive Intelligence Group, Inc.

Condensed Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows

(in thousands)

(unaudited)

 

 

 

 

Three Months Ended

March 31,

2012

2011

 

Operating activities:

Net income

$

189

$

3,095

Depreciation, amortization and other non-cash items

2,051

1,481

Stock-based compensation expense

1,579

1,318

Tax benefits from stock-based payment arrangements

(70

)

(862

)

Deferred income tax

(163

)

34

Accretion of investment income

112

(682

)

Gain on disposal of fixed assets

25

-

Changes in operating assets and liabilities:

Accounts receivable

5,771

(49

)

Prepaid expenses

(394

)

(1,311

)

Other current assets

(154

)

272

Other assets

158

(128

)

Accounts payable and accrued liabilities

(2,973

)

(1,598

)

Accrued compensation and related expenses

(2,835

)

(1,585

)

Deferred product revenues

518

1,793

Deferred services revenues

 

605

 

 

4,889

 

Net cash provided by operating activities

 

4,419

 

 

6,667

 

 

Investing activities:

Sales of available-for-sale investments

21,908

21,028

Purchases of available-for-sale investments

(21,300

)

(22,740

)

Purchases of property and equipment

(2,569

)

(2,139

)

Acquisition, net of cash

(7,042

)

(4,111

)

Unrealized gain on investment

 

-

 

 

26

 

Net cash used in investing activities

 

(9,003

)

 

(7,936

)

 

Financing activities:

Proceeds from stock options exercised

1,271

3,881

Proceeds from issuance of common stock

141

96

Employee taxes withheld for restricted stock units

253

-

Tax benefits from stock-based payment arrangements

 

70

 

 

862

 

Net cash provided by financing activities

 

1,735

 

 

4,839

 

 

Net (decrease) increase in cash and cash equivalents

(2,849

)

3,570

Cash and cash equivalents, beginning of period

 

28,465

 

 

48,300

 

Cash and cash equivalents, end of period

$

25,616

 

$

51,870

 

 

Cash paid during the period for:

Income taxes

$

2,094

$

842

 

Other non-cash item:

Purchases of property and equipment payable at end of period

(234

)

(746

)

 

Supplemental Data

(Dollars in thousands)

(unaudited)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2011

2012

Q1

 

Q2

 

Q3

 

Q4

 

Total

Q1

 

 

 

Margins (GAAP):

Product

70.2%

73.9%

69.9%

78.7%

73.5%

70.9%

Recurring

74.5%

73.6%

73.2%

74.5%

74.0%

73.8%

Services

40.3%

28.0%

27.9%

22.7%

29.9%

19.7%

Overall

68.1%

68.9%

66.7%

71.1%

68.8%

66.8%

 

Year-over-year Revenue Growth (GAAP):

Product

31.5%

33.7%

7.3%

9.0%

18.7%

-4.8%

Recurring

30.3%

35.1%

45.7%

22.8%

33.0%

31.1%

Services

87.7%

30.4%

26.3%

4.3%

31.6%

-8.4%

Overall

36.3%

33.9%

24.6%

13.9%

26.0%

10.6%

 

Orders:

Over $1 million

3

5

3

6

17

6

Between $250,000 and $1 million

24

27

14

31

96

11

 

Number of new customers

65

81

54

101

301

60

 

Average new customer order:

Overall

$

275

$

240

$

316

$

257

$

267

$

237

Cloud-based

488

282

3,691

689

720

748

 

ININ-G

Article source: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/interactive-intelligence-reports-first-quarter-201000687.html

Making Sense of Business Intelligence with FirstTweets

0

Posted on : 26-04-2012 | By : Ben Stinner | In : Analytics

2544d newsbreaks logo Making Sense of Business Intelligence with FirstTweetsMaking Sense of Business Intelligence With FirstTweets
by
Theresa Cramer



Posted On April 26, 2012


Twitter has quickly gone from being a quirky little microblogging site where you can find out what celebrities had for breakfast to a nearly indispensible digital marketing tool for brands. Using Twitter as a business intelligence tool, however, has presented a lengthy list of challenges to anyone with enough courage to try to ford the Twitter stream. The sheer volume of information being shared via Twitter is daunting to say the least, especially when all you have to battle the tide of information is a few keywords and hashtag searches.

