Intelligent Insight on PerformancePoint : Gartner

Methodologies, Tools and Process, Process, Process

btamblyn — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 15:16:00 GMT

Last week I was invited to Nimbus Partners Inspiring Performance conference at my beloved Emirates Stadium. As an Arsenal fan this made the whole conference even more impressive.

I've been working with Nimbus for just over 12 months now - and their CEO Ian Gotts has become both a close friend and mentor since we've been working together.

I've blogged about this before BUT I can't emphasise enough the importance of aligning a strong methodology that links strategy with business processes. The last decision to make should be which technology solution supports our organisational strategy.

What I REALLY like about Nimbus solution is that their product Control ES now integrates really tightly with MOSS and allows users to create an operational process dashboard that allows for a seamless interaction between the tightly controlled and defined processes and the tools information workers use on a day to day basis.

People that think really hard about the processual layer are significantly more likely to drive the successful deployment of performance management and analysts back this up.

These three components need to work in harmony - Ian and his team have proven this over a number of years and were actually presented with a "cool vendor" award from Gartner. I'm pretty sure this is a first for a Microsoft partner and without question a first for a business process vendor. Only joking.

Nimbus have developed a fantastic FTSE100 client base over the last five years including SAP, Toyota, Unilever and Chevron and I would encourage anyone looking to implement CPM to also look closely at the importance of this as part of your preparation for investing in CPM.

Oh and if your a Microsoft CPM partner - I would really encourage you to look closely at how you could work with these guys. Some partners in the UK have made the strategic decision to do so and it is really bearing fruit.

Technorati Tags: Business Process Management, Ian Gotts, Nimbus Partners, Performance Management, PerformancePoint Server, Gartner

Marriage

btamblyn — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 20:03:53 GMT

Oracle announce the acquisition of Hyperion

According to an article in the New York Times it would seem the BI world's worst kept secret is in fact true.

There's a couple of interesting conundrums here.

As Chris Webb suggests "surely existing Essbase users will now be questioning its future and be looking for migration options".

Hyperion also has an existing investment in tools to support planning and modeling which will add greater value to Oracle's existing PeopleSoft and Siebel practices - something we're also doing at MS to align our Dynamics offerings to PerformancePoint.

It would perhaps be arrogant to suggest that this acquisition is a direct response to our own plans around PerformancePoint but Gartner in particular has been suggesting that the market would eventually be dominated by "mega-vendors".

This is perhaps further proof of this.

Here's a link to the Oracle announcement

Technorati tags: Oracle, Hyperion, PerformancePoint, Microsoft, Gartner

Microsoft Partner Love-in: Valentines Day

btamblyn — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 12:36:00 GMT

OK - so if you haven't booked in for the Microsoft Business Intelligence Partner Day/Love-in you're probably too late. But for those who can't make it due to the fact that you're not in the UK I'll provide a synopsis of the Gartner overview in a blog post later next week.

For those of you who are attending here's what you'll hear:

Overview from Gartner on the opportunity for Partners making investments in Business Intelligence skills.
Explanations and demonstrations of the complete Microsoft solution offering, from SQL Server 2005 to front-end analytic tools such as ProClarity and Microsoft Office Excel 2007.
Hear details on Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007.
Understand the benefits of the Microsoft Partner Programme.

I'll be around all day with Chuck Mitten who's over from the OBA team in Redmond - so feel free to drop in and say Hi if your in London on Wednesday.

Location

Browns
Albemarle Street
Mayfair

London W1S 4BP

Don't forget to enrol all your loved ones on the PerformancePoint CTP and failing that get down to your local PC-World and buy them Vista and Office 2007.

Much better than flowers or chocolates.

Technorati tags: Performance Management, SQL Server 2005, ProClarity, CTP, Training, Gartner, Business Intelligence