March 17, 2023 Data Analytics for Supply Chain Managers If you haven’t already seen Astrid Eira’s article in FinancesOnline, “14 Supply Chain Trends for 2022/2023: New Predictions To Watch Out For.” It provides great insights into current supply chain developments and challenges. Eira identifies analytics as the top technology priority in the supply chain industry, with 62% of organizations reporting limited visibility. Here… Read More
March 15, 2023 How Application Analytics Can Optimize Your Customer Experience Strategy With growing concerns of a recession, many application providers are turning their attention to developing a better customer experience strategy for their existing customers. This strategy often includes application analytics to improve customer retention and growth. Here’s a quick look at what application analytics is and ways to use it to measure and improve… Read More
February 28, 2023 5 Important Customer Experience Scoring Methods After reading “Forrester 2023 Customer Experience Predictions”, it was surprising to see one of its projections – 20% of customer experience (CX) programs will disappear this year. Forrester explains that companies for which great CX is not part of their brand identity will demand proof that CX spending is necessary. Unfortunately, 54% of CX… Read More
February 28, 2023 7 Customer Analytics Techniques to Get to Know Your Customer Better Would you like to know more about your customers to improve engagement? Are you able to make them loyal and increase their lifetime value? These are some of the questions that customer analytics can help answer. Customer analytics, also called customer data analytics, is the systematic examination of a company's customer information and behavior to identify,… Read More
February 28, 2023 6 Predictive Analytics Steps to Reduce Customer Churn Keeping customer churn in check is dire, as it typically costs more to acquire a customer than to retain customers. To help businesses retain their customers, data scientists and IT analysts should consider customer churn analysis to better predict customer behavior. Here’s a quick overview of the tools necessary to predict customer churn. Calculate… Read More
February 16, 2023 5 Tips to Transition from Multichannel to Omnichannel Customers want outcomes and consistency as they move across their preferred channels. However, many organizations are struggling to transition from multichannel marketing strategies to omnichannel marketing strategies. What is Multichannel? A channel is any place where a customer interacts with the company. Most businesses rely on a mix of channels to interact with their customers… Read More
February 14, 2023 7 Ways Market Basket Analysis Can Make You More Money Market basket analysis, also referred to as affinity analysis, uses machine learning to increase sales by analyzing customer purchasing patterns. You can use market basket analysis for analyzing large data sets, such as purchase history, to reveal products and product groups, that customers are likely to purchase together. Market basket analysis is a very valuable… Read More
February 9, 2023 7 Customer Analytics Techniques to Get to Know Your Customer Better Would you like to know more about your customers to improve engagement? Are you able to make them loyal and increase their lifetime value? These are some of the questions that customer analytics can help answer. Customer analytics, also called customer data analytics, is the systematic examination of a company's customer information and behavior to identify,… Read More
February 9, 2023 Bringing your Database into the Modern Era The world of database management can be a complex one. Applications continue to be built on top of special-purpose databases that make it hard to merge data. New innovations such as Internet of Things (IoT) sensors are generating never-before-seen quantities of data that must be integrated as well. Here we’ll look at how businesses… Read More
February 7, 2023 6 Predictive Analytics Steps to Reduce Customer Churn Keeping customer churn in check is dire, as it typically costs more to acquire a customer than to retain customers. To help businesses retain their customers, data scientists and IT analysts should consider customer churn analysis to better predict customer behavior. Here’s a quick overview of the tools necessary to predict customer churn. #1.… Read More
February 7, 2023 5 Important Customer Experience Scoring Methods After reading “Forrester 2023 Customer Experience Predictions”, it was surprising to see one of its projections – 20% of customer experience (CX) programs will disappear this year. Forrester explains that companies for which great CX is not part of their brand identity will demand proof that CX spending is necessary. Unfortunately, 54% of CX… Read More
February 2, 2023 How to Protect Your Cloud Data Platform The Cost of a Data Breach Report 2022, conducted by Ponemon Institute, found that data security breaches now cost companies $4.34 million per incident on average – the highest cost in the 18-year history of the report. Forty-five percent of all breaches were cloud-based. This percentage is likely to increase, given that 43% of… Read More
January 31, 2023 Ventana Research Analyst Perspective, Actian Manages Avalanches of Data Matt Aslett, VP & Research Director at Ventana Research, just wrote an Analyst Perspective called Actian Manages Avalanches of Data. He gives the Avalanche Cloud Data Platform a positive review and concludes by saying, “I recommend that organizations migrating to the cloud and looking for a cloud data platform with integration and management capabilities… Read More