According to Ned May, VP and lead analyst at Outsell, Inc., “Twitter had been a bit of an enigma” when it comes to “harvesting information very effectively.” He adds that Twitter has been “a good marketing tool but not a market intelligence tool.”

Now FirstRain, Inc.—a company specializing in enterprise customer intelligence—is aiming to help companies stem the tide of information overload with FirstTweets. According to FirstRain, FirstTweets delivers real-time industry- and customer-specific information to uncover revenue opportunities, including customer developments, industry trends, news, market analysis, emerging themes, and much more. FirstTweets delivers the information directly into CRM systems, social enterprise platforms, iPads, and other mobile devices.

Solving the problem of Twitter noise, however, is not easy. “The technology problem associated with producing extremely good results is very difficult,” says Penny Herscher, president and CEO of FirstRain.

“In every single case the tools that are out there today are focused on brand management and media monitoring,” says Ryan Warren, FirstRain’s VP of marketing. Up until now, Twitter analytics tools mostly helped brands understand what the conversation is around their products.

FirstRain reports that unlike keyword-based media monitoring and public relations-focused applications, such as Radian6 and Meltwater News, its technology takes the full fire hose of 250 million tweets per day and applies patented semantic analytics and algorithms to uncover, categorize, and deliver high-quality, business-relevant intelligence about global companies, industries, and business topics.

“Less than .1% of tweets are high quality business content,” says Warren. He adds that even that small fraction of content still represents more than 200,000 tweets. Warren says that FirstTweets can carve out the information each user needs for his or her specific business needs. FirstRain’s engines analyze and filter out not only business-irrelevant content such as entertainment, sports, political, junk, and spam tweets, but it also includes consumer-generated commentary that is not helpful to the majority of sales and marketing professionals and executives.

Users can choose from a wide variety of preselected companies and topics of interest. If FirstTweets doesn’t have a topic in the system, it will create it when it encounters the term during semantic analysis of the web. After a user tells FirstTweets what company he or she works for or what information they are interested in, the system will pre-check companies and topics of interest with the best calculated overlap, but you’re also able to customize the suggestions if need be.

“I haven’t seen anyone do it this way yet,” says May. “There’s a lot of activity on social media monitoring, but no one is applying the filters up front.” He says that LinkedIn’s integration is fairly effective—it funnels the Tweets of your professional network to you—but that FirstTweets is the only product taking on the ambitious task of deriving truly actionable business information from the noise of Twitter.

Results can be delivered to just about any device or system. From your iPad to your CRM system, FirstTweets is capable of integrating with just about any system and delivering results to almost any screen. And it presents information by dividing it up into a few categories: First Reads, Analytics, Business Influencers, and Topics. “Most of our users—sales and marketing and leadership folks—who are out there in the field are using the apps,” says Herscher.

All of this, FirstRain reports, can help enterprises improve the value of CRM and SFA investments by delivering relevant, revenue-generating customer intelligence directly into a salesperson’s account workflow; drive greater engagement within social enterprise platforms by integrating the highly specific customer and market intelligence around which users collaborate; better leverage their mobile workforce, delivering real-time business-relevant Twitter and web intelligence directly into enterprise-deployed iPads, iPhones, and Android phones.

The visual analytics presentation can also give users a quick, at-a-glance look into the Twitter conversation. A simple dashboard can show users who/what the business influencers and market drivers are, along with a variety of other info. And thanks to beta users, FirstTweets has been able to tweak its user-interface and presentation.

According to Warren, beta users had plenty of good suggestions that were later incorporated into the final product. Those changes included layout improvements such as moving the list of monitors above the list of latest email briefs on the home dashboard or adding a link that allows you to instantly open an article in a new window. New capabilities such as intelligence analytics, article summary pages, as well as both the substance and presentation of FirstTweets were strongly influenced by beta customers.

“We frequently get the feedback from customers that they just can’t believe the precision,” says Herscher—which explains why FirstRain had received purchase orders from companies before even going into actual production.

Without a tool like FirstTweets many companies trying to use Twitter for business information could quickly find themselves overwhelmed. “It’s so noisy, you’re not going to be able to do it on your own without a tool,” says May. “It can help you stay ahead of the curve. You still have to read the mainstream news, but this is a way to make sure you’re not missing anything.”

