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cezarovidiu

Using Email to Get the Conversion (Without Stalking) | ClickZ - 0 views

  • The reality of the inbox is that people subscribe to a lot more stuff than they are committed to reading. As a result, they sift through the advertising and marketing noise to find the gems--the messages they connect with and that add value to their lives.
  • your email has to add value to your customers' lives
  • From your initial sign up process to the content and frequency of your messaging, your most important job is showing your audience that you respect the privilege of being invited into their inbox.
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  • Rule #1: Don't ask for more information than you'd personally be willing to give. Asking for too much information in an opt-in form can be a major deterrent to visitors who would otherwise be likely to sign up.
  • Make signing up as simple as possible by requiring only the bare minimum. In many cases, this means just the email address. Every field you add to your form beyond that will decrease the chances of someone filling it out.
  • Here's another tip: If you really want to convince a visitor to opt in to your communications, make it clear that the value they'll receive greatly outweighs the hassle of signing up
  • An opt-in form that says something like "Sign up for our newsletter," doesn't offer any benefit to the visitor. Give people a reason to opt-in by offering them something they'll care about, like: "Sign up for our monthly newsletter and gain instant access to our 57-page e-book on X."
  • Offers of buying guides, e-books, case studies, online videos, and instant coupons are all great incentives to test.
  • I recently welcomed two kittens into the family and we buy our supplies from Petco. As soon as I signed up for Petco's Pals Rewards program, the store proceeded to email me every single day with a new coupon offer. Can you guess what I did? Yep, I opted out. I'll still buy pet supplies from Petco, but at some point, the annoyance became greater than the value of the coupons.
  • One of the most critical steps in structuring your e-commerce email campaign is to set the publish frequency to align with the types of products you're selling and who you're selling to. At a bare minimum, segment your audience into two broad categories of current customers and prospects.
  • When you're communicating with prospective customers, offer discounts, promotions and pre-sale notifications and buying tips in your emails, to move them along the conversion path.
  • You can further segment your email list by those you send to frequently, those you send to less frequently and those you send to only sometimes.
  • You'll find your sweet spot by tracking conversions from the list, looking at the opt-out rate and by allowing your audience to manage the frequency of the communications (for example, by giving them the option to change the frequency before they opt out entirely).
  • When most people opt in to receive B2B email communications, they are at the top of the conversion funnel; the "awareness" stage. A smart B2B email campaign will then provide the right content to bring the buyer deeper into the conversion funnel, with content specific for each stage of the buying cycle.
  • Here are some ideas to get you started: Explore learning concepts that get the reader up to speed on the ideas surrounding your services, and that demonstrate your brand's unique perspective.  Dive into the ideas behind why a service like yours is so important to customers, what to look for in a company, and how your service or ideas compare to others.  Answer common questions your prospective customers have at each stage of the buying cycle and even after the purchase.
  • Don't forget you're not selling to rational people. Most of the buying decisions in a B2B environment are based on what could happen if the choice is wrong. Unlike the consumer market, where an item can be easily returned if it doesn't meet the buyer's needs, making the wrong purchase decision in the B2B arena could be extremely costly.
  • Your goal as the marketer is to arm the potential buyer with content that will reduce any fear and uncertainty about selecting your business over the competition.
  • Think of topics like, "7 Biggest Mistakes People Make When Choosing [insert your service here]" as a basis for building your case. If you have a sales team, ask them for the most common objections they hear from prospects, and create your content around the specific concerns known to be top-of-mind for many buyers.
cezarovidiu

BI Brief - Four Legs of a Successful Business Intelligence (BI) Project Team - 0 views

