Sales Needs at Accounting Consultancy Accenture?
March 5, 2012
Short honk: I am decades away from the Booz, Allen & Hamilton world. However, I pay attention when senior insiders perform a disappearing act and the top dog talks about the new guy. Navigate to “Accenture Technology Chief in Abrupt Departure.” The factoid (assuming it is accurate, of course) upon which my attention seized was:
Before that he [the new guy] also led sales at Hewitt Associates.
One word fired like a green light laser, “sales.” My view is that experience in benefits consulting is pretty much irrelevant. Accenture wants to ramp up the dough from its technology practice. The old guy may have known bits and bytes, but the new guy has the key qualification—sales. The need for sales reaches to the heights of MBA-land and accounting excitement.
Worth watching. Try searching for these high level partners. Not much there there, is there?
Stephen E Arnold, March 5, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
The Old New Fast
March 2, 2012
The Fast Search & Transfer story continues to unfold. I think the approach is closer to one of those 1950 motion picture serials or chapter plays. Just when I thought Don of Don Daredevil Rides Again as a goner, he would survive. Wow, I need some popcorn.
With the sale of Fast Search & transfer to Microsoft in 2008, the subsequent hassle over Fast Search revenues and the activities of its Board of Directors, the search system morphed into FS4SP (great name!). The former Fast Search wizards and mavens scattered to the four winds.
Some remain at Microsoft. Others set up new companies which have moved beyond the Fast Search technology like Attivio. Consulting and service firms have flowered. A great example is Comperio which describes itself with this tagline: Search Matters.
Comperio is venturing outside of the Home of the Vikings with a new seminar series in conjunction with Microsoft (the world’s leader in search because there are more than 100 million SharePoint installations and an equal number of findability challenges) and BA Insight. You can read about the seminars here, but the details are sketchy. My hunch is that the content will praise SharePoint and then explain why one should license tools from the hosts, but that’s the way Microsoft’s ecosystem works.
The Comperio Web site ran an interesting interview with a former Fast Search wizard, Bjørn Olstad in “Hard Job Keeping Search Technology in Norway.” The interview summary contained some “search gems,” which I wanted to capture. So, check out the original and here are the points which I noted. My observations to myself appear in italics and in blood red, almost the color of financial red ink, but a tad darker:
- The demand for enterprise search has been increasing. The cause is the increase in unstructured data. Okay, great insight. I was only partially aware of the growth in digital information.
- Comperio has 50 employees and is a system integrator, Microsoft Partner of the Year, and specializes in the use of search technology to integrate disparate sources of information. Comperio is thriving like other SharePoint solution providers. I think this is because SharePoint and FS4SP needs quite a lot of love and care, diaper changing, baby oil, and spoon feeding. If the system worked, not so much effort would be needed, but that’s just my opinion.
- Comperio is hiring for its Oslo and London offices. The more SharePoint, the greater the need for mechanics to fix the system. Another opinion, maybe a hypothesis.
We cover a number of articles about SharePoint. It is clear that SharePoint business is booming, and I think a company which understands the old Fast can make a lot of new money because the issues which contributed to the Fast revenue shortfall may lurk in the dark corners of a SharePoint implementation.
So the old new Fast is back and generating significant revenue for the former Fast specialists who are now focused on SharePoint and the new Fast. Makes sense, right?
Stephen E Arnold, March 2, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Oracle Faces Challenges After Acquiring Endeca
February 6, 2012
Forrester’s Boris Evelson recently reported on Oracle’s October acquisition of the enterprise search and data management solution provider Endeca in the blog post “Oracle Leapfrogs BI Competitors by Acquiring Endeca.”
In the post, Evelson argues that this was a smart move on the part of Oracle because it takes the company from playing mostly in the traditional BI space to integrating unharmonized data sources and performing search-based BI.
With this in mind Evelson remarks:
This acquisition now really differentiates Oracle’s BI suite, but it will not be without significant challenges for Oracle and Endeca. OBIEE is the strategic BI platform at Oracle. No ifs, ands, or buts. Even the ubiquitous Essbase is taking a back seat by being positioned mostly as a cubing engine with OBIEE as a recommended front end. As the first order of business, I expect the combined teams to first come up with an SQL or MDX wrapper for Endeca so that OBIEE can be used to access its index. Beyond that, I expect that Oracle will position Endeca as a special-purpose BI tool.
