1. Business Analytics
and the Nexus of
Information
Introduction
2
The Impact of the Nexus of Forces
4 Every day, the world creates 2.5 quintillion • Cloud computing has become a practical
From the Gartner Files: bytes of data and the pace at which it is being alternative for providing IT services and
Information and the Nexus of created has escalated to the point that 90 storing data.
Forces: Delivering and Analyzing percent of the data in the world today did
Data
not exist three years ago. This data comes Although the size and velocity of today’s data
from everywhere: sensors used to gather is daunting, it also provides an opportunity to
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climate information, posts to social media find insights, to make businesses more agile
About IBM Business Analytics
sites, digital pictures and videos, purchase and to answer questions that were previously
transaction records and mobile phone GPS considered too difficult to address.
signals to name a few. Several technology
trends are key contributors to this explosion In Information and the Nexus of Forces:
of data: Delivering and Analyzing Data, Gartner states
that the confluence of information generated
• The mobile revolution is instantly by new technologies and sources will create
connecting businesses, consumers and a nexus of forces that could be even more
governments. disruptive than the dot-com and e-business
booms of the 1990s. To take advantage of
• Social media has emerged as a this nexus, companies will need to innovate
primary means for communication and through information.
collaboration.
• Hyper digitization is a fact of life. What
were once mainly analog and paper
artifacts (videos, education and forms,
for example) are now increasingly being
produced in digital formats.
Featuring research from

2. The Impact of the Nexus of Forces
Gartner posits that exploiting the nexus of forces for better business information and use data modeling to create scenarios. These
results will be a critical business and IT skill. In addition, companies solutions should also span the full spectrum of analysis to include:
will need to prioritize the areas of greatest potential impact, adjust
IT strategies and adopt emerging technologies and IT capabilities to • Analytical reporting. Analytical reporting helps enterprises find the
capitalize on opportunities. answers to business questions fast with guided report analysis,
dashboards, navigable reports and mobile business intelligence.
The research states that emerging technologies offer a chance to
exploit these trends to meet the continual demand for better data • Trend analysis. Trend analysis is used to fully explore data and
for analysis and fact-based decisions. Gartner identifies business track business developments with capabilities for tracking patterns
analytics and information management as the two IT strategy and adding them to charts and graphs.
areas for these technologies. In the area of business analytics,
the research identifies content analytics and social analytics as • What-if analysis. What-if analysis enables enterprises to model
technologies that can provide better access to more varieties of scenarios with capabilities for reorganizing, reshaping and
information at lower costs and support new business models that recalculating data so you can identify the optimal solutions to
yield competitive advantages. business problems.
Success, says Gartner, depends on how well organizations respond • Advanced analytics. With advanced analytics, enterprises can
to their enterprise business intelligence (BI) and analytics needs. uncover patterns in the business and apply algorithms to BI data to
Gartner also adds that proper preparation for innovation through predict outcomes.
information includes three main activities. Enterprises should analyze
their business needs and the impact of better information on IBM® Cognos® Enterprise software includes analysis capabilities that
business outcomes. They should help the business understand what span the spectrum of analysis. With analytical reporting that includes
is possible with technologies that analyze new information types. dashboards, navigable reports and mobile BI, it is possible to have
They should then adopt a strategy that includes these technologies. at-a-glance views of the business and to go into more detail. Users
can sort from top to bottom and back, be guided through to additional
To use business analytics as part of a strategy to exploit the nexus relevant reports and analyze data on demand. A common metadata
of forces, IBM believes enterprises can combine expanded analysis layer helps users ask for more information about anything they see.
capabilities (analytical reporting, predictive analytics and statistical For example, they can call up the lineage of a piece of information
analytics) with analytics technologies (for example, customer to see where it was sourced from to increase their confidence in that
analytics) to comprehensively analyze the information coming in and information. Or, if someone is reviewing a report or dashboard about
make the right decisions as a result. customers who are purchasing less merchandise than usual, they
can link to a report of open support requests for a given customer to
Analytics for traditional and new forms of information see if the lack of purchasing is based on an open service issue. This
Innovation through information includes using analysis capabilities is guided analysis; the system helps people find what they need to
in new ways and exploiting customer analytics. know.
The full spectrum of analysis For trending analysis, Cognos Enterprise includes features for fully
exploring data, comparing and contrasting different business areas,
To meet the growing demand for solutions that analyze traditional analyzing trends over time and rotating and nesting information
and new forms of data, organizations now want analysis solutions
that promote self-discovery, provide the ability to manipulate
Business Analytics and the Nexus of Information is published by IBM. Editorial supplied by IBM is independent of Gartner analysis. All Gartner research is © 2012 by Gartner, Inc. All rights reserved. All Gartner materials
are used with Gartner’s permission. The use or publication of Gartner research does not indicate Gartner’s endorsement of IBM’s products and/or strategies. Reproduction or distribution of this publication in any form
without prior written permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of
such information. Gartner shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice.
