Business Intelligence Lowdown

Data Integration Platform

A new data integration platform, Active Integration Platform (AIP), is now available from data and application integration vendor Sunopsis. AIP is a comprehensive set of products that take care of a variety of data and application integration needs. It incorporates three modules __ the Sunopsis Data Conductor that can manage a high volume of data integration requirements for data warehousing, BI, BPM, and data migration operations, the Sunopsis Event Conductor that can handle asynchronous application integration needs in event-driven architectures, and the Sunopsis Data Conductor that can perform all the necessary transformations in a database. Database Trends and Applications reports:

The Active Integration Platform is built around a persistent data and event database--the Active Integration Hub (AIH)--captures the superset of all data and business events contained in all systems linked by the Active Integration Platform. The two major features in V4.1 of the Active Integration Platform allow users to automate the processes required to create and deploy the Active Integration Hub. The Common Format Designer (CFD) is used to quickly design and create a data structure (data model) for the AIH.

Informatica Extends Reach

Data integration solutions provider Informatica has tied up the European IT company Bull to establish a reseller, support and integration network spanning Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. The partnership includes exchange of technology to port Informatica's PowerCenter and PowerExchange Itanium 2 suites into Bull's NovaScale server family. Data Warehouse Knowledge Base reports:

Combining PowerCenter and PowerExchange functionality with the power of Bull's NovaScale and Escala servers is expected to extend data integration, migration and synchronisation and datawarehouse population for organisations.

Re-branded Data Integration Platform

Similarity Systems' data quality software Athanor and data profiling tool Axio will be integrated into newer versions of Informatica Corporation's PowerCenter data integration platform in the near future. Maintenance releases of PowerCenter in April this year will incorporate Athanor's data cleansing, rules definition and quality metrics monitoring capabilities, and data discovery tool Axio's data asset structuring and cataloguing capabilities, to enhance content coverage, performance and platform support. Computer Wire reports:

Both maintenance releases are being rolled out to coincide with the official launch of PowerCenter 8 (codenamed Zeus) this April, which Girish Pancha, executive vice president of products for Informatica said will radically improve data quality rules definition, data profiling and reporting capabilities for business users.

Business Objects Buys Data Quality Provider

Business Objects SA has moved closer to providing its customers with data quality management solutions along with its data integration software. The business intelligence software provider has signed a deal to acquire data quality software vendor Firtstlogic Inc. for US$69 million. IT World reports:

Business Objects said that it expects the acquisition to make it more competitive because customers are looking to standardize on a single platform that can deliver a complete information management tool.

Customer Data Integration

Effective data management is not that easily achieved, according to a Forrest Research report which states that even though 92% of companies surveyed believe that a consolidated and integrated view of customer data is vital to the success of an organization, only 2% of them have managed to successfully deploy what is known as customer data integration.

Customer data integration (CDI) is defined as the process of consolidating and managing customer information from all available sources. Customer contact details, customer valuation data, and information garnered through various interactions with customers are structured and organized to provide a comprehensive and up-to-date view of the customer database.

This aspect makes CDI a key element of customer relationship management. It is a business necessity these days to clean, manage, process, and maintain customer data because CDI projects, though technically complex, can deliver meaningful customer data to the entire organization.

New Data Integration Platform

Siperian Hub XT is the latest data integration platform to hit the market. The multi-product platform comes from the stables of the award-winning master data integration and management software provider Siperian Inc., and promises to facilitate firms in creating and delivering precise, unified views of customers and related locations, products and assets in a real-time operational environment. Data Warehouse Knowledge Base reports:

With Siperian Hub XT, customers can create more efficient and profitable customer relationships, increase the accuracy of regulatory compliance efforts and achieve better insights into the complete customer relationship all while reducing traditional operational costs.

Record Throughput Achieved

DataMirror Integration Suite has achieved a throughput of more than 2 billion transactions per hour on IBM’s eServer i5 systems, which is higher than the performance of any other similar solution. The data integration suite from the DataMirror Corporation was tested in October last year at the IBM Benchmarking Center in Rochester, Minnesota. Business Integration reports:

DataMirror Integration Suite achieved 2.06 billion transactions per hour and replicated nearly one trillion bytes of real customer data per hour on IBM’s 32-processor eServer i5 595 server. 

