data preparation

The fourth song on the iconic album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, is Getting Better with Sir Paul McCartney the lead on the memorable refrain: “I’ve got to admit it’s getting better A little better all the time I have to admit it’s getting better It’s getting…

Companies lose market opportunities daily because of a missing insight or an overlooked fact—simply because it’s not easily within plain view. Sales can’t connect with latest marketing programs. Marketing can’t connect with sales data. Shipping can’t connect with product inventory information. Manuf…

Think about it: you’re checking in for that international flight across an ocean, connecting through a busy hub somewhere. Your suitcase is weighed and given a tag. This tag contains some basic information: Where it needs to go. When it needs to be there. Who it belongs to. As you leave the check-…

According to leading analyst firms, in the next two years, the majority of business analysts will be using data preparation tools to access, prepare and deliver data for analysis. Significant reductions in time and effort benefit the business. However, because these efforts often occur outside the d…

Sydney Summit Portends What’s Important In 2016 I just returned from Sydney, Australia, where I attended the Gartner Business Intelligence, Analytics and Information Management Summit.  Sydney is the first of seven Gartner BI and Analytics Summits that take place throughout the globe each year. As s…

Everyone knows that data is important. Modern enterprises compete with data and win with the agility and insight it provides. Thus the “Big Data Era” as metaphorically captured by terms such at Data Lakes, Data Reservoirs, Data Swamps, Data Streams and myriad others that attempt to describe the pool…

What an exciting year for data and analytics! As I think back on our 2015 accomplishments and also think about some of the predictions that were made for the year, I’m confident that Cisco data and analytics is right on track for doing big things in the future. Here are some of the 2015 major highli…

Widespread adoption of self-service visualization and analysis tools like Tableau, Qlik and Spotfire, along with the acceleration of big data adoption, are driving increased demand for data preparation. This new data preparation trend is so pervasive that at Gartner’s BI and Analytics Summits, Gartn…

As I prepare to go to the Data and Analytics conference in Chicago next week, I just realized how much I have been swimming in big data and analytics lately. There has been so much going that I think It makes sense to that highlight some activities from last week, upcoming activities next week and i…