January 19, 2023 Are you Aligned with the Future of Big Data? Global data has been rapidly growing for more than a decade, snowballing into massive quantities of data available to businesses today. Data is aggregated everywhere on the Internet – through web searches, social media, work files and text messages – as well as via IoT devices and sensors. This has led to impressive market… Read More
January 17, 2023 A Beginner’s Roadmap for Adopting and Using Cloud Data Analytics Data managers have their hands full when it comes to their data analytics strategies. Datasets are growing in complexity and are generated at record volumes. Processing, analyzing and putting this data to use is mission critical for businesses to drive revenue and scale in the future. To help process these new and complex datasets… Read More
January 5, 2023 Do You Have Big, Fast, Jumbled, Useless, or Ugly Data? Here’s What to Do It has been more than 20 years since Meta Group (acquired by Gartner) introduced the 3Vs of data, Volume, Velocity and Variety. Gartner later expanded the 3Vs to 5Vs by adding Value and Veracity. To this day, these remain important considerations in data analytics. However, their size and complexity continue to increase. Here’s a… Read More
January 3, 2023 Six Data Privacy Trends in Data Analytics to Watch in 2023 Just like climate change, data privacy is a topic that’s grown from warm to hot and is moving into an extreme heat wave. This fast-moving issue inspired me to get out my crystal ball to predict top trends for 2023. Here are six data privacy trends, that lie ahead next year in the world… Read More
December 29, 2022 Data Privacy: Five Tips to Help Your Cloud Data Platform Keep Up Gartner estimates that 65% of the world’s population will have its personal information covered under modern privacy regulations by 2023, up from 10% in 2020. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) opened the flood gates with its introduction in 2018. Since then, countries across the globe have enacted their own laws. The United States is… Read More
December 27, 2022 The Power of Real-time Supply Chain Analytics There are many areas where real-time data analytics helps businesses increase revenue and operate more efficiently. Manufacturers, for instance, can use real-time supply chain analytics to reinvent their supply chain across sourcing, processing, and distribution of goods, so they can adjust to changing conditions quickly and effectively. Manufacturers can get the visibility they need… Read More
December 20, 2022 What is a Data Fabric and Why Do You Need It? What is a Data Fabric, Anyway? The data fabric has become a rising trend in technology over the last several years. Gartner defines a data fabric as: “a design concept that serves as an integrated layer (fabric) of data and connecting processes. A data fabric utilizes continuous analytics over existing, discoverable, and inferenced metadata… Read More
December 16, 2022 Make Your Marketing Campaigns More Successful This New Year The key to a successful marketing campaign is to reach customers at the right place, at the right time, with the right message. Traditional market segmentation used in campaigns aggregates prospective buyers into groups with common needs. Marketers hope that customers in the same segment will respond similarly to a marketing promotion. But will… Read More
December 14, 2022 How to Overcome Painful Data Management Challenges and Deliver Impactful Customer Experiences An impactful customer experience (CX) requires accurate and relevant data that’s easy to access, manage, and use. For businesses today, this data is the lifeblood for knowing more about customers to optimize CX. However, many organizations are saddled with data management challenges that reveal roadblocks to this data, resulting in an inaccurate and incomplete… Read More
December 12, 2022 Building the Bridge From Cloud to Edge for Superior Operational Analytics Data and analytics are the heartbeat of any business looking to drive revenue and innovate - especially during volatile and uncertain times. Businesses have gradually transitioned away from traditional data centers in favor of cloud data storage and analytics solutions to access data and unlock business insights more easily. We expect more enterprises will… Read More
December 9, 2022 Vector 6.3 Delivers Easier Administration, Greater Automation and Better Productivity for Data Analytics Did you know that Vector is one of the world’s fastest analytics databases? We’re excited to announce that a recent Enterprise Strategy Group evaluation found that Vector can outperform its competitors by up to 7.9x. Adding to this momentum is the release of Vector 6.3 in early December. Key highlights of the release include… Read More
December 7, 2022 Uplevel Your Cloud Migration Strategy – No Matter the Size of Your Organization Cloud migration and digital transformation are among the top ways for businesses to modernize and keep pace alongside competitors. Moving these endeavors forward is more about the underlying parts involved than the infrastructure. Enabling data-driven operations and intelligence can help ensure success. When businesses begin their transformation and modernization journey, it may be inevitable… Read More
December 5, 2022 Should I Move My On-Premises Data Warehouse to a Modern Cloud Data Platform? Do you still have an on-premises data warehouse? If so, are you evaluating whether you should move it to a cloud data platform? There are two main things to consider when making this decision: the advantages of the cloud versus on-premises deployment and the advantages of a modern cloud data platform versus an on-premises… Read More