Our opinion on the matter is this, Endeca’s technology is secondary to the firm’s consulting services “wrapper” and scaling, particularly for big data in near real time, remains a challenge. We don’t have a dog in the fight and some of the pundits, not only have a dog, but have a stake in the dog show.
Jasmine Ashton, February 6, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Blue Chip Consultant Makes Big, Wild Prediction
December 24, 2011
At Beyond Search we love crazy unsubstantiated numbers — Here is a keeper. The Economic Times of India reported this week on the projected value of worldwide financial assets in the article Global Financial Assets, Including India’s to be Worth $31y Trillion by 2020: McKinsey.
According to the article, a report prepared by the McKinsey Global Institute, the projected worth of financial assets in 2020 would be nearly double the value of the $198 trillion witnessed last year. Emerging economies made up 21 percent of the global financial assets in 2010 and grew four times the rate of mature economies, 16.6 percent annually over the last decade.
The report stated:
Depending on economic scenarios, we project that emerging market financial assets will grow to between 30 and 36 per cent of the global total in 2020, or $114 to $ 141trillion.. China’s financial assets could be as much as $ 65 trillion by then, and India’s could reach $8.6 trillion.
Yep, global and trillions. Why estimate just the size of the enterprise search market when you can size the world? I call this spreadsheet fever.
Jasmine Ashton, December 24, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Booz Allen Buzzword Blizzard
December 22, 2011
Yep, I used to work there. Booz, Allen & Hamilton, not the chopped up outfits that exist today. To get a feel for the buzzword blizzard, point your browser thing at “InnoCentive and Booz Allen Hamilton Form Strategic Alliance.” Now here’s a Frosty brain freeze buzzword style:
Available now, the integrated Booz Allen Hamilton-InnoCentive alliance provides commercial and government organizations with:
- The Open Innovation Diagnostic Program that includes vision and objectives definition, benchmarking, readiness, gap analysis, and strategic recommendations
- Leadership best practices and organization-wide training
- Challenge identification, prioritization, formulation, and execution
- Multi-channel Challenge program design and roadmap development
- Community (i.e. problem solver) development and engagement strategies
- Measurement and continuous improvement
- Supporting enabling technologies, platforms, and tools
Not much I can say. The pain is right behind my eyes and below my now numbed brain. This is azure chip consultant lingo. Too bad.
Stephen E Arnold, December 22, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Desperate Times for Search and Selling Consulting
December 22, 2011
I saw a news story about the uptick in the housing market. Perhaps you read “Get Started ‘On’ Dec. 21: Housing Shows Recovery Signs, Lobbyists Warn against Tax Cut Expiration.” You may have seen the recent story “Home Foreclosures Jump in Third Quarter-Report.” Contradictions are one indicator which tells me that no clear signal is emerging. I wrote last night (December 20, 2011) about the Oracle financial softening and how search acquisitions will not do much, if anything, to firm up Oracle’s revenues. Since the economic meltdown became evident in the spring of 2008 with the collapse of BearStearns, we have entered a new financial territory. The maps are still being created and exploration is underway.
Most organizations are struggling to find a way to accomplish two difficult goals simultaneously. Personally I cannot multi-task, but the financial pressure is so great that many executives assume that more effort will pull the marshmallows out of the bonfire. I am not so sure.
One goal for many organizations with which I am familiar is to keep existing revenues from eroding more quickly. Since I focus on software and content, the challenge of generating new revenue from old products is a big one. Most of the executives whom I know are hard working, optimistic people. But the issues is preventing revenue from existing and reasonably well understood products and services from tanking.
The “big idea” will touch you, imparting “wisdom” and more.
The other goal is for organizations to find new revenue. The MBA types have fancy diagrams to explain strategies and tactics. I have worked out a few basic options which have worked for me when I had a “real” job (not as an azure chip consulting, journalist, or middle school teacher). Here are my non MBA options:
- Buy a company and pretend that its products and services are “new”
- Take an existing product and service, reposition or repackage it, and target a “new” market with this “new” product. Nothing material is done, but the marketing copy changes.
