The title of this post is an homage to Dan Meyer, a high school math teacher and TED speaker. He argues that the traditional methodology for teaching math is fundamentally flawed.
“I sell a product to a market that doesn’t want it, but is forced by law to buy it.” – Dan Meyer
Watching his talk, I couldn’t help but draw a parallel to the way the Business Intelligence concepts and methodologies have traditionally been presented to non-techies. Is it just a matter of complex tools? Or is it deeper?
“The formulation of a problem is often more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill” – Albert Einstein
Meyer references this quote by “the man”, Albert Einstein. Can you think of how B.I. manages the formulation of data schemas, hierarchical data models, nesting, etc? Bust open a textbook or Wikipedia, read it, then ask yourself, how engaging would this content be to someone who:
1. Lacks initiative
2. Lack perserverance
3. Lacks retention
4. Has an aversion to word data problems
5. Eagerness for formula reporting output
Meyer highlights these factors as being emblematic of his captive audience in the classroom. I’ve made a couple of adjustments to tweak the context to that of B.I. If you don’t agree that these factors apply equally to the vast majority of business users of B.I., please speak up.
Advances in technology are creating the ability to put the tools into the hands of the end user. Our technology is proof of that; however, we still have some serious work to do on the owner’s manual.
For example, How would you deconstruct the process of building a data hierarchy to facilitate creation of a Data Mart?
I’ve recently started volunteering with Junior Achievement teaching business concepts to 5th graders. You can see the attention of my little budding capitalists wax and wane throughout the session. They haven’t yet learned to hide their expressions so when they “check out” it’s pretty obvious. But I’m glad for it. I know exactly when I need to inject some PT Barnum into the act.
Let’s do the same for Business Intelligence.
Here’s Dan Meyer’s suggestions for fixing math education delivery. Let’s do the same and give Business Intelligence class a makeover.
I am back in the office after a whirlwind trip to Denver for the annual Sage Insights conference. This 2010 edition was my first as a Sage alumnus and I came away with a feeling that not only is Sage, and its ecosystem of partners, world-class in business but also as people. I guess I knew this all along, but sometimes it takes time away to truly appreciate it.
Here are a few of my conference observations:
Cloud computing is moving to the forefront of the Sage product strategy. In his keynote presentation, Himanshu Palsule, EVP of product strategy and marketing, called cloud computing one of two major trends to capitalize upon and introduced Sage North America’s cloud-based “connected services” as a key product strategy pillar. Connected services take “the richness of on-premise applications and connect to the reach of cloud-based services.” The launches of Sage SalesLogix Cloud and Sage Fundraising Online are examples of Sage dipping a toe in the “cloud” water (does that make it “rain”?)
Visitors at Indicee's booth at Sage Insights keenly interested in Cloud BI....or maybe Craig was sharing another uproarious story from trade shows past.
Business intelligence continues to gain in prominence within the Sage community. This year’s conference featured an entire presentation track dedicated to business intelligence, analysis, and reporting. And if the buzz at the Indicee booth was any indication, the opportunities for cloud-based analysis and reporting solutions are immense. Business partners outlined the challenges that clients are facing when it comes to creating and updating reports especially when the data resides in multiple systems such as Sage ERP MAS or Sage ERP Accpac and SageCRM. Conversations also revealed that the complexity and costs of typical on-premise BI solutions are often barriers to adoption.
Sage ERP Accpac – still near and dear to me – continues to garner much attention as the ERP of the future (very near future with Version 6 beta just around the corner); the slick user interface and improved workflow continue to impress. Kudos to the product team under the leadership of Scott Zandbergen, Erik Kaas, Alok Tyagi, and others.
The Simply Accounting group under the stewardship of Jamie Sutherland continues to be one of the most innovative teams in the Sage family. They have followed up on the success of Billing Boss, the online invoicing tool, with a mobile payment processing solution called Payment Boss.
Sage continues to be the “partner’s choice” for top vendor–forthrightness, integrity, and accessibility are a few of the words that come to mind to describe Sage. Speaking with fellow attendees and trolling the online forums, common themes are the positive feeling about the Sage team and a real bullishness about the Sage strategy.
A big shout-out to the entire Sage team for pulling off another successful Insights conference. Can’t wait until Sage Summit 2011 in DC.
Keep dialed into this channel for more Indicee news including the upcoming launch of our iPhone & iPad mobile reporting application (incidentally, Himanshu indicated that mobility was the other key trend influencing Sage product direction).
Everyone wants meaningful Business Intelligence (B.I.). At least, everyone who hopes to do well in business endeavours to do so intelligently. Everyone I know anyways.
Recently, someone kindly pointed out that B.I. is actually DETERMINISTIC as opposed to intelligent by its very nature…. being just a construct of rules and structure within an IT system.
This comment was brought about through a discussion around creating B.I. solutions, what is a good approach.
The talk actually ended sounding more like a Philosophy class than an IT group. Inductive and deductive reasoning. Asking questions. Treating matters objectively.
