Drivers of Success 2010

Many of us see predictions by IT experts, and they can be helpful in setting
expectations. Most agree that IT budgets will grow only moderately in 2010.
However, the trend that matters the most for CIOs will be the one that affects
their ability to positively influence business performance: the power to ask any
question of the data warehouse and get it answered accurately and
actionablyanywhere, anytime.

We are referring to the capacity of managing complex as well as simple
queries that drive detailed analysis and produce actionable intelligence for
the userin real-time.

Based on a number of highly visible implementations and cases, the central
driver of IT-enabled business performance in 2010 will continue to be advanced
analytics in an integrated information environment. As we have seen in recent
years, we expect to see many more companies migrate to an active enterprise
data warehouse (EDW)a centralized, integrated data repository designed to
analyze fresh information and feed intelligence to front-end business users for
immediate, real-time decision support.

Imagine the advantage for the decision-maker who can get an accurate,
actionable answer to any complex business questionfrom PC device (laptop, cell
phone, or Blackberry), linked to the companys EDW in real-time. Will this be
your approach in 2010?

The demand for anywhere, anytime business intelligence has never been
greater. Executives will ask more what-if questions and theyll expect
predictive intelligence on demand, because the need for business insight is
leading to an ever-greater requirement for business foresight. With EDW-driven
predictive analytics, you can really be the first to know things in detail.
The value of that information can be incalculable.

Dell, eBay, WalMart, and other EDW users know the business value of an EDW,
and they are growing their size annually by multiple terabytes. Yet, this is
only one of the many trends we foresee in 2010. Our extended outlook for the
year ahead follows.

Competing on Analytics

With the prolific growth of data volume and complexity, plus new
applications for capturing and analyzing information, the companys data
infrastructure can become a pain point. Thus, there is a growing need for
scalable, integrated information environment. There is also a growing demand for
specialists in mastering analytical software that runs inside the
databaseanalytics experts who know IT, statistics, math and how to use them to
meet business objectives. We call them analytical power players.

Two fundamental shifts are occurring in the business world: the data
environment is integrating and gravitating to the center of every business; and
the roles of analytics practitioner, business analyst, and information
technology specialist are fusing. The emerging skill-set is a multi-dimensional
one and analytics power players will suddenly become the most valuable employees
in the company.

Tom Davenport, Babson College scholar and author has, for three years,
promoted the exploitation of advanced analytics as the single most important
business differentiator. He has said that increasingly, analytics will have a
primary rather than supporting role in competitive strategies. He said that
businesses will compete on analytics.

Davenport states that analytics-based competition is primarily based
uponhaving a better understanding of the business in order to do business
better than anybody else, process optimization, the customer, the competition,
and the forces that shape it all. Again, this comes with advanced analysis of
detailed information. So, expect to see more data mart consolidation and
centralization of data in integrated repositories capable of handling multiple
terabytes of detailed data.

Compliance Applications

With the turmoil and chaos in global financial markets, expect to see new
applications and solutions that will help organizations respond to more strict
regulatory standards. CIOs must devote resources to understand the compliance,
privacy, and data security needs of constituents, and hence, select vendors that
propose effective solutions. Youll have to choose point solutions for specific
compliance requirements or look at compliance applications for reporting from a
larger store of critical corporate data.

Data Security

Data security is no longer just an IT issue. Rather, it has become an
executive-level priority. In a recent survey of 1,300 CIOs representing $57 bn
in IT spending, security scored the highest in terms of technology priorities.
Explosive growth in data volume and complexity, with terabytes of sensitive
consumer information, spark security concerns. Executives operate in a global
environment with multiple office locations, sometimes involving thousands of
employees, customers and suppliers, plus a large virtual workforce. CIOs will
take strong measures to protect their enormous data assets.

Open Source

Contrary to misconceptions, deployment of open source operating systems
isnt completely about cost savings. Purchasing an open source operating system
and deploying it comes with a price tag. CIOs must discover how they can achieve
value from its deployment. Open source provides innovation across a worldwide
group of developers and will allow for quick adoption of new technologies. Yet
at the same time, in this collaborative scenario, it will become critical to
manage new versions and releases for a large enterprise. In this way, costs
will shift from pure licensing to a mix of inexpensive licensing and more
expensive support infrastructures.

Business Processes

Business process owners will increasingly depend upon IT to refine and
improve their efficiencies and effectiveness. IT analysts report that
"Automating the business process makes more sense than building discrete
integration (and analytical) software into every separate application." We also
predict that rules-driven, event-triggered, exception-based reporting will
continue to go mainstream. Process owners will adopt event detection to optimize
all kinds of business processes. Often called pervasive business intelligence,
this approach is becoming increasingly the norm, not the exception.

RoI

CIOs will be challenged to present a return on investment (RoI) model which
addresses business value rather than only IT value. Moreover, IT will further
align with functions across the entire value chain. CIOs will be ever more
accountable to contribute to the organizations bottom-line. In 2010, the CIO
will become the new best friend of the CFO.

Again, at the core of this will be active intelligence, or the real-time EDW.
Intelligence must come to decision-makers in a dynamic context with minimal data
latency, which becomes decision-making latency, which becomes tactical execution
latency, which in turn becomes a cycle of missed opportunities for the business.
Lost minutes can lose millions. Advanced analytics running on an active EDW will
certainly become the single most important driver of success in 2010 and the
foreseeable future.

Ashok Ekbote

The author is country manager, Teradata India

maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in