MARKET FOR INFORMATION
There were around 5000 people here at Solutions 2006. Lots of customers, partners, press, analysts and Hyperion people. Solutions, in the end, was just one big market, not unlike the market I always go to buy bread, eggs, fish, fruits and vegetables in the historic city center of Utrecht, The Netherlands, where I live. Hyperion displayed its products and services and you, walking around, were able to think about buying them or expanding on your investment in products you already have. At the same time, there were hundreds of speaking sessions with case studies, new Hyperion developments, that are based on the principles of supply and demand too. You came here with certain expectations of what you wanted to hear about, and looked for the suppliers of that information in their presentations.
But did you know there is such a market for information within your organization too (and Howard in his keynote speech even went as far as calling it a black market)? There is demand for information, coming from the various managers in the organization who are always looking for new insights. And there is supply of information by the knowledge workers or analysts in your organizations, whose job it is to find, compile, analyze and provide that information. Interestingly enough, this market is in perfect alignment. Managers often want more information and have a different questions everyday, and the knowledge workers increase footprint by supplying ever more information. Unfortunately, this market is not always aligned with the corporate objectives, where we wish to limit the incredibly heap of spreadsheets and ad hoc information requests and create a more focused set of information. Once we realize it is a market we are dealing with, we can apply market principles in achieve corporate objectives:
First of all, we can influence demand and supply. For instance with education, why it is so important to have less versions of the truth instead of more. Or we can reward the knowledge workers who initiate a spring cleaning and actively reduce the number of reports they produce, and spend more time analyzing instead of collecting data. Second, we can regulate the market, by actively discouraging people to bring homegrown spreadsheets into the meeting. Spreadsheets are fine, but they need to be connected to the overall BPM system. Lastly, we can start a new market. I see many organizations go into the third generation of data warehousing. After the hard-wired corporate MIS of the 80s and the flexible but disparate data warehouses of the 90s, regulations such as SOX drive organizations to consolidate their data warehouses into a single one, that combines the central view with flexible access. One organization I recently encountered went as far as to ask knowledge workers to apply for a new position around the newly created reporting structure.
So think about your Solutions visit and how the market for information there behaved. Perhaps it helps you to drive the market for information in your organization...
Looking forward to going home again and celebrating Queen's day this Saturday. In the meantime, feel free to send any comments to frank_buytendijk@nospam.hyperion.com (remove the nospam from the address to reach me)...
But did you know there is such a market for information within your organization too (and Howard in his keynote speech even went as far as calling it a black market)? There is demand for information, coming from the various managers in the organization who are always looking for new insights. And there is supply of information by the knowledge workers or analysts in your organizations, whose job it is to find, compile, analyze and provide that information. Interestingly enough, this market is in perfect alignment. Managers often want more information and have a different questions everyday, and the knowledge workers increase footprint by supplying ever more information. Unfortunately, this market is not always aligned with the corporate objectives, where we wish to limit the incredibly heap of spreadsheets and ad hoc information requests and create a more focused set of information. Once we realize it is a market we are dealing with, we can apply market principles in achieve corporate objectives:
First of all, we can influence demand and supply. For instance with education, why it is so important to have less versions of the truth instead of more. Or we can reward the knowledge workers who initiate a spring cleaning and actively reduce the number of reports they produce, and spend more time analyzing instead of collecting data. Second, we can regulate the market, by actively discouraging people to bring homegrown spreadsheets into the meeting. Spreadsheets are fine, but they need to be connected to the overall BPM system. Lastly, we can start a new market. I see many organizations go into the third generation of data warehousing. After the hard-wired corporate MIS of the 80s and the flexible but disparate data warehouses of the 90s, regulations such as SOX drive organizations to consolidate their data warehouses into a single one, that combines the central view with flexible access. One organization I recently encountered went as far as to ask knowledge workers to apply for a new position around the newly created reporting structure.
So think about your Solutions visit and how the market for information there behaved. Perhaps it helps you to drive the market for information in your organization...
Looking forward to going home again and celebrating Queen's day this Saturday. In the meantime, feel free to send any comments to frank_buytendijk@nospam.hyperion.com (remove the nospam from the address to reach me)...
