The InfoBurst team at InfoSol is relocating their Infoburst2009 site to a new web address. Visit the new product blog at infosolblog.com/infoburst
The stream of articles, white papers and videos desperately trying to convince the business community of the negative impact of poor data quality on their bottom line seems to be never ending. It almost seems like the IT brigade is marching into a cul-de-sac at the end of which is a brick wall with three large letters written on it – ‘ROI’. Data Quality projects share their dreaded fate with all other projects emanating from the IT division and including the geeky word ‘data’ in their title. While the management continues to remain blissfully ignorant of the unsettling financial and human consequences of bad data, customers, employees and business itself continues to suffer from ‘Data Quality Blues’.
The one technology in recent years that has managed to captivate the business users in organizations across the globe is undoubtedly – Dashboards. Dashboards speak to them in a language which they are familiar with, the language of graphs, charts and metrics. The BI Dashboard serves as an abstraction layer that shields the business users from the intricate and unwelcoming world of the ‘Data Churners’. It is this instrument therefore, that should be leveraged to enlighten the management of financial losses that are incurred due to a seemingly trivial typo error or a misplaced digit in the sales figures. Although this may not be the panacea one is looking for, creating a real-time dashboard which attaches a price tag to every data quality issue and extrapolates the figures to demonstrate their long term impact, may just act like a sip of coffee that will stimulate their business senses.
Here’s an example of a Data Quality Dashboard
This dashboard was the outcome of the convergence of three technologies: BO Data Quality, InfoBurst 2009, and Xcelsius. Bundling a DQ dashboard with DQ Services benefits in the following ways:
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Photo Credit: Sieve photo in this post from Wikimedia
I arrived late at night at Copenhagen airport and headed for the taxi rank to get to my hotel. As I exited the terminal, there was a large sign pointing to “Danish Taxis” to the right and “Swedish Taxis” to the left. Not understanding the difference, I figured I should opt for the Danish taxis since I was in Denmark. As we drove to the hotel, I asked the driver about the Swedish taxis and he explained that they were cheaper but they take you to Sweden so I guess I made the right choice!
I checked in at the Kong Arthur Hotel (Kong being King in Danish) and made it to my room where this huge modern painting hung above my bed. 
I have included a picture since it will have different interpretations to each viewer. At that time it was saying to me “No matter how tied up in knots you are, come to bed”. In the morning, I noticed there was both the outline of a man and a woman in the picture and I had a totally different interpretation.
Although I did not see a lot of Denmark in one day, I did get to meet quite a few Danish people in my meetings and learned that Denmark is the home of Lego, Lager beer, ham and Vikings. I also noticed that the average Dane is significantly taller than the average European – must be that special beer and ham!
I was visiting one of the largest companies in Denmark where a couple of the divisions use BusinessObjects for their Business Intelligence. They were interested in finding a better way to schedule, publish and distribute their reports so I showed them a demonstration of the new InfoBurst 2009 along with presenting a few customer case studies. They were particularly excited about the ability of InfoBurst to apply Excel macro post processing. It seems they, like many other companies, have large numbers of Excel users that want all their Business Intelligence reports delivered in Excel format but publishing reports directly from BusinessObjects to Excel does not provide all the features in the Excel output that they want delivered to the user. For example, one customer wanted to make use of data grouping and outlining within Excel for one-click collapse and expansion of individual data groupings in the report. In addition, they wanted each and every data group and outline to be automatically collapsed in the initial delivery of the report – keeping the report compact and easier to view. This simply cannot be done publishing from BusinessObjects to Excel but with InfoBurst 2009, you can execute a VBA macro following report production and produce a revised version of the report for publishing.
This caused great excitement amongst my Danish audience and there were smiles and vigorous hand shaking at the end of the meeting. I think they really appreciated the logical building block of adding the Excel post-processing – just like Lego!