  • 1. Project Sponsorship and Governance 2. Project Management 3. Development Team (Core Team) 4. Extended Project Team
  • 1. Project Sponsorship and Governance IT and the business should form a BI steering committee to sponsor and govern design, development, deployment, and ongoing support. It needs both the CIO and a business executive, such as CFO, COO, or a senior VP of marketing/sales to commit budget, time, and resources. The business sponsor needs the project to succeed. The CIO is committed to what is being built and how.
  • 2. Project Management Project management includes managing daily tasks, reporting status, and communicating to the extended project team, steering committee, and affected business users. The project management team needs extensive business knowledge, BI expertise, DW architecture background, and people management, project management, and communications skills. The project management team includes three functions or members: Project development manager - Responsible for deliverables, managing team resources, monitoring tasks, reporting status, and communications. Requires a hands-on IT manager with a background in iterative development. Must understand the changes caused by this approach and the impact on the business, project resources, schedule and the trade-offs. Business advisor - Works within the sponsoring business organization. Responsible for the deliverables of the business resources on the project's extended team. Serves as the business advocate on the project team and the project advocate within the business community. Often, the business advocate is a project co-manager who defers to the IT project manager the daily IT tasks but oversees the budget and business deliverables. BI/DW project advisor - Has enough expertise with architectures and technologies to guides the project team on their use. Ensures that architecture, data models, databases, ETL code, and BI tools are all being used effectively and conform to best practices and standards.
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  • 3. Development Team (Core Team) The core project team is divided into four sub-teams: Business requirements - This sub-team may have business people who understand IT systems, or IT people who understand the business. In either case, the team represents the business and their interests. They are responsible for gathering and prioritizing business needs; translating them into IT systems requirements; interacting with the business on the data quality and completeness; and ensuring the business provides feedback on how well the solutions generated meet their needs. BI architecture - Develops the overall BI architecture, selects the appropriate technology, creates the data models, maps the overall data workflow from source systems to BI analytics, and oversees the ETL and BI development teams from a technical perspective. ETL development - Receives the business and data requirements, as well as the target data models to be used by BI analytics. Develops the ETL code needed to gather data from the appropriate source systems into the BI databases. Often, a system analyst who is a expert in the source systems such as SAP is part of the team to provide knowledge of the data sources, customizations, and data quality. BI development - Create the reports or analytics that the business users will interact with to do their jobs. This is often a very iterative process and requires much interaction with the business users.
  • 4. Extended Project Team There are several functions required by the project team that are often accomplished through an "extended" team: Players - A group of business users are signed up to "play with" or test the BI analytics and reports as they are developed to provide feedback to the core development team. This is a virtual team that gets together at specific periods of the project but they are committed to this role during those periods. Testers - A group of resources are gathered, similarly to the virtual team above, to perform more extensive QA testing of the BI analytics, ETL processes, and overall systems testing. You may have project members test other members' work, such as the ETL team test the BI analytics and visa versa. Operators - IT operations is often separated from the development team but it is critical that they are involved from the beginning of the project to ensure that the systems are developed and deployed within your company's infrastructure. Key functions are database administration, systems administration, and networks. In addition, this extended team may also include help desk and training resources if they are usually provided outside of development.
cezarovidiu

Google Reader (250) - 0 views

  • What this means in practice is that when the BI Server component starts up, it creates and reserves a number of threads in advance, determined by a number of parameters including SERVER_THREAD_RANGE.
  • You can see these threads running and ready to perform tasks for the BI Server component by using a tool such as Process Explorer for Windows
  • Thinking it through a bit, any given single query is, to a certain extent, only really going to use a small part of the total amount of CPUs available on a server, because it’s not the BI Server that runs queries in parallel, it’s the underlying database. For example, a single analysis against a single Oracle Database datasource would only really need a single BI Server thread to handle the query request, but when the underlying database receives the query, it might use a large number of its CPUs to process the query, returning results back to the BI Server to then pass back to the Presentation Server for display to the user.
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  • The BI Server wouldn’t have any use for any more query threads, as it can’t really do anything with them – the exception to this being queries that generate multiple physical SQLs, for example to join data from multiple sources together and return a single set of data to the user, for which the BI Server could benefit from a higher CPU count if each of these queries in turn led to lots of threads being used – but two queries, in themselves, don’t neccessarily require two CPUs, because of course the BI Server, and the underlying CPUs, are themselves multi-threaded.
  • To conclude then – all things begin equal, the BI Server should make use of all of the CPUs that the underlying operating system presents to it, with the OS itself deciding what threads are scheduled against which CPUs. In-theory, all CPUs on the server are available to each BI Server component, but each OS is different and it might be worth experimenting if you’re sure that certain CPUs aren’t being used – but this is most probably unlikely and the main reason you’d really consider vertical scale-out of BI Server components is for fault-tolerance, or if you’re using a 32-bit OS and each process can only see a subset of the total overall memory. And, bear in mind that however many CPUs the BI Server has available to it, for queries that send just a single SQL statement down to the underlying database server, adding more CPUs or faster CPUs isn’t going to help as only a single (or so) thread will be needed to send the query from the BI Server to the database, and it’s the database that’s doing all of the work – all that this would help with is compilation and post-aggregation work, and enabling the server to handle a higher number of concurrent users. Invest in a better underlying database instead, sort out your data model, and make sure your data source back-end is as optimised as possible.
cezarovidiu

Gartner's 2012 Magic Quadrant: Do Business Intelligence Vendors Lack Vision? - Enterpri... - 0 views

  • Pentaho, for instance, is one of this year’s rookies. It had been knocking on the door for a year or two and received an honorable mention last year. It needed to increase its overall sales figures to be cited by Gartner, a requirement it satisfied this year.
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    "While Leaders and Niche Players abound in Gartner's 2012 Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence, only two companies placed in the Challenger category and Gartner didn't name any vendors as Visionaries. What gives?"
cezarovidiu