Stuff about helping management understand their own strategy by questioning manifest business processes. In order to arrive at answers to seemingly imponderable business questions. Things like, “What are your business goals?”
The above-mentioned firm put on a talk through TDWI (The Data Warehousing Institute) in Vancouver last Friday and I was fortunate enough to attend. For anyone local who is looking to better understand the B.I. space, these monthly meetings are a good start. The local chapter is fairly “young”, but it’s been growing and I’ve got to say, the meeting was quite interesting.
Some other points that jumped out were:
- B.I. is a technical issue, but success is a human issue
- Always keep the broader vision in mind
- Understand that business processes, definitions, and meanings change over time
- Greenfield B.I. projects have an advantage [over existing systems (i.e. no baggage)]
- Think big picture, work the details
and – Choose for impact!
It appears the growing consensus in this group is that the technical barriers aren’t what is standing in the way of getting good B.I. spread all throughout the organization. But it’s organizational psychology that sometimes stinks.
There’s a delicate balance that has to be struck. Top management don’t want to feel like they are being lectured, or questioned. But it’s education and Socratic inquiry that are required if the end B.I. solution is going to work.
In my view, part of the difficulty is that management doesn’t necessarily have their strategy worked out to the level of detail really required to get a “perfect” solution. There’s a lot of moving parts regardless of business size. But don’t look at me I’m just a software vendor.
Do you think I could be counted on to whip business strategy into shape?
Anyway you slice it, I think B.I. and strategy will always be inextricably linked. As mentioned in the talk, these are tied into part of a feedback loop.
Occasionally (when warranted), we aren’t above tooting our own horn and this is one of those times. Last week, Mark (our CEO) was down in Mountain View, CA for a technology conference called Under The Radar. In the past 3 years, companies selected to present at Under The Radar have gone on to raise over $1.36 Billion. The organizers work closely with some of Silicon Valley’s leading Venture Capital firms to share information about emerging start-ups and innovators.
With the entire office cheering him on via UStream, Mark brought his A-game and knocked it out of the park!
We were awarded the Judge’s Choice Award for the Analytics category!
It’s a privilege to receive this sort of recognition and we really appreciate it.
As well, we received some very kind words from the panel moderator, Jeremy Toeman- an expert in consumer lifestyle technology:
“I think Indicee’s website did the best job of the presenters now of radically, clearly saying what you do. Specifically that is… Easy Business Intelligence Reporting. Boom! I get it! Done.”
The presentation included a bit of background on our team and B.I. pedigree, the challenges of B.I., the pain of spreadsheets, and the cure!
It’s that time again! The big push for end of quarter. Salespeople are hitting up every lukewarm lead in their Contact List. The Accounting Department is hounding vendors for invoices, customers for payments, and internal folks for every last bit of supporting documentation they can get their hands on for the audit file. And the Marketing guys? I dunno, they are probably all on Twitter!
It’s a busy time. It can be frantic!
But remember that it’s also a time for reflection.
Lately, I’ve been spending a great deal of time delving deeply into the world of Business Intelligence (B.I.). One of the most prevalent themes within the B.I. space right now is the concept of Predictive Analytics: using B.I. software to use historical information to predict future events. This concept has actually been around for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Who wouldn’t want a Crystal Ball? In the stock trading world, you can look to the guys we call “Technical Traders” as an example of how Predictive Analytics might model.
The point is that everyone wants to look into the future, but remember we first need to understand the past. Looking back on a periodic basis should be a healthy exercise from which insights can be gained. Quarter end is an opportunity to do so.
Move beyond idle navel gazing, the blame game, and compliance for compliance sake. What can you learn from the quarter?
For instance, I’ve been writing in this space for 6 months now. I took the opportunity yesterday to look back at some of my early posts. What I learned is that recently I’ve been so engrossed in the B.I. world, I’ve been forgetting my roots. I’m not a B.I. guy by trade. The whole point of Indicee is to bring B.I. out of the industry bubble and “to the masses”. Instead, the B.I. industry has been pulling me into its world!
Time to take a step back.
With that, I’ve pulled a selection of 5 early posts from the vault. Please share your thoughts!
The idea was simple enough, write a short post about the role of spreadsheets in organizations. More accurately, write about the role of Excel in organizations. I’m trying to provide a frame of reference from which readers can gain perspective on what Indicee does. My thinking was, I could provide a bit of historical context (background of VisiCalc and Lotus 1,2,3 – the original electronic spreadsheets from the days when you actually had to use the word “electronic” in order to differentiate the thing from a paper spreadsheet), then a colourful anecdote about one or two of my favourite “Excel moments”(to illustrate some of the benefits and drawbacks to spreadsheet use), some stats on spreadsheet proliferation, end off with an introduction to the concept of datamarts, and Bob’s Your Uncle, point made. Readers could use the comfort and familiarity of the spreadsheet concept to relate to the new concept of Indicee. I figured the most difficult part of the whole exercise would have been choosing just one title for the post.