Oakwood deploys data integration BI platform

Oakwood Worldwide, the Los Angeles-based global corporate housing and property management firm, has successfully deployed Informatica Corporation's PowerCenter data integration platform to gradually migrate from a legacy mainframe system, while implementing new real-time tools like Business Intelligence (BI) and dashboards.  With the new platform in place and the PowerExchange mainframe access software, data sharing is enabled between the legacy systems and the newer applications like inventory-management and integrated corporate client systems, thus serving Oakwood's data management needs. Oakwood realized that the transition had to be done in incremental steps to minimize confusion and chaos, and so, chose a non-intrusive approach. Rather than updating the mainframe, the company added new applications and integrated them with the required data in the legacy system. Search Data Management reports:

"It's important to have Informatica in place because it provides us not only the ability to replicate our data, but also the ability to provide real-time information between systems," said Vinnie Le, Vice President of Information Systems (IS) at Oakwood. The platform enables better working relationships between internal users and corporate clients, many of which have integrated systems, Le added.

Read more about PowerCenter

Multichannel Contact Centers

From being a basic call center, this service has evolved into a contact center wherein the multichannel center offers touch points such as telephone, e-mail, Web chat, and fax. The type of service that companies can offer at these centers now includes in-depth customer service and sales functions including troubleshooting problems, prospecting, and leads generation. However, companies face certain issues when launching such an initiative:

Management sometimes tends to be out of touch with the day-to-day operations of the business, and takes decisions based on these inaccurate perceptions. It is important for managers to keep senior management in touch with such issues, so they have a realistic view of the scenario.

Integrating disparate applications or similar databases running on disparate platforms is another problem faced when trying to upgrade the contact center. The solution to this issue is APIs (application program interfaces) that use ODBC (open database connectivity) standards enable disparate databases and platforms to communicate. Some enterprises may need middleware instead of point-to-point or direct integration between data sources. Middleware creates a plug and play environment and doesn't require each field within a database to match up to a field in another database.

For handling customer queries in a contact center that offers multiple touch points, multitalented CSRs are required. The CSR skills required for such a contact center include being able to coordinate information coming into the organization via the Web, e-mail, and collaborative chat. CRM Today reports:

"I know of one company that got a handle on its high agent turnover rates by turning the job into a salaried position with benefits. After the agents saw themselves as being valuable to the company, turnover rates declined, and the company's investment began to pay for itself."

Customer Data Integration Challenges

Two basic challenges associated with a customer data integration (CDI) application are how to determine linkage between two records and determine that they refer to the same entity, and the ability distinguish non-connectivity between two data records. In other words, to accurately identify a 'match', and a 'non-match'. One way of finding a solution to this issue is to realize that we do not have to rely solely on names as criteria for the process. Explicit knowledge, inferred knowledge and embedded knowledge can help to make decisions regarding matches and non-matches. Explicit knowledge considers entity attribution that is clearly presented in the data instance. The challenge for customer data integration for this is to identify linking fields across data sets that may be represented differently. As human beings, we may be able to look at two contacts and figure out whether or not they refer to the same individual. However, for a computer system, implicit/inferred knowledge means relying on more complex algorithms to compute the degree of similarity and then combining it with other inputs to derive the inference that solidifies the link. CRM Today reports:

The challenges in exploiting embedded knowledge is threefold: Being able to recognize that embedded knowledge is present; being able to extract those values from the fields, in which they are embedded; and understanding how to build a “connectivity model,” in which the embedded information can be made explicit for use in linkage.

Data management in mergers and acquisitions

Whenever a M & A happens, there is a coming together of resources in terms of manpower, technology, and other physical assets. However, the integration of data during a M & A is often overlooked. The data represents useful information about a company's customers, their opinions, data on the products and services of the acquired company, etc. The data is very useful in mapping the path for the new merged entity in terms of the external direction to be taken and internal business processes for marketing, sales and the IT departments. A new organizational structure can be created depending on the requirements. If the data is not made use of, the merger may actually slow down the growth process, lower employee morale, and cause losses. Even if the merged businesses have common business ideologies, they may operate in different manners and treat data differently. Businessintelligence reports:

Without a solid data quality solution, managing the data between the parent company and the subsidiary would prove dangerous. The organization would have a difficult time identifying mutual customers and that confusion would threaten the very relationships they had worked so hard to develop.

Read More: More Than What You Paid For: How to Avoid Cannibalizing Your Long Term M&A Plan

Business data and the market value of a business

Data has become so valuable for corporates that they store it in warehouses especially constructed for them. Applications such as CRM, ERP, Inventory management systems, etc are implemented to utilize the data and add to it. The data that they create and refer to reveals important purchasing and buying patterns, dispatching options, and consumer buying trends. However, inaccurate and incomplete data is not uncommon in most data warehouses. It has a negative effect on the decision making process. Frequently, the scope of the problem is such that companies have to introduce an enterprise-wide quality solutions program. This enables the executives to access uniform data from a centralized source and be confident about the decisions taken on the basis of that data. It is important for this purpose that the company has measurable business goals and an alignment between business and IT objectives. Businessintelligence reports:

Well seasoned data quality experts, particularly ones experienced in turning business requirements into lasting data quality standards, are generally far more effective than part-time programmers whose job is to “fix” glitches, or contractors that don’t know your business.

