-
Seasonal Offer:
This title is part of our Seasonal Offers promotion.
Successful Business Intelligence
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| |||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £7.40
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in Successful Business Intelligence: Secrets to Making BI a Killer App for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £7.40, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Special Offers and Product Promotions
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
Praise for Successful Business Intelligence
"If you want to be an analytical competitor, you've got to go well beyond business intelligence technology. Cindi Howson has wrapped up the needed advice on technology, organization, strategy, and even culture in a neat package. It's required reading for quantitatively oriented strategists and the technologists who support them." --Thomas H. Davenport, President's Distinguished Professor, Babson College and co-author, Competing on Analytics
"When used strategically, business intelligence can help companies transform their organization to be more agile, more competitive, and more profitable. Successful Business Intelligence offers valuable guidance for companies looking to embark upon their first BI project as well as those hoping to maximize their current deployments." --John Schwarz, CEO, Business Objects
"A thoughtful, clearly written, and carefully researched examination of all facets of business intelligence that your organization needs to know to run its business more intelligently and exploit information to its fullest extent." --Wayne Eckerson, Director, TDWI Research
"Using real-world examples, Cindi Howson shows you how to use business intelligence to improve the performance, and the quality, of your company." --Bill Baker, Distinguished Engineer & GM, Business Intelligence Applications, Microsoft Corporation
"This book outlines the key steps to make BI an integral part of your company's culture and demonstrates how your company can use BI as a competitive differentiator." --Robert VanHees, CFO, Corporate Express
"Given the trend to expand the business analytics user base, organizations are faced with a number of challenges that affect the success rate of these projects. This insightful book provides practical advice on improving that success rate." --Dan Vesset, Vice President, Business Analytics Solution Research, IDC
From the Back Cover
In today's highly competitive global economy, actionable business intelligence (BI) is crucial to success. Yet while many companies have made substantial investments in BI infrastructure, few employees are taking advantage of the powerful BI tools they have at their fingertips. This is because technology is only part of a truly successful, company-wide BI strategy. Executive support, an analytic culture, and strong business-IT partnerships and collaboration are among the many other facets that make up a winning end-to-end BI initiative.
Written by industry analyst and BI consultant Cindi Howson, Successful Business Intelligence: Secrets to Making BI a Killer App reveals how to get the most value out of your BI investments. The book draws on exclusive survey data and real-world case studies of BI success stories at Continental Airlines, The Dow Chemical Company, Corporate Express, 1-800 CONTACTS, and other companies to identify proven BI best practices you can put to use in your organization, including:
- Gaining executive support and aligning your BI strategy with business goals
- Organizing BI teams and experts for success
- Choosing the best BI tools to meet user and business needs
- Improving data quality so decision-makers trust the BI solution
- Finding the relevance of BI to all employees, including front-line workers
- Using agile development processes to deliver BI capabilities and improvements at the speed of business
- Measuring success in multiple ways
Business intelligence has the power to change people's way of working, to enable businesses to compete more effectively and efficiently, and to help non-profits stretch their dollars further. Successful Business Intelligence: Secrets to Making BI a Killer App holds the key to bringing technological innovations together with the people, processes, and culture of any organization in order to achieve a competitive and profitable BI strategy.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
There are many books on the market which tell you how to design and implement the technology to support business intelligence. This book is not one of them. Rather, it is a rarer and more important book which tells you about why business intelligence is needed and how it should work in your organisation.
Too much of the literature available concentrates on the technology and sidelines the important issue of business intelligence, i.e., providing information which can be used to make decisions. Certainly, the technology is covered in the book but it is always placed in the wider context.
The recommendations in the book are based on primary research conducted by the author as well as her own personal experience. This gives the advice more authenticity than it being based purely on academic theory or the self-interest of particular software firms.
The weakness of the book (and why I've only given it four stars) is that, where there is discussion of software tools, it is very much about the current versions. This, I feel, will make it appear out-dated quite quickly. However, this should be no reason for not reading it.
Too much of the literature available concentrates on the technology and sidelines the important issue of business intelligence, i.e., providing information which can be used to make decisions. Certainly, the technology is covered in the book but it is always placed in the wider context.
The recommendations in the book are based on primary research conducted by the author as well as her own personal experience. This gives the advice more authenticity than it being based purely on academic theory or the self-interest of particular software firms.
The weakness of the book (and why I've only given it four stars) is that, where there is discussion of software tools, it is very much about the current versions. This, I feel, will make it appear out-dated quite quickly. However, this should be no reason for not reading it.
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This isn't really what I wanted. It is at too high a level. I wanted something rather closer to explaining how a business might use BI to achieve its goals - a lesson in how business works. This is more about how to set up a project to be successful to the business. Despite what I have just written, I have found some of the content interesting and do not regret buying the book.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
7 reviews
25 of 25 people found the following review helpful
Seasoned Professional Shares Key Insights
23 Dec 2007
Format:Hardcover
Cindi Howson has impressed me as a thoughtful and knowledgeable professional who has contributed greatly to the BI field by living in the trenches, digging into the details, and teaching others about her experiences.
It is hard to find a comprehensive book on BI that is written without an impenetrable cloud of technical concepts. Ten years ago, successful BI depended on the expert execution of those technical concepts. However, BI has matured, increasing the importance of nontechnical factors for successful BI.