With no comparable products to compare it to, FirstTweets’ achievement has no choice but to stand alone. “They’re doing it well … better than anyone else,” says May. “Recognizing the enormity of it will set expectations going in.”

FirstTweets is now available and will be included for FirstRain subscribers. For standalone integration into CRM and social enterprise platforms, FirstTweets starts at $10,000 per year for 100 users. 

Article source: http://newsbreaks.infotoday.com/NewsBreaks/Making-Sense-of-Business-Intelligence-with-FirstTweets-82218.asp

Retail developer builds Oracle business intelligence on JD Edwards

0

Posted on : 26-04-2012 | By : admin | In : Analytics

More on Oracle JD Edwards

Costs lure companies to third-party support

Oracle updates JD Edwards EnterpriseOne and World

Take JD Edwards to the cloud

LAS VEGAS — For the Benderson Development Company, delving into Oracle business intelligence was initially done for one main reason: to get better bank loans.

The University Park, Fla.-based retail development company needed to build an inventory database for all the properties and units it owned and rented out. Its goal was to show those assets to banks in order to get more favorable loans.

“You need to start by introspecting,” Steve Whitton, IT project manager at the company, said during the Collaborate 2012 conference this week. “What are you really trying to get at? You need to be able to sit with the user and collaborate on the prototype and design. Having specific goals and working with the business folks is really important.”

The company is running JD Edwards World 7.3 on Oracle Database 10g and 11g using BI tools from Oracle and another company called RapidDecision. It all runs on the IBM System i server platform.

Build and buy BI
The company’s first BI project was back in 2006. Over the years, Whitton and Benderson have settled on a middle ground when it comes to buying and building. The company’s overall IT strategy is to not do a lot of custom building.

But what executives at the company have discovered is that, at least for them, there is no such thing as buying something off the shelf and having it do everything you want.

So their attitude around BI is “build and buy.” In looking for BI options for the JD Edwards enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications, the company customized a pre-built data warehouse with the help of RapidDecision and used features within Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE) for dashboards, ad-hoc reporting and alerts to desktops and mobile devices.

BI projects ad infinitum
Tying a BI project to a business goal and getting business users involved is key to a successful BI project, Whitton said. Otherwise the IT department might get caught up in the bells and whistles of a BI product and just start measuring things for the sake of measuring them.

For Benderson, it was important to make sure that each BI project the company has done has had a sponsor, preferably one whose title begins with “chief.” The chief financial officer, for example, badly wanted the inventory database BI project.

It is also crucial to not get ahead of yourself, Whitton said. You don’t necessarily need to be doing predictive analytics when you don’t even have a handle on your General Ledger yet.

“Knowing when you’re done with a certain BI project is important,” he said. “BI projects can go on forever.”

One BI suite or many?
Finally, Whitton explained Benderson’s choice to use multiple business intelligence vendors.

For example, Benderson went with RapidDecision to help build its Oracle data warehouse, partly because the company was familiar with pulling data out of ERP systems such as JD Edwards, and partly because RapidDecision promotes its product as delivering real-time business intelligence. That was something that business users at Benderson pushed for, although Whitton said he might have done things differently if he had the chance.

“If we could do it over again, I would push back against users who said they needed real-time data,” he said. “We don’t have 100 purchases happening at once. You shouldn’t necessarily jump to the idea that you need a real-time solution.”

That said, Whitton and Benderson are happy with RapidDecision because of the company’s familiarity with JD Edwards.

Whitton’s bottom line is that using a heterogeneous BI architecture isn’t something you should away from.

“It’s nice if you can have one suite and that’s what all these vendors want you to do,” he said. “But it’s my view that all the big BI platforms are going to have basically similar capabilities, and they’re all decent.”




Article source: http://searchoracle.techtarget.com/news/2240149187/Retail-developer-builds-Oracle-business-intelligence-on-JD-Edwards

Making Sense of Business Intelligence With FirstTweets

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Posted on : 26-04-2012 | By : admin | In : Analytics

aebda newsbreaks logo Making Sense of Business Intelligence With FirstTweetsMaking Sense of Business Intelligence With FirstTweets
by
Theresa Cramer



Posted On April 26, 2012


Twitter has quickly gone from being a quirky little microblogging site where you can find out what celebrities had for breakfast to a nearly indispensible digital marketing tool for brands. Using Twitter as a business intelligence tool, however, has presented a lengthy list of challenges to anyone with enough courage to try to ford the Twitter stream. The sheer volume of information being shared via Twitter is daunting to say the least, especially when all you have to battle the tide of information is a few keywords and hashtag searches.

