October - BI and Excel
After more than two decades of heavy use, Microsoft Excel still seems to be the most popular tool for business intelligence applications. From simple "Ma and Pa"-type data analysis to third-party applications extending its vast functionality, Excel seems to have something for everyone in the BI community.
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September - Software as a Service (SaaS) and BI
When thinking about SaaS, a few questions immediately come to mind: How does this delivery model compare to traditional software deployment? What are the concerns of your I.T. department? What are the security issues - and are there security advantages/disadvantages in dealing with large or small companies? What are the variables in pricing and contracts? And finally, is SaaS some kind of fad or is it really the future of software delivery? In September, Dashboard Insight will take on these questions and more.
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August – Open Source & BI
It's clear to many in the industry that an open-source approach to business software offers some compelling benefits for end users. But what about vendors, how do they generate revenue when they give away their source code for free? How do open-source solutions compare with commercial applications? And are the world's largest software companies finally taking an interest in open-source BI? We hope to answers these questions in August.
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July – Mobile BI
In July, Dashboard insight will be focused on a particularly hot topic these days: "mobile BI."
From the first portable phone to the latest multipurpose PDA, we believe we're entering a new era in technology for handheld devices. These powerful little gadgets have evolved into fully functional web browsers providing a quick "heads up" by showing the latest analytical data and company metrics. Whether you're accessing real-time sales figures or drilling down into the numbers, mobile devices are bound to enhance the way you currently receive and analyze data.
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June - Vertical Specific BI and KPIs
Since KPIs are an immensely critical part of BI - and each industry has its own unique set of metrics – we took a close look at this. If some dashboard and BI vendors are developing specific modules for individual departments or industries, is there a more efficient way to deal with all this data? Or are these metrics and reports so unique to the business function that it's the only data that can clearly tell the whole story?
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May – Business Analytics: Predictive and Beyond
As the name suggests, predictive analysis tries to make forecasts of future events, trends and probabilities, often based on data mining and other complex event processing. (You can easily see this kind of modeling in the insurance and credit industries, where someone's past actions may affect a future outlook.) But nearly every industry engages in predictive analysis at some level, especially marketing departments, the security industry, the economics sector, among many others.
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April – Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC)
Governance, risk management and compliance (GRC) is a wide area to navigate - in fact, it's a set of interrelated streams. While business professionals are often aware of the term, many don't have a handle on what it means or how it can be of use to them.
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March – Business Performance Management (BPM)
Our March editorial emphasis is on Business Performance Management (BPM), which has recently converged with business intelligence to become the single area of BI that for obvious reasons most captivates the attention of business leaders everywhere. The planned appointment of a Chief Performance Officer (CPO) by the US administration in Washington is emblematic of the importance BPM has taken on in recent years.
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February – Green BI and IT
Our February editorial emphasis was on Green BI, an area that has seen astonishing growth in recent years.
The collective energies of countless practitioners and solution providers and the sheer intellectual focus that has been devoted to sustainability and green BI practices now appear to have built to a critical mass. This energy, combined with both an awakening corporate consciousness and a public will that is being manifested powerfully throughout government at all levels, has taken the business of green light years beyond where it was a very short time ago.
Simply put, green is now good business – and no longer a costly albatross around the neck of the economy.
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