A second day in Paris and another day full of meetings. The second meeting is over lunch at a classic French restaurant situated next to the famous Opera with elaborately painted ceilings and a platoon of waiting staff for every table. Each of the menu choices requires a paragraph of description and I end up selecting a poached egg, smoked salmon and caviar dish as the appetizer and a very exotic and grand sounding scallop and pasta entrée. There is great fanfare as the food arrives and large plates are placed in front of each of us but my smile of anticipation subsides as the actual food on the dish in front of me requires a magnifying glass to see it! I am not sure what kind of egg it was but it did not come from a chicken. Judging by its size, I would hazard to guess it was more like a hummingbird! This was wrapped in the tiniest of slivers of smoked salmon and maybe four specs of caviar. Three dainty bites and it was gone.
I was hopeful (and hungry) for the main course – at least there would be pasta. The plate itself was larger than the one for the appetizer but this was a deception since there was a small indentation in the middle of the plate that actually housed the entirety of my meal. It was honestly the size of a golf ball consisting of two small scallops and something that was more like couscous than pasta! It tasted great but it did not satisfy my hunger.
Needless to say there was plenty of time for conversation since the eating took just seconds! The discussion with a French customer in the insurance business centered on expectations of the results of a proof-of-concept. The customer was looking at a large project to migrate their main application to an open system environment. While they felt that the proof-of-concept fully demonstrated that the application itself could be migrated successfully, they wanted to see how the operational environment would be handled also.
When migrating software, we often overlook the environment on which it runs. Of course, if the environment does not change, it is understandable that it is not always considered. However, many businesses today change their hardware and operational environments more frequently than they change their software. With constant new features in hardware and underlying operating systems, as well as new ways to schedule and distribute information, there is plenty to take into consideration.
It turned out that this customer was most concerned about the printing of insurance cards since this has the biggest impact on their business. By migrating their application to new hardware and operating system, they would be changing their whole mechanism of scheduling, distributing and printing.
To me, this is not an unusual situation. In the world of Business Intelligence, I see it all the time since scheduling and distribution of reports is equally , if not more, important than ad-hoc query and analysis to many businesses. It is about delivering the right information in the right format to the right people at the right time.
It was quite appropriate that my next meeting with a partner was all about Business Intelligence report and dashboard scheduling, bursting and publishing. They have many clients throughout Europe with many needs to deliver pertinent information in Xcelsius dashboards and Microsoft Reporting Services Reports. I showed and explained how with InfoBurst 2009 you can now deliver bursted Xcelsius dashboards as standalone SWF files so each recipient sees the same dashboard but only with data relevant to them in it. In addition, InfoBurst 2009 supports the scheduling, bursting and publishing of Microsoft Reports .
After my last meeting, I was completely drained with my energy reserves running on life support. I suppose my lesson for the day was that it is important to meet all the needs of a customer’s application environment. Migrating the applications without taking care of the operational environment is like eating fine French cuisine without satisfying your body’s energy needs.
I ate a big meal tonight!
I arrive in Paris in the middle of a train strike and I am expecting the worst but as I step off the Eurostar train from London (not on strike – different company) and jump on the Metro (not on strike – different company), I notice nothing unusual. I was told by a close friend who lives in France that strikes have become a way of life there since they are so numerous and people have learned to adapt. In fact, I end up arriving at my appointment early and so I have time to go to lunch with the people I am meeting at SAP.
Eating in France is not so much a necessity as it is a religion. It is not to be rushed and the social aspect is as important as the eating itself. Needless to say, the discussion over lunch was really interesting and stimulating as we exchanged ideas on the future of various Business Intelligence solutions.
During the meeting and demonstrations after lunch, I was able to see the SAP Explorer solution running on an iPhone which I know the Londoner’s will love (see my BLOG from Day 1). I was also able to share the latest features of InfoBurst 2009 with the people from SAP.
At my next meeting that day with another partner, I started with the demonstrations and update on InfoBurst 2009. This was quite interesting since one of the people in the room did not speak English but he seemed to catch on due to the visual and intuitive nature of the solution. It also helped that I was very animated when I presented and when he looked really bemused, I threw in a sentence in French. This always seemed to make him laugh and I was not sure if this was because my poor French or due to my “Inspector Clouseau” accent.
After this meeting I went to dinner with the partner and, again, had a great conversation about strategy which was so much easier over a meal than in a board room.
My “take away” for the day was that the best way to do business in France is while eating and that if ever the restaurants went on strike in France, it would bring business to a standstill!