Customer Reviews

e-Business Intelligence: Turning Information into Knowledge into Profit

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I've read E-Business Intelligence twice and think it's a thorough overview of the subject of extracting intelligence from data. The book shows the different ways companies are actually exploiting information to help give their business a competitive advantage -- as opposed to simply automating the running of their operations.

Most information books today take a "stovepiped" view of the organization and talk only about one part of a company -- doing supply chain, customer relationship management, sales force automation, etc. What I like about this book is that it's holistic. It shows how us of these pieces fit together. It's a rare sideways (or transverse) way of looking at information exploitation.

The case studies are not highly detailed, but they do provide enough detail to illustrate "the point" behind each example, and they do stimulate the reader into thinking of new ways that he/she can exploit the information that they most likely already have in their information systems.

I think it's a must-read for business executives who are trying to get a handle on what's possible with today's technology and for information technology staff trying to get the business perspective on IT.

This is a great book for anyone thinking about business strategy in the "information age", and trying to figure out how to best leverage the mountains of data in every company. I particularly liked how international this book is -- it features examples from more than just a few of companies in the US, but includes organizations across Europe as well (Fiat and British Airways along with US brands MasterCard and eBay). I was a big fan of customers.com, and this book is right up there on my list.

If you are seeking a quick, concise, yet thorough analysis of how to make an impact with your e-business data, this is the book for you. The book is easy to follow, well-written, and most importantly, provides great examples.

There are volumes of data flowing into every enterprise at a record pace. Data analysis tools and strategies are expanding to meet the increasing needs for corporations to turn data into dollars.

Liautaud's book will help you to better understand the key elements of any successful e-business intelligence strategy. The examples represent a broad range of industries and really helped apply real-world thinking to the content.

It is nice to see a publication on this topic that is more than theory and predictions. This one is a winner.

If you are in this space, read this book.

The title sounded very daunting - E-Business Intelligence. What on earth had I got myself into! A daily user of computers, comfortable with a mouse, starting to use the web... I thought I would take the leap. What a pleasant surprise!!

The book explains in normal terminolgy how we can all use the wealth of information locked away in our databases. There are many aspects that I enjoyed about the book, not the least of which it was so easy to read. What made it this way was how the authors constantly gave clear examples of the key points they were making. They used real customers with real problems with real solutions.

For example they talk about "Mastercard mastering its data volumes". A company that has grown its data volumes by a massive 400% since 1995 and has thousands of users online everyday.

The authors also take the reader back to basics. They provide simple and clear explanations of processes and concepts that for many could be incomprehesible. They include graphs, hypotethical examples and anecdotal stories where ever possible. Those savvy with the ins and outs of the Business Intelligence world will even find this useful, so well is it done. They will also get quite a kick out of reading how some organisations are using BI to better manage data, clients and consequently profit. For example Eli Lilly, Hertz and eBay.

The clear explanation will enable any reader of the book to quickly understand, see the value and start thinking about what they could or should be doing in their own information world.

I have been inspired to look at what can be done within the organsiation I work for. Just how much better could I manage and work with my clients if I was able to access and use the information locked away on all of them?

A brilliant read for anyone who has clients,information, a computer and a desire to make a profit!

While doing periodical research on the business intelligence subject, I found this book as a new acquisition at the university library; sorry, but it is a long white paper on the advantages and why to use a software tool for doing business intelligence, never minding about any data/facts that may be found out of the bits and bytes world: Informal sources? External data? Competitor intelligence? Who cares, if you want a 360° view of your customer, don't need more than a computer and some software--at the end, culture, attitude and pure business sense seem like a waste of time. Suddenly, I discovered why this bothered me: The autor is one of Business Objects' top executives! Now, it all made sense: It is like other books written by people who need to sell a product (and Business Objects is a good seller indeed) so writting down their way of seeing the world gets them a guruesque position in front of their customers and prospects. If you need to really learn about business intelligence, don't bother reading it: you can find lots of free white papers that cover the same subject in the BI software vendors web sites. Trying to understand business intellingence as something that needs nothing more than a software tool, leaving behind all the intelectual and analytical work to do, is equivalent to define mathematics as the use of a scientific calculator.