Although Gartner research may include a discussion of related legal issues, Gartner does not provide legal advice or services and its research should not be construed or used as such. Gartner is a public company,
and its shareholders may include firms and funds that have financial interests in entities covered in Gartner research. Gartner’s Board of Directors may include senior managers of these firms or funds. Gartner research
is produced independently by its research organization without input or influence from these firms, funds or their managers. For further information on the independence and integrity of Gartner research, see “Guiding
Principles on Independence and Objectivity” on its website, http://www.gartner.com/technology/about/ombudsman/omb_guide2.jsp.
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3. to gain fresh insights. You can also add trends right in your charts • Improve sales forecasting and minimize sales cycles.
and graphs. If you prefer comparing and contrasting information
in Microsoft Excel, you can do so with another Cognos Enterprise • Predict which customers are at risk of leaving and retain them.
feature. In addition, anyone involved in analysis can benefit from
the ability to add relevant pieces of reports to Microsoft Office • Maximize customer lifetime value through personalized up-sell
applications, such as PowerPoint, and watch them automatically and cross-sell.
refresh each time they access them. This helps you pool your
personal sources with those of other interested users without Customer acquisition uses smarter analytics to attract more valuable
affecting enterprise data sources so that you can confirm what you customers. Customer lifetime value helps businesses use analytics
are seeing in the trends. and BI to design cross-sell and up-sell opportunities. Customer loyalty
uses churn management and other analytics techniques to improve
To help finance and business users analyze their key performance loyalty and satisfaction. Social analytics (or social media analytics)
drivers and use the results of this analysis to make faster and better uncover customer sentiment dispersed over numerous online
decisions, Cognos Enterprise includes an analytics server to power sources.
what-if analysis solutions. Finance and business users can compare
the value and cost of alternative courses of action to the status quo Because of the impact social media has on consumer opinions and
to help build strong business recommendations and make strategy buying behavior, IBM offers a robust social media analytics solution
change grounded in facts. In addition, your company can respond called IBM Cognos Consumer Insight. Cognos Consumer Insight is an
more quickly to internal and external business drivers and optimize analytics application designed specifically for social media. It uses
business performance. sophisticated software to assess the volume, sentiment and trends
in consumer conversations that span different social media. You can
And, to provide advanced analysis features, Cognos Enterprise use this information to guide your organization’s marketing strategies
integrates with IBM SPSS® predictive analytics and statistics solutions to be more precise, agile and responsive to consumer demands,
that help uncover patterns in the business and can apply algorithms allowing you to target or calibrate marketing campaigns to grow
to BI data to predict outcomes. The foundational technology of these market share, enhance reputation and improve customer experience.
IBM advanced analysis solutions uses sophisticated mathematics
to help researchers validate assumptions and test hypotheses. By In addition, marketers can evaluate dimensional relationships
testing opinions about the latest product feature ideas, the efficacy between terms to look for trends, such as the affinity between
of a new drug treatment or prospective supply chain allocation, your products and media channel – a feature currently unique to IBM. They
organization can look at what it believes and validate whether those can assess related and relevant topic associations above and beyond
views are based in fact. In addition, statistics will make you confident an initial search, such as clustering of purchasing preferences around
in the results and the final outcomes of the decisions you make. a key word. Using the information and insights uncovered, businesses
can design targeted marketing and promotional programs and
Together, the features and solutions of Cognos Enterprise provide the marketing segmentation that can lead to more sales and greater
expanded, flexible data analysis businesses need to find the answers profitability.
to any business question from large, complex and structured
datasets. Conclusion
Are you prepared to take advantage of the nexus of forces? How do
Customer analytics you plan to make the most of the terabytes of data your company
Customer analytics uses customer behavior to determine better generates every day? IBM Business Analytics software can help you
ways to satisfy, acquire and retain customers. Customer analytics answer those questions. With a comprehensive, unified portfolio
solutions from IBM minimize the difficulty of understanding what of business intelligence that includes new and expanded analysis
customers want by uncovering hidden insights in customer data. capabilities and business analytics solutions that include customer
With these insights, businesses can design personalized experiences analytics, deep, complex or unstructured data sources are no
for their customers to help them win more business and increase longer obstacles. People in your company can spot trends, patterns
customer loyalty. Predictive, smarter and social media analytics help and anomalies, compare “what if” scenarios and predict potential
businesses: opportunities to better understand, anticipate and shape business
outcomes and innovate through information.
• Identify and target the best customers for marketing.
Source: IBM
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4. From the Gartner Files:
Information and the Nexus of Forces:
Delivering and Analyzing Data
Analyze how to adjust your business and • The growing strategic nature of are all about gaining competitive advantage
IT strategies to take advantage of the ways information and exploiting new markets to deliver
that new information driven by cloud, social growth. “Transformational” is not a word to
and mobile will be critical to the successful Individually, each of these forces is disruptive; be used lightly, but there is no doubt that
exploitation of the Nexus of Forces. however, when taken together, they interact, the information revolution in which we are
amplify and accelerate to form a Nexus enmeshed will be disruptive to incumbents
Analysis of Forces that will rival the disruption and and transformational in its impact on
A new era is emerging in which information magnitude of change caused by the dot-com organizations, processes and jobs across
will play an increasingly central and critical and e-business boom of the late 1990s. Of practically all industry sectors, governments
role in business success and competitive particular importance for taking advantage and even society itself.