According to Ned May, VP and lead analyst at Outsell, Inc., “Twitter had been a bit of an enigma” when it comes to “harvesting information very effectively.” He adds that Twitter has been “a good marketing tool but not a market intelligence tool.”

Now FirstRain, Inc.—a company specializing in enterprise customer intelligence—is aiming to help companies stem the tide of information overload with FirstTweets. According to FirstRain, FirstTweets delivers real-time industry- and customer-specific information to uncover revenue opportunities, including customer developments, industry trends, news, market analysis, emerging themes, and much more. FirstTweets delivers the information directly into CRM systems, social enterprise platforms, iPads, and other mobile devices.

Solving the problem of Twitter noise, however, is not easy. “The technology problem associated with producing extremely good results is very difficult,” says Penny Herscher, president and CEO of FirstRain.

“In every single case the tools that are out there today are focused on brand management and media monitoring,” says Ryan Warren, FirstRain’s VP of marketing. Up until now, Twitter analytics tools mostly helped brands understand what the conversation is around their products.

FirstRain reports that unlike keyword-based media monitoring and public relations-focused applications, such as Radian6 and Meltwater News, its technology takes the full fire hose of 250 million tweets per day and applies patented semantic analytics and algorithms to uncover, categorize, and deliver high-quality, business-relevant intelligence about global companies, industries, and business topics.

“Less than .1% of tweets are high quality business content,” says Warren. He adds that even that small fraction of content still represents more than 200,000 tweets. Warren says that FirstTweets can carve out the information each user needs for his or her specific business needs. FirstRain’s engines analyze and filter out not only business-irrelevant content such as entertainment, sports, political, junk, and spam tweets, but it also includes consumer-generated commentary that is not helpful to the majority of sales and marketing professionals and executives.

Users can choose from a wide variety of preselected companies and topics of interest. If FirstTweets doesn’t have a topic in the system, it will create it when it encounters the term during semantic analysis of the web. After a user tells FirstTweets what company he or she works for or what information they are interested in, the system will pre-check companies and topics of interest with the best calculated overlap, but you’re also able to customize the suggestions if need be.

“I haven’t seen anyone do it this way yet,” says May. “There’s a lot of activity on social media monitoring, but no one is applying the filters up front.” He says that LinkedIn’s integration is fairly effective—it funnels the Tweets of your professional network to you—but that FirstTweets is the only product taking on the ambitious task of deriving truly actionable business information from the noise of Twitter.

Results can be delivered to just about any device or system. From your iPad to your CRM system, FirstTweets is capable of integrating with just about any system and delivering results to almost any screen. And it presents information by dividing it up into a few categories: First Reads, Analytics, Business Influencers, and Topics. “Most of our users—sales and marketing and leadership folks—who are out there in the field are using the apps,” says Herscher.

All of this, FirstRain reports, can help enterprises improve the value of CRM and SFA investments by delivering relevant, revenue-generating customer intelligence directly into a salesperson’s account workflow; drive greater engagement within social enterprise platforms by integrating the highly specific customer and market intelligence around which users collaborate; better leverage their mobile workforce, delivering real-time business-relevant Twitter and web intelligence directly into enterprise-deployed iPads, iPhones, and Android phones.

The visual analytics presentation can also give users a quick, at-a-glance look into the Twitter conversation. A simple dashboard can show users who/what the business influencers and market drivers are, along with a variety of other info. And thanks to beta users, FirstTweets has been able to tweak its user-interface and presentation.

According to Warren, beta users had plenty of good suggestions that were later incorporated into the final product. Those changes included layout improvements such as moving the list of monitors above the list of latest email briefs on the home dashboard or adding a link that allows you to instantly open an article in a new window. New capabilities such as intelligence analytics, article summary pages, as well as both the substance and presentation of FirstTweets were strongly influenced by beta customers.

“We frequently get the feedback from customers that they just can’t believe the precision,” says Herscher—which explains why FirstRain had received purchase orders from companies before even going into actual production.