This book is rare in my experience. It is helpful to both the executive who wants to develop important customer and competitive advantages and to the CIO who has to plan the company's electronic capabilities. The book succeeds in doing this in a way that will improve the dialogue and effectiveness of technical and nontechnical executives in working together to improve their organization's knowledge and ability to make good use of it. Beyond that, the book is well-founded in a vision of individuals (at work and at home) being able to interrogate data bases to find better ways to do things, and then cooperating with other people to save time and money.

Business intelligence software basically does two things: First, it pulls off data from other databases so that relevant information is all together in a usable form. Two, it contains simple query tools that allow anyone to ask a wide variety of ad hoc questions and get quick answers back. Think of this as being like turning a large business into the simplicity of a one-person operation being run by the owner.

The strength of the book comes in the many detailed examples from around the world of companies in different industries using business intelligence software to improve themselves, their customers, and suppliers. The examples come from companies of many different sizes, dealing with different kinds of problems, and having varying degrees of technical sophistication. These are presented in some detail in sidebars that are highlighted in gray backgrounds so that they are easy to find.

I intend to recommend this book to all of my clients, which is something I seldom do.

The writing in this book deserves special praise. Mr. Liautaud and Hammond have done a very careful and thorough job of taking complex ideas and breaking them down into simple words, concepts, lists, and examples. They have done this without "talking down" to the reader, and the material is consistently interesting. Mr. Hammond deserves special credit for understanding the advanced thinking of Mr. Liautaud that has led to the development of an entire industry around helping companies expand their e-business intelligence.

I am often annoyed by books written by CEOs of companies that have services to sell. The books often come across as one big piece of advertising or brochureware. Although the examples here come from Business Objects clients, I did not have that negative reaction to this book at all.

After you finish this book, you will realize that the key thing to getting benefit from e-business intelligence is to ask better questions once you have the databases and query tools in place to do your own interrogations. I suggest that you start asking those questions now. You may find that some can be answered simply and quickly without bogging down the IT department, and you will obtain the benefits sooner. What's even better is that you will find ways to start thinking in improved ways about your business sooner.

Enjoy the benefits that follow naturally from having all of us know more and be able to ask more . . . to extend our knowledge into improved forms of profitable intelligence!

As the CEO of a starting vertical B2B netmarket, I have read Mr. Liautaud's book with great anticipation, because I had read in the press that his company (Business Objects) has already done several interesting e-business data analysis implementations in both B2C and B2B environments. And indeed, the book was very useful in combining both full insight into the philosophy and methodology of modern data analysis (clearly showing how it has evolved from simple pivot table analysis to a complete exchange of information and indeed knowledge between trading partners, customers and suppliers), together with very clear and insightful business examples from all kinds of companies (and indeed even B2B netmarkets like Ventro). If you're not yet convinced that the pile of data you're sitting on is a true information and knowledge treasure, then this book is for you. If you already realise this, then this book will show you how to unlock that treasure.

There are plenty of technical books that talk about databases, data warehousing (Kimball's famous book), and e-commerce. This is the first book that covers technology from a business person's perspective. Business intelligence is extremely important to all companies -- while not a new concept, it is only now becoming a key competitive differentiator. This book is a great read.

Despite the stereotype of the great company run by a mercurial, charismatic dictator in the Steve Jobs mode, a number of cutting edge business thinkers argue that if you want your company to grow, you should introduce democracy into the management mix. One of those thinkers is author Bernard Liautaud, who, unlike most folks who theorize about business, actually owns a company, and a fairly significant one at that. His European software company, Business Objects, has annual revenues of more than $240 million. In his book, he explains why democracy is good for business. Companies that adopt his ideas, he says, will realize numerous advantages, including better communication between the company and the customer, more intelligent data about who buys products and why, and the discovery that you can sell data back to your customer. We [...] welcome this fascinating report from the horse's mouth about the growth and evolution of the democratic, intelligent, e-organization.

This book is really great intro to e-business intelligence. It basically explains the technologies used, from what are OLAP, ROLAP and MOLAP technologies, to data warehousing. The book is also full of real life practical examples of deployment of busines intelligence technology and the benefits which the technology brought to its implementors. Recommended reading for all people interested in unleashing the power of information, which lies mostly hidden or unused all around the enterprise.