How to join GL tables with XLA (SubLedger Accounting) tables - 0 views

  • GL_JE_BATCHES (je_batch_id)                                   => GL_JE_HEADERS (je_batch_id) GL_JE_HEADERS (je_header_id)                                  => GL_JE_LINES (je_header_id) GL_JE_LINES (je_header_id,  je_line_num)                      => GL_IMPORT_REFERENCES (je_header_id, je_line_num) GL_IMPORT_REFERENCES (gl_sl_link_table, gl_sl_link_id)        => XLA_AE_LINES (gl_sl_link_table, gl_sl_link_id) XLA_AE_LINES (application_id, ae_header_id)                   => XLA_AE_HEADERS (application_id, ae_header_id)  XLA_AE_HEADERS (application_id, event_id)                     => XLA_EVENTS (application_id, event_id)    XLA_EVENTS (application_id, entity_id)                        => XLA.XLA_TRANSACTION_ENTITIES (application_id, entity_id) 
  • The source_id_int_1 column of xla.xla_transaction_entities stores the primary_id value for the transactions. You can join the xla.xla_transaction_entities table with the corresponding transactions table for obtaining additional information of the transaction. For e.g you join the xla.xla_transaction_entities table with ra_customer_trx_all for obtaining receivables transactions information or with mtl_material_transactions table for obtaining material transactions information. The entity_id mappings can be obtained from the XLA_ENTITY_ID_MAPPINGS table
  •  
    "How to join GL tables with XLA (SubLedger Accounting) tables"
cezarovidiu

Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence and Analytics Platforms - 0 views

  • Integration BI infrastructure: All tools in the platform use the same security, metadata, administration, portal integration, object model and query engine, and should share the same look and feel. Metadata management: Tools should leverage the same metadata, and the tools should provide a robust way to search, capture, store, reuse and publish metadata objects, such as dimensions, hierarchies, measures, performance metrics and report layout objects. Development tools: The platform should provide a set of programmatic and visual tools, coupled with a software developer's kit for creating analytic applications, integrating them into a business process, and/or embedding them in another application. Collaboration: Enables users to share and discuss information and analytic content, and/or to manage hierarchies and metrics via discussion threads, chat and annotations.
  • Information Delivery Reporting: Provides the ability to create formatted and interactive reports, with or without parameters, with highly scalable distribution and scheduling capabilities. Dashboards: Includes the ability to publish Web-based or mobile reports with intuitive interactive displays that indicate the state of a performance metric compared with a goal or target value. Increasingly, dashboards are used to disseminate real-time data from operational applications, or in conjunction with a complex-event processing engine. Ad hoc query: Enables users to ask their own questions of the data, without relying on IT to create a report. In particular, the tools must have a robust semantic layer to enable users to navigate available data sources. Microsoft Office integration: Sometimes, Microsoft Office (particularly Excel) acts as the reporting or analytics client. In these cases, it is vital that the tool provides integration with Microsoft Office, including support for document and presentation formats, formulas, data "refreshes" and pivot tables. Advanced integration includes cell locking and write-back. Search-based BI: Applies a search index to structured and unstructured data sources and maps them into a classification structure of dimensions and measures that users can easily navigate and explore using a search interface. Mobile BI: Enables organizations to deliver analytic content to mobile devices in a publishing and/or interactive mode, and takes advantage of the mobile client's location awareness.
  • Analysis Online analytical processing (OLAP): Enables users to analyze data with fast query and calculation performance, enabling a style of analysis known as "slicing and dicing." Users are able to navigate multidimensional drill paths. They also have the ability to write back values to a proprietary database for planning and "what if" modeling purposes. This capability could span a variety of data architectures (such as relational or multidimensional) and storage architectures (such as disk-based or in-memory). Interactive visualization: Gives users the ability to display numerous aspects of the data more efficiently by using interactive pictures and charts, instead of rows and columns. Predictive modeling and data mining: Enables organizations to classify categorical variables, and to estimate continuous variables using mathematical algorithms. Scorecards: These take the metrics displayed in a dashboard a step further by applying them to a strategy map that aligns key performance indicators (KPIs) with a strategic objective. Prescriptive modeling, simulation and optimization: Supports decision making by enabling organizations to select the correct value of a variable based on a set of constraints for deterministic processes, and by modeling outcomes for stochastic processes.
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  • These capabilities enable organizations to build precise systems of classification and measurement to support decision making and improve performance. BI and analytic platforms enable companies to measure and improve the metrics that matter most to their businesses, such as sales, profits, costs, quality defects, safety incidents, customer satisfaction, on-time delivery and so on. BI and analytic platforms also enable organizations to classify the dimensions of their businesses — such as their customers, products and employees — with more granular precision. With these capabilities, marketers can better understand which customers are most likely to churn. HR managers can better understand which attributes to look for when recruiting top performers. Supply chain managers can better understand which inventory allocation levels will keep costs low without increasing out-of-stock incidents.
  • descriptive, diagnostic, predictive and prescriptive analytics
  • "descriptive"
  • diagnostic
  • data discovery vendors — such as QlikTech, Salient Management Company, Tableau Software and Tibco Spotfire — received more positive feedback than vendors offering OLAP cube and semantic-layer-based architectures.
  • Microsoft Excel users are often disaffected business BI users who are unable to conduct the analysis they want using enterprise, IT-centric tools. Since these users are the typical target users of data discovery tool vendors, Microsoft's aggressive plans to enhance Excel will likely pose an additional competitive threat beyond the mainstreaming and integration of data discovery features as part of the other leading, IT-centric enterprise platforms.
  • Building on the in-memory capabilities of PowerPivot in SQL Server 2012, Microsoft introduced a fully in-memory version of Microsoft Analysis Services cubes, based on the same data structure as PowerPivot, to address the needs of organizations that are turning to newer in-memory OLAP architectures over traditional, multidimensional OLAP architectures to support dynamic and interactive analysis of large datasets. Above-average performance ratings suggest that customers are happy with the in-memory improvements in SQL Server 2012 compared with SQL Server 2008 R2, which ranks below the survey average.
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    "Gartner defines the business intelligence (BI) and analytics platform market as a software platform that delivers 15 capabilities across three categories: integration, information delivery and analysis."
cezarovidiu