This book tracks this trend by clarifying the current success factors for successful BI projects. Oldies and goodies are covered, such as the necessity of executive support, data quality, and business-IT partnership. However, the real contribution lies in highlighting some of the new success factors, such as:
- Measuring Success: If you can not measure BI, you will not be successful. The book suggests numerous ways to measuring your BI effort.
- Role of Luck, Opportunity, Frustration and Threat: We hate to admit it, but BI projects are often successful (or not) for reasons beyond our control or even our imagination. Get over it! The book suggests ways of maximizing your success by making you aware of this dynamic.
- Agile Development: Do not build BI systems in the old traditional way. We all know this. But do we know a good alternative? The book outlines the Agile Manifesto to deliver early and continuous versions, embrace requirements changes, intensify person interactions, etc.
- Organizational Culture: Experienced BI professionals realize that some company cultures are so messed up that there is no way to have a successful BI project. Sad but true! This book suggests the essential cultural characteristics based on the research of Jim Collins.
I highly recommend this book to both BI professionals who have some experience and business executives who are new to BI. The old timers can refocus and sync with the new trends. And, the executives can focus on the real business issues, avoiding paralysis over technical details.
It is hard to find a comprehensive book on BI that is written without an impenetrable cloud of technical concepts. Ten years ago, successful BI depended on the expert execution of those technical concepts. However, BI has matured, increasing the importance of nontechnical factors for successful BI.
This book tracks this trend by clarifying the current success factors for successful BI projects. Oldies and goodies are covered, such as the necessity of executive support, data quality, and business-IT partnership. However, the real contribution lies in highlighting some of the new success factors, such as:
- Measuring Success: If you can not measure BI, you will not be successful. The book suggests numerous ways to measuring your BI effort.
- Role of Luck, Opportunity, Frustration and Threat: We hate to admit it, but BI projects are often successful (or not) for reasons beyond our control or even our imagination. Get over it! The book suggests ways of maximizing your success by making you aware of this dynamic.
- Agile Development: Do not build BI systems in the old traditional way. We all know this. But do we know a good alternative? The book outlines the Agile Manifesto to deliver early and continuous versions, embrace requirements changes, intensify person interactions, etc.
- Organizational Culture: Experienced BI professionals realize that some company cultures are so messed up that there is no way to have a successful BI project. Sad but true! This book suggests the essential cultural characteristics based on the research of Jim Collins.
I highly recommend this book to both BI professionals who have some experience and business executives who are new to BI. The old timers can refocus and sync with the new trends. And, the executives can focus on the real business issues, avoiding paralysis over technical details.
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Strong on the business side of BI development - light on the technical and tactical
9 Nov 2008
Format:Hardcover
Secrets to making BI a killer app would be better worded "Secrets for a successful BI initiative" (though that is far less interesting). Howson concentrates on the practical aspects of building demand for BI, working through the politics/sponsorship, and team organization. Most of the information was very high level and though reinforced with real world examples provided little in the way of practical and actionable examples.
If you are new to BI management and looking for a project overview, I'd recommend the book. If you are looking details, technical examples, detailed case studies and steps of MAKING a killer BI app, not just describing the project, development and business buy-in process, I suggest you look elsewhere.
Of worthy note is the authors frequent recommendation of involving business users early and often, securing a strong sponsor, speaking business-speak, short iteration deployments and making sure the tool fits the job.
If you are new to BI management and looking for a project overview, I'd recommend the book. If you are looking details, technical examples, detailed case studies and steps of MAKING a killer BI app, not just describing the project, development and business buy-in process, I suggest you look elsewhere.
Of worthy note is the authors frequent recommendation of involving business users early and often, securing a strong sponsor, speaking business-speak, short iteration deployments and making sure the tool fits the job.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Excellent Book for those New to BI or Running BI Shops
21 Jun 2008
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Excellent book defining BI best practices, how BI measures processes, BI for process improvement, defining what BI is, how to set up a BI strategy with real-life case studies.
I cannot tell you how many times I have referred to this book - it is dog-eared, post-it noted, and referred to many times in my daily life of working in Business Intelligence.
Cindi Howson explains what BI is, what agile is, what's worked well, what hasn't worked well, and there's a survey at the back of the book that I am anxious to use. For example, I have heard the term "agile BI" several times at trade shows but I never really understood it until I read this book.
This book is a must-read for those working in BI, managing BI, or those who need to strategize based on BI results. It is a fantastic book!
I cannot tell you how many times I have referred to this book - it is dog-eared, post-it noted, and referred to many times in my daily life of working in Business Intelligence.
Cindi Howson explains what BI is, what agile is, what's worked well, what hasn't worked well, and there's a survey at the back of the book that I am anxious to use. For example, I have heard the term "agile BI" several times at trade shows but I never really understood it until I read this book.
This book is a must-read for those working in BI, managing BI, or those who need to strategize based on BI results. It is a fantastic book!
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Business, Finance & Law > Management > Information Management
- Books > Business, Finance & Law > Management > Management Skills > Decision Making
- Books > Business, Finance & Law > Management > Management Skills > Leadership
- Books > Computing & Internet > Databases > Data Storage & Management > Database Management Systems
- Books > Computing & Internet > Digital Lifestyle > Online Shopping > Amazon
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