Without a tool like FirstTweets many companies trying to use Twitter for business information could quickly find themselves overwhelmed. “It’s so noisy, you’re not going to be able to do it on your own without a tool,” says May. “It can help you stay ahead of the curve. You still have to read the mainstream news, but this is a way to make sure you’re not missing anything.”

With no comparable products to compare it to, FirstTweets’ achievement has no choice but to stand alone. “They’re doing it well … better than anyone else,” says May. “Recognizing the enormity of it will set expectations going in.”

FirstTweets is now available and will be included for FirstRain subscribers. For standalone integration into CRM and social enterprise platforms, FirstTweets starts at $10,000 per year for 100 users. 

Article source: http://newsbreaks.infotoday.com/NewsBreaks/Making-Sense-of-Business-Intelligence-With-FirstTweets-82218.asp

Customer Relationship Metrics Launches Business Intelligence Managed Service …

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Posted on : 26-04-2012 | By : admin | In : Analytics

STERLING, Va., Apr 26, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) –
Customer
Relationship Metrics, L.C. has launched Desktop Activity BI(TM), the
latest in a suite of managed analytics services offered by the company.
Desktop Activity BI analyzes desktop activity and application
performance data to provide insight into trends, best practices and
needed improvement. This data can guide customers in improving company
policies, compliance and application usage.

Dr. Jodie Monger, founder and president of Customer Relationship
Metrics, says, “Many call center managers think they’re in need of more
training programs to teach agents how to better utilize the multitude of
applications and programs necessary to do their jobs. But instead, they
would receive more than a ten-fold business benefit by better
streamlining processes, making the jobs of call center agents easier,
and in turn improving customer experience.”

“Desktop Activity BI gives call center-based enterprises a window into
the life of a call center agent. They can see where workflows are being
interrupted by slow-to-respond desktop apps, hardware or software
issues, which apps are used most often and actively, and which are not
used at all. They can see how much copying and pasting between
applications is required. They can see time wasted on non-work related
activities,” continued Dr. Monger. “All of this can ultimately drive
corrective actions and changes to how agents work and performing legal
compliance. By addressing these problems, companies can often increase
efficiency, lower costs, and reduce the need for training, while at the
same time making the experience better for both employees and customers.”

Deployment of Desktop Activity BI begins with a thorough assessment of
the company’s current customer experience-based business intelligence
solutions, followed by the creation of a targeted project. Based on this
plan, Customer Relationship Metrics puts the proper tools in place to
collect and analyze data. Once the findings and impacts are calculated,
clients meet with analysts who are trained to review and interpret the
data.

ABOUT CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP METRICS, L.C.

Customer Relationship Metrics, L.C., headquartered in Sterling, Va., is
a provider of managed call center analytics and advisory services.
Customer Relationship Metrics’ business intelligence solutions use SaaS
data collection and reporting tools combined with subject matter
expertise to significantly lower the in-house total cost of ownership
and to eliminate the skilled personnel gap.

For more information, visit

http://www.metrics.net/blog

or
http://www.metrics.net .

SOURCE: Customer Relationship Metrics, L.C.



        
        Gregory FCA 
        Jessica Attanasio, 610-228-2112 
        Jessica@GregoryFCA.com
        


Copyright Business Wire 2012

Article source: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/customer-relationship-metrics-launches-business-intelligence-managed-service-to-analyze-desktop-activity-2012-04-26

New SSAS and MDX Training Course Dates

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Posted on : 26-04-2012 | By : Ben Stinner | In : Analytics

I’m pleased to announce that a whole bunch of new dates for SSAS and MDX training courses in London, Manchester and Dublin are now up on the Technitrain site, along with several other SQL Server BI and engine courses from the likes of Jen Stirrup, Andy Leonard and Christian Bolton.