December 1, 2022 Data Silos Suck. Here’s How to Break Them Down Data management issues are common among businesses today. These issues have had direct negative impact for marketing departments, with over 60% of CMOs agreeing that gaps in marketing data and analytics (D&A) and marketing technology are hindering strategic growth strategies. Data and systems stored in silos represent a huge problem for data managers, who… Read More
November 23, 2022 Telling a Great Data Story What is a Data Story? A story is a narrative, either true or fictitious, in prose or verse, designed to interest, amuse, or instruct the listener or reader. A data story can be like any story, but its narrative is focused on data insights designed to teach and motivate an audience to act. Why… Read More
November 11, 2022 Customer Experience (CX) Challenges for Small Businesses Customer experience (CX) is top-of-mind for business leaders who are weighing how to best make decisions that encourage customer loyalty and engagement. There has been a strong push across all industries to improve the quality of experience customers have, which in turn, drives revenue growth. Successful deployment of CX initiatives comes with challenges, however.… Read More
November 9, 2022 Management and Governance: Two Key Components of a Successful Data Strategy It’s no secret that businesses are using their abundance of data to generate insights that will advance their position in the marketplace or to make strategic decisions that will enhance value for their customers. Businesses that get the most out of their data aren’t those that happen to collect the most data, but those… Read More
November 2, 2022 Don’t Rely on Outdated Advice for Digital Transformation The road to digital transformation is not straightforward, and has not rapidly accelerated over the past few years. As businesses modernize systems and processes to keep pace with technology innovation, they’re looking for insights and road markers to help guide them along their journey. When seeking advice, business leaders often turn to industry peers… Read More
October 25, 2022 How to Increase Loyalty and Brand Sentiment Through Data A great customer experience (CX) can lead to more customers choosing you over your competitors. However, getting CX right can be a tricky task, especially as buyer personas and behaviors rapidly evolved because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Consumers have pivoted the way they shop, and, given the uptick in digital selling options businesses are… Read More
October 6, 2022 Why It’s Essential to Embrace Hybrid Data If you package and ship data like cartons of sugar – standard sized, easily stacked, and easily pulled from the shelf – it would be simpler to manage. Unfortunately, it’s not. Because organizations store data in so many different forms and places, extracting the sweet, fine grains of insight from hybrid data is a… Read More
September 28, 2022 Connecting Data to Make Customer Experience (CX) Easier Effective business decision-making relies on Getting CX right can be tricky given that the necessary data is often difficult to access across silos or exists in disparate and hard-to-reach places. A holistic understanding of a customer not only helps businesses know who they are selling to, but it also helps them craft a customer… Read More
September 22, 2022 What is the Future of Data Quality Management (DQM)? Today’s digital-first world has placed a tremendous emphasis on using enterprise data intelligently to drive important business decisions and manage risk. High-quality datasets function as the fuel for enterprises looking to map customers, track where they are in the lifecycle, and inform next steps on how to better engage them. However, simply having access… Read More
September 20, 2022 Prioritizing a Customer Experience (CX) Strategy to Drive Business Growth It’s no longer a question if business leaders must understand their customers and be able to identify where they are navigating in their technology journey. Creating a solid CX is not a luxury, but an essential practice for ambitious businesses that want to connect with their customers in meaningful ways - and this starts… Read More
February 17, 2022 Does Your Organization Have A Data Platform Leader? It Could Soon. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution for a modern data platform, and there likely never will be with the proliferation of multiple public and private cloud environments, entrenched on-premises data centers, and the exponential rise in edge computing – data sources are multiplying almost at the rate of data itself. Today’s data platforms increasingly take a… Read More
February 10, 2022 Data Democratization: Promise vs Reality Enabling universal access to data can create opportunities to generate new revenue and drive operational efficiencies throughout an organization. Even more importantly, data democratization, as it’s known, is crucial to business transformation. For that reason, vendors have made a lot of promises about enabling data democratization—and not all have panned out. For instance, various… Read More
February 3, 2022 Engineered Decision Intelligence: The Best Way Forward Part 2 Part 2: You Need Composable Data and Analytics In my first blog on engineered decision intelligence, I shared information about what this concept means and why you need it, and then I elaborated on the Gartner recommendation for pairing decision intelligence tools with a common data fabric. But there was a second piece of… Read More