Read More: Business Data – The New Gold Standard

Data integration is critical for the successful implementation of enterprise level applications

"Master data management" is the art of managing information exchange, such as customer and product information, between different computer systems. It is very difficult for large companies to maintain multiple sets of master data. Moreover, enterprises have more than one ERP or CRM system, which is different from the other. It is difficult to manage data across these systems, track their path, and maintain accuracy across the master databases. Inconsistency in corporate data can lead to duplication of efforts and difficulty in analyzing business performance. Having a centralized master database facilitates developing marketing strategies more rapidly or pushing for more sales via the web. Product numbers, names, brands, formulations, etc all constitute information that can be very difficult to utilize if it is not easily accessible. Very often, companies have a range of products that are almost similar and can be grouped as one but lack of insight into product specifications prevents companies from integrating their product database. Having data that responds to an optimum number of definitions can be a great time saving device. Businessintelligence reports:

Application software vendors, always quick to spot a revenue opportunity, have recently sniffed that there may be money in this area, so a range of “master data,” “data hub,” and other products have been running off the presses of their slick marketing departments.

Read More: Are you master of your data, or its slave?

Security and data integration attract venture capitalists

IT company executives and venture capitalists are of the opinion that enterprise data mining, health care, and regulatory compliance are some of the areas that will attract investment in the near future. Companies looked to object programming technology in the nineties in order enable interoperability between their various applications. However, the technology did not work as desired since the objects that were created for one application were not easily transferable to another program. SOA or service-oriented application is expected to provide a thorough solution to the data integration problems of companies that currently have applications running on heterogeneous systems. It would be of immense help for companies if they can implement a sustainable data management system that will help them access the data, which is currently not of much use, being locked in various databases. The process may be an intensive labor oriented one and can accommodate several start-ups. Trigo is one such start-up that was created in 2000, it was acquired by IBM in 2004. Eweek reports:

Data integration and protecting the integrity of data will become increasingly important as new regulatory compliance legislation goes into effect, noted William Conroy, CEO of Initiate Systems, a data integration software maker based in Chicago.

Read More: Security, Data Integration Top Venture Capital Interests

PrepKit from ucertify receives a good response.

An upgraded version of its MCSE 2003 PrepKit has been released by ucertify. Detailed study material and mock tests that mimic the real tests in terms of content and difficulty are reasons for a favorable reaction to this PrepKit. Each test is followed by an in-depth performance analysis; notes are provided for the correct as well as incorrect answers. The students can also insert their own comments that are useful in gauging their progress. The PrepKit can be customized to match the requirements and progress of the students while learning as well as while taking the tests. Students using the PrepKit will get familiarized with Hot Area Questions, Drag and Drop Questions, Create a Tree Questions, etc. Technical articles written by industry experts expose the students to the technical expressions, definitions, and clarify their doubts regarding the various concepts. Students can also take pop quizzes and can even set the time they wish to complete the quizzes in. ucertify.com Reports

Exam 70-294 is a core exam for MCSE 2003 certification. It tests a professional's aptitude to plan, execute, and maintain a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Active Directory infrastructure.

Read More: uCertify upgrades Exam Simulation PrepKit for MCSE 2003 exam (70-294)

Newspaper Incorporates Business Intel. to Boost Efficiency and Information Access

The Tribune-Review, based in Pittsburgh, is taking business intelligence to a new level by incorporating it ever deeper into their organizational model.  The paper used to conduct departmental reporting by submitting it to the IT staff person as many papers do.  This manner was not only inefficient, but it also produced static reports that could not be manipulated by the manager without the need to resubmit the report entirely.  That has since changed, however, through the incorporation of Business Objects software.  The company sent a few employees to undergo training who then returned to link the Business Objects software to the papers databases.  The paper also incorporated real-time reporting to allow business managers to pull up data that was freshly updated rather than having to wait the customary months before information such as zip codes and clusters were updated.  Newspapers & Technology Report:

"To allow (management) to interact with the data, sort it, group it, drill down into it and do analysis on it without having to re-involve IT, is going to help them be more productive," he said.  "Having more information at their fingertips is, in the end, going to let them make better decisions."

Read More: Business Intelligence: Better brainpower can mean better decisions