advantage. Advances in technology are of the Nexus is the enterprise’s ability to
creating new types of information from innovate through information (see Figure 2). These forces serve as primary feeders for
external sources. Data volume, variety and the new types of information, exploited by
velocity are growing exponentially, lending New ideas and opportunities represented business and resulting in new use cases.
prominence to the populist term “big data.” by these forces are widespread, but they Current information infrastructures are poorly
Finally, emerging technology is giving CIOs are often confined to specific industries or positioned to deal with use cases inspired
and other IT leaders the chance to deliver on business domains. Understanding and by the flood of data from these external
the longstanding demand from the business communicating the “art of the possible” sources. Understanding the new use cases
for better data with which to support fact- will spawn creativity that can support new and how to respond to them will be critical
based decisions that lead to better business business outcomes. The opportunities that to the effective use of these new types of
outcomes. new approaches toward information offer information.
organizations are many and varied, but they
However, there is more to the successful
exploitation of information by today’s
organizations than just better analytics and
technology. Understanding the sources and FIGURE 1
nature of these new types of information The Nexus of Forces
and how they can lead to better business
outcomes will be a critical business and
IT skill. Equally important is the ability to
prioritize the areas of greatest potential Mo
impact, adjust IT strategies, and adopt ial
bi
c
So
le
emerging technologies and IT capabilities to
capitalize on opportunities.
The Nexus of Forces Puts Information in
the Spotlight
Gartner sees the confluence of several
high-level forces (see Figure 1) combining
to reshape the business and technological
landscape during the next five years:
on
• Cloud-based business
Cl
ud
ati
o
or
m
I nf
• The rise of mobile usage and commerce
• Growth in the use of social media and
casual computing by consumers
Source: Gartner (June 2012)
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5. 5
FIGURE 2 Success requires IT organizations to • Revise information disciplines to keep
Information Innovation understand the business requirements up with the new pace and scope of
for new information and how it can affect information demands
measurable business outcomes and help
drive innovation. IT should also understand • Create an information strategy to guide
that information demand can quickly outstrip continuous improvement
the IT organization’s ability to deliver.
Strategic Planning Assumptions
The increasing volume, variety and • Through 2015, 85% of Fortune 500
velocity of information will overwhelm organizations will be unable to exploit big
familiar disciplines for accessing, storing, data for competitive advantage.
managing, analyzing, governing, presenting,
collaborating on and sharing information. As • By 2015, the 20% of enterprises employing
a result, the IT organization must develop an social media beyond marketing will lead
information strategy to guide its response to their industries in revenue growth.
business requirements for information. The
first step in building an information strategy • At year-end 2016, more than 50% of
is understanding how to be an information Global 1000 companies will have stored
leader. customer-sensitive data in the public
cloud.
Two areas that will have a significant impact
on IT strategy are business intelligence (BI)/ • By 2015, mobile application development
analytics and information management. In projects targeting smartphones and
the case of analytics, success depends on tablets will outnumber native PC projects
Source: Gartner (June 2012) the organization’s ability to adopt consistently by a 4:1 ratio.
and to respond to the enterprise’s BI and
analytics needs. Management of the Source: Gartner Research G00234835, Y. Genovese
Emerging technologies offer a chance to information will also require a consistent 26 June 2012
exploit these trends to meet the business’s model to frame information and information
long-standing demand for better data with capabilities.
which to make fact-based decisions. Content
analytics, social analytics, in-memory Consider These Factors to Determine Your
databases, Hadoop and other technologies Readiness
can deliver better access to more varieties Innovation through information can give
of information at lower costs, and they can the enterprise an enduring competitive
support new business models that yield advantage if enterprises properly prepare.
competitive advantages.”Hadoop and Enterprises should:
MapReduce: Big Data Analytics” describes
how these new techniques and technologies • Analyze business needs and the impact of
can rapidly process data (including better information on business outcomes
semistructured information) in parallel on
large clusters of computer nodes. “Innovation • Help the business understand what is
Insight: Invest in In-Memory Computing possible with less-expensive technologies,
for Breakthrough Competitive Advantage” and technologies that manage and
explores how falling costs associated with analyze new information types (such as
memory are enabling radical improvements text and video)
in performance that are relevant to many
analytical challenges.
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6. About IBM Business Analytics
IBM Business Analytics software delivers actionable insights
decision-makers need to achieve better business performance. IBM
offers a comprehensive, unified portfolio of business intelligence,
predictive and advanced analytics, financial performance and
strategy management, governance, risk and compliance and
analytic applications.
For more information
With IBM software, companies can spot trends, patterns and For further information please visit ibm.com/business-analytics.
anomalies, compare “what if” scenarios, predict potential threats
and opportunities, identify and manage key business risks and plan, Request a call
budget and forecast resources. With these deep analytic capabilities To request a call or to ask a question, go to ibm.com/business-
our customers around the world can better understand, anticipate analytics/contactus. An IBM representative will respond to your
and shape business outcomes. inquiry within two business days.
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