Services for Organizations

Using our research, best practices and expertise, we help you understand how to optimize your business processes using applications, information and technology. We provide advisory, education, and assessment services to rapidly identify and prioritize areas for improvement and perform vendor selection

Consulting & Strategy Sessions

Ventana On Demand

    Services for Investment Firms

    We provide guidance using our market research and expertise to significantly improve your marketing, sales and product efforts. We offer a portfolio of advisory, research, thought leadership and digital education services to help optimize market strategy, planning and execution.

    Consulting & Strategy Sessions

    Ventana On Demand

      Services for Technology Vendors

      We provide guidance using our market research and expertise to significantly improve your marketing, sales and product efforts. We offer a portfolio of advisory, research, thought leadership and digital education services to help optimize market strategy, planning and execution.

      Analyst Relations

      Demand Generation

      Product Marketing

      Market Coverage

      Request a Briefing


        Ventana Research Analyst Perspectives

        << Back to Blog Index

        IBM Business Analytics Workshop Illuminates Performance Management

        As part of its recent IBM Business Analytics Industry Analyst Summit, I participated in a demonstration of IBM Business Analytics Workshop, a simulation that the company uses to demonstrate the capabilities of its performance management software. Rather than offering a canned demo or a Microsoft PowerPoint deck, the workshop gives a team of individuals from a company a reasonably realistic interactive experience of using the software for a purpose. The group starts with a set of financial goals and then has to comb quickly through a set of operating data to establish a product strategy for the coming year - which products to emphasize in which segments of the geographical markets it serves. In a series of "moves," participants progress through the year, seeing how well they've done, adjusting their strategy if necessary, reforecasting and making sure that the company's resources are aligned with the strategy that they established. IBM and its analytics from acquisition of Cognos offers different flavors of the workshop: The shortest, most basic one takes several hours and can be played with a handful of people, but longer versions that involve many more players and get into many more details are also available.

        This simulation arrives at an appropriate time for performance management software. Most suites have matured to the point where it's increasingly difficult to sell them to business people based on "speeds and feeds" - purely by touting features and functions. I believe one of the biggest challenges vendors face in selling this type of software is getting senior executives to understand what they can do with it and how that is a major improvement on what they are doing today. (In my judgment, most companies that have deployed planning software only scratch the surface of its potential.) It's difficult to deliver this understanding through sound bites or passive demonstrations in a way that is either believable or compelling. Neither management consultants nor implementation consultants provide corporations with clear pictures of how improving the way they use information technology can make them more effective (not just more efficient) in executing to strategy. Thus, the need for a workshop.

        The consolidation of the software industry over the past decade has brought together a broad set of once discrete categories of applications in ways that enable the integrated vendors to offer more comprehensive solutions that support complete and complex business processes. Consequently, this software can transform the way organizations work, but only if senior executives understand that making changes can quickly enhance their company's effectiveness. The Business Analytics Workshop may not be the only way to create this awareness, but it's a fresh approach and a good start.

        Let me know your thoughts or come and collaborate with me on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

        Regards,

        Robert D. Kugel - SVP Research

        Authors:

        Robert Kugel
        Executive Director, Business Research

        Robert Kugel leads business software research for Ventana Research, now part of ISG. His team covers technology and applications spanning front- and back-office enterprise functions, and he personally runs the Office of Finance area of expertise. Rob is a CFA charter holder and a published author and thought leader on integrated business planning (IBP).

        JOIN OUR COMMUNITY

        Our Analyst Perspective Policy

        • Ventana Research’s Analyst Perspectives are fact-based analysis and guidance on business, industry and technology vendor trends. Each Analyst Perspective presents the view of the analyst who is an established subject matter expert on new developments, business and technology trends, findings from our research, or best practice insights.

          Each is prepared and reviewed in accordance with Ventana Research’s strict standards for accuracy and objectivity and reviewed to ensure it delivers reliable and actionable insights. It is reviewed and edited by research management and is approved by the Chief Research Officer; no individual or organization outside of Ventana Research reviews any Analyst Perspective before it is published. If you have any issue with an Analyst Perspective, please email them to ChiefResearchOfficer@ventanaresearch.com

        View Policy

        Subscribe to Email Updates

        Posts by Month

        see all

        Posts by Topic

        see all


        Analyst Perspectives Archive

        See All