The results from a Cutter Consortium survey (conducted in March 2007) of 119 end-user organizations (based worldwide) and their data warehousing, BI, and other analysis practices, indicates that the use of open source BI by end-user organizations continues to grow.

IT industry

IT has been found to be an accelerator in a company's market share formula, controlling the speed of process innovation and the effectiveness of deployment. This reality is increasing the pressure on businesses to engage IT as an equal business partner in order to gain and sustain competitive advantage.

IT industry

IT has been found to be an accelerator in a company's market share formula, controlling the speed of process innovation and the effectiveness of deployment. This reality is increasing the pressure on businesses to engage IT as an equal business partner in order to gain and sustain competitive advantage.

Conflict is a normal part of people working together, and to a point, conflict in the workplace is a healthy part of interactions between people. Without disagreements over ideas, there would be few new inventions or theories; the process of debating and resolving conflict can lead to new understandings and insights. Unfortunately, it is all too easy for conflict to become unproductive and create tension between coworkers, reduce productivity, and, in the extreme, lead to resignations or worse.

Conflict is a normal part of people working together, and to a point, conflict in the workplace is a healthy part of interactions between people. Without disagreements over ideas, there would be few new inventions or theories; the process of debating and resolving conflict can lead to new understandings and insights. Unfortunately, it is all too easy for conflict to become unproductive and destructive.

We are often advised to do a gap analysis in situations where stakeholders -- anyone consuming the outputs of some function -- are unsatisfied with the current products or services. "Just do a gap analysis and figure out what needs to be done," we're told by these stakeholders, magazine articles, and consultants.

A business ecosystem, as introduced by James Moore [25], refers to the dynamic interaction of organizations in a community; over time, these groups co-evolve their capabilities and roles and tend to align themselves with the directions set by one or more companies that drive the evolution of the environment.

A business ecosystem refers to the dynamic interaction of organizations in a community; over time, these groups co-evolve their capabilities and roles and tend to align themselves with the directions set by one or more companies that drive the evolution of the environment.

The need to transition to a service-oriented architecture (SOA) has become a gradual but increasingly incessant mantra over the past several years, promoted by pundits and vendors and understood as a means of improving efficiency, integration, and Web enablement. Most corporations today have some form of a transitioning plan in place. However, in some areas, what is going to be required is still rather vague.

 In this issue of CBR we focus on the broad topic of emergency preparedness and disaster recovery planning. Our goal is to help you build a resilient organization — one that will be in the best position possible to "weather the storm." 

Many have heard examples of destroyed businesses from the World Trade Center bombings in 2001, the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and a multitude of other disasters and catastrophes. Most have seen it from afar and imagined the potential disaster such scenarios could create for their organizations. Most understand the potential for lost business revenues, lost essential assets, and the possibility that the business doors could be closed indefinitely were a disaster to hit.

Over the past few years, it seems more disasters and emergencies have impacted businesses around the world than in any other time in history. Natural disasters, terrorist activities, and criminal actions are affecting organizations of all sizes. Organizations should know that they must be prepared to address a wide range of emergencies and disasters to keep their business going.

This issue of CBR is a nice complement to last month's installment on the coming 3D Internet -- partly because it is almost diametrically opposite. Last month we were "out there" thinking about the implications of an emerging, very visible, headline-grabbing set of technologies. This time we journey deep into the heart of the organization, its nervous system and its infrastructure. Last month we said, "Time to experiment, but early to commit." This time we are sounding an alarm suggesting that being unprepared (i.e., not committing) is not an option.

This survey examined the details of business continuity/disaster recovery planning in 77 organizations, 38% of which are headquartered in North America; of the remainder, 19% are headquartered in Europe, 15% in Asia, 12% in Australia/Pacific, 8% in the Middle East, and 8% in South America or Africa. Twenty-five percent of responding organizations have annual revenues of more than US $1 billion, 17% have annual revenues between $100 million and $1 billion, 26% have annual revenues between $10 million and $100 million, and 32% have annual revenues less than $10 million.

It's easy to push against an open door. It's also easy to fall flat on your face doing so or to discover that there is nothing worthwhile on the other side.

The saturation of the technology and business media with references to "community-based this" and "user-created that" makes it difficult for business decision makers to separate hype from reality and to visualize the practical applications of exciting, but sometimes vague, concepts.

This is the last in a three-part series of Executive Updates on data management and analysis. Part I (Vol. 7, No.

"If we accept that SOA is the royal road to better alignment between business and IT, we must face the question: exactly how will this alignment come about?"

-- Tom Welsh, Guest Editor

For decades now, IT experts have been devising new concepts and methods for improving the structure of application systems in order to get a better grip on the ever-increasing complexity found within them.

The term "SOA governance" is appealing. It seems like something good to have. Are you attracted by these two words, "SOA" and "governance"? Do you think that they naturally fit each other nicely? Do you think that your company needs SOA or governance to improve?

Kaname is a Japanese term meaning "essence." In a Japanese fan, the bottom piece that keeps the fan together is the kaname. The kaname of a business is what keeps it all together, what defines it, its essence. The kaname of a business must be identified so that all activities influencing the kaname can be identified and improved. This decomposition into individual activities, into "business services," is the first step in realizing the benefits of a service-oriented architecture (SOA).

A plethora of publications today emphasize the significance of business drivers in adopting service-oriented architecture (SOA). It is also evident that embracing SOA requires significant (if not equal) investments of time and energy on the part of decision-making business leaders and IT practitioners.

In recent years, service-oriented architecture (SOA) has become the hottest topic in the industry because of its promise of reuse, cost savings, and faster time to market, all of which are very appealing to a highly competitive marketplace. While the promises touted by SOA are not new -- as older generations of technologies such as CORBA remind us -- the means of achieving those goals through SOA must be fundamentally different.

Enterprise architecture management (EAM) and service-oriented architecture (SOA) mark two disciplines that belong to the IT plat du jour. Many organizations across the world are trying to implement SOA patterns and EA practices to reap the fruits promised by both disciplines.

Many organizations find themselves overwhelmed with opportunities, initiatives, and required activities that are crucial to their continued success. Leaders bemoan the fact that they do not have enough time to get everything done. Unfortunately, we have yet to find a way to truly "get" more time, so instead we need to turn our attention to the workload. As such, leaders look for a way to get more done by doing less. How do you go about accomplishing this?