Business Intelligence and the Cloud: Strategic Implementation Guide

Preface

Here is a not-too-unreal scenario in today's C-suite meeting: Sally, the chief information officer of a large company, was at a meeting the other day and was asked by the president of the company, “I keep reading about business intelligence, business analytics, Big Data, and mobile and cloud computing in the trade journals. But it is all so confusing. Can you give us 10 minutes right now and explain how these things can help our business?”

Sally realizes that she is not prepared to answer this question and turns to Sue, the manager of technical services, and says, “Sue, you've recently been to a conference in Atlanta on Big Data and mobile. Can you shed some light on this?” Sue does a great job of fielding the question, but a realization that more background is needed slowly sinks in during the question-and-answer session after her impromptu presentation.

Talking after the meeting, Sue and Sally realize they need to explore the intersection among Big Data, mobile and cloud, and business intelligence (BI) so they can propose a solution that will engage the organization in these technologies. They ponder this intersection knowing that the budget process is about to be upon them. They need to jump-start their understanding so they can justify their budget requests.

Organizational managers are called upon to understand Big Data, BI, mobile and cloud computing, and to craft business and information technology (IT) strategies based on these technologies. The entire IT ecosystem ...