I was contemplating something like:
Confessions of an Excel Jockey
Fathers of Invention; The Mother of All Spreadsheets
“Finding the one or two key numbers that drives success in your business, and bringing them to everyone is very powerful in a business”
– Joe Knight, co-author of Financial Intelligence
The inspiration for this post was a management improvement video (13 minutes) posted on You Tube by http://www.harvardbusiness.org of an interview with Joe Knight, co-author of the book series “Financial Intelligence”, Business Owner, and Harvard Business.org blogger. The central message of the interview was that everyone in an organization benefits from understanding the numbers by which success is measured within a business. The trick is finding the right numbers. Particularly in today’s climate hearing about transparency is nothing new, but what doesn’t get as much play is this idea of narrowing the focus on measures of performance.
With respect to the numbers: Thanks to technology, we now have ALL the numbers available ALL the time. Reports have become super-robust because they can. Although there’s an argument for providing surplus information and letting the end user choose which parts to digest, there is also a great danger. Knight argues that providing less information to end users can actually produce better business intelligence. The process of asking the questions and finding the underlying systems within an operating group can enable a more focused, effective approach to providing reports. First, understand the work flow and underlying system of work for operations groups; then, develop measures around them. It’s easy to say, but when was the last time these conversations have taken place in your business?
“Business is like a game, and if you don’t understand the finances, you’re basically playing a game where you don’t know score”
- Joe Knight
According to Knight the emphasis should be, and this is where the interview really resonates with me, on providing a small number of operational metrics in a simple way and providing them to everyone. He rightly points out that the people receiving this information probably don’t want to be accountants, and have little or no interest in double-entry accounting “no matter how exciting it may appear to be”. For Accounting and Finance guys like us, it then becomes an exercise of translating Business Intelligence into Practical Intelligence in the reports we create to achieve an optimal value. It would be like one of us attending an advanced physics lesson. We would get way more out of it if someone simply dropped an apple on our heads. Sometimes less is more.
“Sun Tzu said: In general, the strategy for employing the military is this:
If there are 1,000 4-Horse Attack Chariots, 1,000 Leather-armoured Support Chariots,
100,000 Mailed Troops, and Provisions are transported 1,000 li, then the domestic and external campaign expenses, the expenditures for advisors and guests, materials such as glue and lacquer, and providing chariots and armour will be 1,000 pieces of gold per day.
As an accountant who has worked in a bunch of technology start-ups; when I read this, the first thing I do is try to extrapolate Sun Tzu’s Quarterly Burn Rate. It’s a bit tougher to try and calculate Cash Zero date seeing as, if the campaign is successful, you will have gained “the masses of All Under Heaven” – AKA “priceless”.
After spending a fair bit of time getting to know Indicee lately, the next thing that naturally came to mind was whether Sun Tzu’s Accounting system ties to his ERP system. If he has Pieces of Gold in one system and Numbers of Men in another, he could be spending a ton of time cutting and pasting reports in Excel to get his Departmental Salary Breakdown by Headcount!
Design thinking is a process for practical, creative resolution of problems or issues that looks for an improved future result. It is the essential ability to combine empathy, creativity and rationality to meet user needs and drive business success.
(There are number of definitions out there, but I think the above serves the purpose)
There’s a lot of Buzz around the concept of Design Thinking at the moment. A great deal of content has been produced, but I’m not sure how much has been directed toward the accounting and finance community. During the past 2 years for us, listening to someone talk about “radical innovation” usually entailed mostly hand-wringing and, well, … expletives. It’s understandable to have missed some of this.
So, I’m not sure how much about the topic has filtered in. Maybe that’s a good discussion point for the comments:
How much of the Design Thinking paradigm has filtered into the accounting and finance community?
How applicable is this school of thought to accounting and finance?
We are greatly influenced by our experiences. As a child, the hand reaches out to a hot stove only once.
The last couple posts have talked about legacy issues; legacy IT systems, legacy education. Today I’d like to talk about another actor in the Legacy IT Show, the classic software salesman (circa. 2004).
This guy (above) may or may not be selling software, but does the song and dance sound familiar? I’ve sat on both sides of the table. Listening to salesguys pitch software to me as a purchaser, and doing the accounting & finance work in a company selling enterprise software. Software, as an industry, is still an infant relative to most other industries; and with youth, comes growing pains. Here’s the story on both sides.
Listening to pitches, sitting through demos, taking notes only to be asked by a Director, “what would it cost if we just built our own?” was crushing. Or, hearing about how easy a rollout will be (“it’s like lego”) and then, months later, hearing about how it won’t do all that stuff we thought it would do. Did we send out that cheque yet?
On the sell-side, working with salesmen who could barely operate a computer or use excel well enough to complete an expense report. There was one colleague who seemed to continually be calling me from the middle of a war zone, god bless ‘em. The path to hell is paved with good intentions, indeed.
Over the years, I think we were selling more than software. We were selling a dream. And the dream was that somehow this product would magically work and fix all reporting and organizational problems. Presto!
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Again, let me know your thoughts guys! Do these posts help? Hurt? Are you indifferent? Keyboard froze? Are you “reflecting”?