Successful Social Marketing is So Much More Than Social Media | ClickZ - 0 views

  • In the past, prospects primarily accessed information about a company by interacting directly with a salesperson.
  • As media evolved, mass ads, events, direct mail, and more recently, email, have been the primary tools for engagement.
  • Given the number of consumers posting, blogging, tweeting, liking and sharing, the question for marketers is no longer, Should I use social? It's, How do I use social to its full potential?
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  • Social channels are inherently built for sharing and engagement, making them the perfect place to cultivate valuable business relationships. Integrating social into every marketing campaign you run can move you from a company-to-buyer marketing model to a peer-to-peer influence model. This not only builds trust and brand loyalty, but also positively impacts ROI.
  • It can be tempting to jump right in to all the social media sites out there and start posting away. However, before you publish that first nugget of social marketing content, you need to develop your plan.
  • goals and metrics
  • Build a team that is willing and able to dedicate adequate time to social media endeavors.
  • Many marketers fall into the trap of thinking that social media campaigns can be dealt with on an ad hoc basis, but this couldn't be further from the truth. You don't want your company's online personality to come across as erratic or disjointed, so create a policy that guides those who are participating in the social marketing effort and be sure those guidelines are enforced.
  • Once everyone is on board, encourage them to create engaging content. A good starting place is to ask your team members to answer some of the most frequently asked questions they receive on the various social channels. If everyone is a content creator, you'll never be short of ideas.
  • Word-of-mouth is incredibly powerful and the "share" button on every social media channel allows you to tap into millions of different networks. One of the best ways to interact with your audience is by giving them content they genuinely want to share with their networks. Peer recommendation is extremely valuable because people believe their friends much more readily than a company or marketer.
  • A "Refer-a-Friend" campaign promotes a compelling offer via email marketing and social networks, then grants access to special offers for both the referrers and those referred. Using these campaigns will allow you to gather important metrics, like tracking who the biggest influencers are.
  • A "Social Sweepstakes" campaign allows your entrants to spread the word on your behalf. Through the sweepstakes entry, you gain important user data like who is sharing and where they are sharing most.
  • Finally, a "Flash Deal" campaign is similar to Groupon. Flash deals offer a limited amount of deals for a specific time period through your social platforms. If you use these campaigns, be sure to let participants track the deal's progress! These campaigns are fun and viral ways to spread brand awareness and boost new customer numbers with sharing.
  • make sure your shares are measurable. Monitoring social share numbers is not only an easy way to tell what's working and what's not, but also allows you to see your ROI by showing how far your social reach is in relation to how much time and resources you've put in.
  • Google Alerts and search functions, or enterprise level software like Viral Heat or Radian6.
  • Once you hear what people are saying, you can engage them with relevant responses.
  • Social has evolved into much more than just a channel or tactic and should be an ever-present strategy in all aspects of your marketing. Ultimately, if you come up with a plan, encourage creative content, incorporate social marketing into every stage of your funnel, and measure your results, you'll start to see your social efforts move the ROI needle in the right direction.
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