2 thoughts on “If you enjoy reading this blog…”

1. Hi Peter, Thanks first of all for making the world of Business Intelligence more interesting to a relative newcomer, and I think your roundabout “eclectic” style actually suits the topics covered! Anyway, apart from being a borderline sycophant, I am working in the EPM (Enterprise Performance Management) side of Oracle hawking the erstwhile Hyperion products, and the whole “Business vs IT” thing really resonates for me. Traditionally we have sold to IT, but I need to talk to the LOB’s directly, often using the “Cut out the IT Dept, own this process/package yourself” mantra as a selling-point. I was wondering what your views are of the Performance Management side of things is, do you see it as a separate entity or do you consider it to be another iteration of BI?

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   • Padraig,

     Thank you for taking the time to comment and for your kind words. As may be seen from a series of my posts about once of the other behemoths of business intelligence, sometimes linguistic distinctions between areas can confuse as much as illuminate.

     FWIW I think that BI and PM overlap – both have an existence separate from each other, but also have much in common. Some people would argue that PM covers the behavioural aspects of an organisation, and BI merely provides the data that acts as an input for this. However I certainly see BI as a broader-based area, which in itself is as much about driving change as nifty technology.

     My most successful BI programmes could probably have just as easily been described as PM programmes – they were certainly about turning round the performance of organisations. If what I say about BI and PM overlapping is true, then I probably inhabit the intersection :-).

     It is tricky as a vendor (something I appreciate having worked in a Tech start-up in the ERP space), selling just to IT is sometimes a missed opportunity as what you really want is to display the business value that can be released. Ideally IT and the Business departments are well-aligned and IT is happy with procurement decisions being mutually taken with users, but I do appreciate that this is often not the case and IT is instead a gate-keeper.

     In this latter scenario, going round IT must seem like the only alternative, but it is equally rather a high-risk game to play.

     Peter

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