January 28, 2022 Engineered Decision Intelligence: The Best Way Forward Part 1 Part 1: You Need a Data Fabric Among Gartner’s top 10 data and analytics trends for 2021 is engineered decision intelligence.[1] That raises two compelling questions: What is this? and Why should you care? Engineered business intelligence is, when you think about it, just what it says: a deliberate process to deriving business intelligence… Read More
January 3, 2022 Data Virtualization: Virtual Data Warehouse Déjà Vu? Back in the 1990s, I was an industry analyst covering data warehousing and business intelligence at Giga Information Group (subsequently acquired by Forrester Research). It continues to surprise me how little these technologies have changed since that time. Organizations today are still struggling with some of the very same complexities when it comes to… Read More
December 29, 2021 Database Migration to the Cloud: Things You Should Consider Did you know that 63% of organizations are actively migrating data from on-premises databases to the cloud? So says an IDC survey, and another 29% are planning to start a database migration within 3 years. Carl Olofson, IDC’s Vice President of Research specializing in data management software, recently participated as a guest speaker in… Read More
November 26, 2021 Hybrid Cloud Data Warehouses: Don’t Get Stuck on One Side or the Other Hybrid clouds seem to be the way the wind is blowing. According to the Enterprise Strategy Group, the number of organizations committed to or interested in a hybrid cloud strategy has increased from 81% in 2017 to 93% in 2020. But what exactly is a hybrid cloud? Turns out, there are a lot of… Read More
November 22, 2021 Bloor Spotlight Highlights How Actian’s Ingres NeXt Strategy Avoids Common Modernization Pitfalls Digital transformation requires use of the latest technologies. However, as you probably already know, modernizing a mission-critical database and the applications that interact with it can be risky and expensive, often turning into a long disruptive journey. But I have good news! According to a recent Bloor Spotlight report, Actian’s Ingres NeXt strategy for modernizing Ingres and OpenROAD applications either… Read More
November 17, 2021 Vector 6.2 Delivers Even Faster and More Secure Analytics Actian Vector is a vectorized columnar analytics database designed to deliver extreme performance with a high level of security. But who wouldn’t want analytics that are even faster and more secure? For those who do, the new Vector 6.2 release available on November 10, 2021 is a winner, continuing to push the limits of… Read More
November 8, 2021 Will Cloud Data Warehouses Really Help You Cut Costs? If the first question you consider when thinking about a cloud data warehouse involves how much money you will save by moving your on-premises solution to the cloud, you may not like my answer: There’s no guarantee that you will realize any cost savings at all. But let me suggest, however humbly, that this… Read More
October 26, 2021 Data Warehouse Best Practices In every industry, the need to follow best practices exists. Data warehouse best practices are no exception. Best practices are methods or techniques excepted as a good way or best way to accomplish an activity, process, or practice. All practices evolve, but the best way to start is with a foundation of best practices… Read More
October 1, 2021 An Easier and Safer Modernization Journey for Ingres and Database Applications Actian’s Ingres NeXt Initiative paves the way for transformation Are you considering modernizing either your Ingres database or your “green screen” ABF or thick-client OpenROAD applications? If so, you may have read about modernization options like those from Gartner listed below. Gartner has ranked these from easiest (Encapsulate) to most difficult (Replace). The easier… Read More
September 27, 2021 OLAP in Data Warehouses Decisions within an organization are made in three possible ways. One way is based on the experience of the individual making the decision. The second way is based on analytics. The third way is based on a combination of one and two, knowledgeable experience and analytics. Based on experience or expertise in a subject,… Read More
August 26, 2021 Security, Governance and Privacy for the Modern Data Warehouse, Part 2 Part 2: Cloud Service Security In my previous post on modern data warehouse security, we looked at issues related to database security. This post will focus on the separate, but related issue of cloud service security, which is increasingly important since nearly half of all data warehouses are hosted in the cloud.[1] The economics… Read More
March 2, 2022 Enterprise Data Warehouse Do you need a Data Warehouse or Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) in your organization today? Its functional units, people, services, and other organizational assets support the vision and mission of an organization. An organization can have strategies, tactics, and operational activities that are performed to meet the overall vision and mission of the organization… Read More
August 23, 2021 Security, Governance and Privacy for the Modern Data Warehouse, Part 1 Database Security: Part 1 Did you know that security breaches involving the cloud now surpass breaches involving on-premises infrastructure? According to the Verizon 2021 Data Breach Investigation Report, 73% of cybersecurity incidents involved external cloud assets—compared with 27% only one year ago.[1] Having just joined Actian from a cloud security provider, even I was… Read More