Here are the details:

Server Analysis Services 2012 Tabular Workshop with Marco Russo and Chris Webb 28 – 29 May, London
In association with SQL BI (http://www.ssasworkshop.com/)
If you want to learn about creating Tabular models with Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services 2012, then this is the course for you. It covers all the content in the new Tabular book that Marco, Alberto and I have been working on and it goes into a lot more detail than the standard tutorials. I’m co-promoting this course in London with Marco and Alberto, and as detailed below I’ll be teaching it solo in Dublin in the autumn; it’s going to be run in several other European cities so take a look here for more details.
Cost – £850 (exc VAT)

Data Visualisation with SQL Server 2012 Tabular Models, Excel and Power View with Jen Stirrup 30 May 2012, London
A one day course aimed at BI professionals who use Excel and Power View and want to learn how to create effective data visualisations. Jen is the acknowledged expert in the field of data visualisation for Microsoft BI, and this course is immediately after the SSAS 2012 Tabular course – so why not attend both?
Cost: – £299 (exc VAT)

Real World Cube Design and Performance Tuning with Analysis Services Multidimensional with Chris Webb 3-5 July 2012, Manchester
A three day course aimed at intermediate-to-experienced Analysis Services Multidimensional developers, looking at more advanced cube design topics and query performance tuning. I’ll be speaking at the Manchester and Leeds SQL Server user groups in the evenings while I’m up in there too.
Cost: – £749 (exc VAT)

Upgrade your SQL Server Integration Services skills to 2012 with Andy Leonard 12-14 September 2012, London
An introduction to the new features in SSIS 2012 for SQL Server Integration Services professionals. Andy’s last course for us went down very well indeed – take a look at this review of it!
Cost – £749 (exc VAT)

Server Analysis Services 2012 Tabular Workshop with Chris Webb  19 -20 September 2012, Dublin
This is the same course as the one listed above in London in May.
Cost – €950 

Data Visualisation with SQL Server 2012 Tabular Models, Excel and Power View with Jen Stirrup  21 September 2012, Dublin
Once again, this is the same course as the one listed above in London in May.
Cost – €335

Advanced Internals and Troubleshooting Workshop for SQL Server with Christian Bolton 9 – 10 October 2012, London
The Advanced Troubleshooting Workshop for SQL Server 2005, 2008, R2 and 2012 provides attendees with SQL Server relational engine internals knowledge, practical troubleshooting skills and a proven methodical approach to problem solving. The workshop will enable attendees to tackle complex SQL Server problems with confidence.
Cost – £990 (exc VAT) 

Introduction To MDX, with Chris Webb – 5-7 December 2012, London
A three day course designed for those with little or no experience of MDX, by the end of this course, you will be able to write MDX queries and calculations for Analysis Services with confidence.
Cost:- £749 (exc VAT)

Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/wordpress/Cpjz/~3/20N7gsHchVE/

SAS Talks Backstage Sneak Peek: Soft skills required for BI developers

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Posted on : 26-04-2012 | By : Ben Stinner | In : Analytics

Whether you call it Business Intelligence, Business Analytics, Visual Analytics, etc. – getting information to the users when they need it and make it actionable requires more than just software. BI Content Developers can have a certification but to be successful they really need to have an understanding of human behavior.

As Eric Rossland, Tricia Aanderud and I discuss building better business intelligence this morning at 10am, and some of these topics will certainly come up.

  1. Highlighting issues via timely, relevant indicator ranges or dashboard/report traffic-lighting.
    If the measure is always red, people begin to ignore it. If the measure changes every couple of minutes, there is no time to take action to improve upon it. The technology isn’t difficult and is well documented; you need to understand the data and make relevant ranges to cause users to take action when it is appropriate.
  2. Visually representing data in a meaningful way.
    Take pattern detection, we can run through heavy analytical models, describe statistical scores, etc. – but an investigator wants to see the pattern outright, needs to make inferences based on what is shown on the screen.
  3. Making the interface interactive.
    People like to click around; they like to ‘play’ with puzzles. Having the interface, dashboard, report look neat and interesting generates interest. Visually pleasing screens will keep users around. Adding puzzle pieces adds the 3rd component by getting users to ask questions and critically evaluate the content on the screen. Ultimately keeping users engaged on the site the longest.
  4. Getting into the nitty-gritty.
    Once the user decides to investigate an item further, they need more detail from there. The functionality of building linked reports, adding click-through to detail, or viewing pop-ups with relevant content immediately is not difficult to implement. The developer must need to understand what the user has to have right then to make appropriate decisions.

What other soft skills do you think BI Developers should have to be successful?

Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RealBusinessIntelligenceForRealUsers/~3/NHv-k0NvnAA/