- Identify an existing product or service and graft something “novel” like making a search system into an iPad app or some equivalent maneuver. The “new” product is then pitched as “revolutionary” or whatever claim common sense and one’s attorney permits.
- Make a bet on something outside of one’s core competency. Believe me, this happens frequently. Examples include some of Google’s products to a local catering service’s attempt to set up a full service restaurant.
In this context of financial pressure, the need for r3evenues, and the options available to executives, I pondered “The End of the Web? Don’t Bet on It. Here’s Why” by Mark Suster, a member of the Dark Side; that is, venture capital world. The foundation of his write up was a presentation by the azurist George Colony, the CEO of Forrester Research.
I don’t have much to say about the specifics of either the Forrester notion that certain digital resources increase over time; specifically, storage, processing cycles, and network capacity. I don’t have much to say about the Dark Side analysis of the Forrester presentation.
Here’s what interests me:
First, I think these big, well publicized “thought pieces” are essentially devoid of substantive analysis. The “big idea” becomes a foundation upon which assertions, arguments, and counter arguments rest. The goal is to associated Forrester with a topic and generate buzz, visibility, or what is called a “conversation” about the “big idea”. I don’t have the energy to explain why the three “resources” are essentially one “thing.” Believe the assertion if you wish
Forrester Predicts the End of Social Networking
December 19, 2011
Yep, ever hungry for clicks and buzz, another azure chip firm cooks up a prediction that may surprise Facebook.
Oh, no, another big trend is in trouble! Or so Forrester CEO George Colony would have us believe. “Social networking’s salad days are ending, Forrester says,” reports Stephen Shankland at Cnet News. Colony insists that the market for social networking is saturated, and people don’t have time for it anyway. The article asserts:
’We are in a bubble for social startups,’ [Colony] said. When it bursts, ‘this is going to sweep away some of the nonsense, like FourSquare. We are going to move to a post-social world that’s a little like the Web in the year 2000. A lot of companies launched, but they did not survive.’
Humph.
Though Shankland says Forrester based its conclusions on consumer research, we’re more than a little skeptical. These assertions come from an azure chip consultant looking for angles. Data? Not so much. Insight? Not so much.
Interesting? As long it generates business, the azure chip crowd has done its job. Does this mean that Google’s play for social search is a loser? Forrester will elucidate sure am I.
Cynthia Murrell, December 19, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Azure Chip Gartner Quadrantizes Archiving
December 17, 2011
Records management has been shown some love this month by information technology research and advisory company Gartner, Inc.
According to the Dec 8, Marketwire news release “Sonian Positioned in 2011 Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Information Archiving,” Sonian, a cloud powered archiving and search solutions company, announced that it has been positioned in the December 2011 Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Information Archiving.
Over 8,000 customers currently utilize Sonian’s cloud-powered information archiving platform which can be deployed in minutes. It enables organizations to address eDiscovery needs, achieve regulatory compliance, and reduce IT costs.
The Magic Quadrant report, which positions vendors based on their ability to execute and completeness of vision, noted:
The challenges organizations are facing with respect to the management of email data are increasingly being seen with file system data. Archiving products that can address both email and files generally provide efficiencies across these content types, versus taking a siloed approach to management. While cloud archiving can be very cost-effective, the prevailing sentiment to simply give the problem of managing this data to someone else seems to be one of the most common reasons organizations cite for selecting cloud or SaaS archiving.
The fact that Gartner is cheerleading information archiving is an excellent sign. With just a few more Corzine and Madoff incidents and archiving will be a hot topic in corporate boardrooms.
Jasmine Ashton, December 17, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Guess Your Way to Search Competence
December 1, 2011
Let’s assume a person was a middle school teacher, hated it, and started working as a writer at a content management blog. Another hypothetical is a young professional who wanted to make a killing quickly. The first job was commission sales at a software company. The company was acquired and the young professional was assigned to search software sales. After a so-so six months, the person was fired. A small consulting firm needed a person who could talk the talk, make a sale, and go along to get along. Bingo. Search wizard.
Regardless of scenario, certain technical fields seem so darned easy to master. Learn a few words, make some friends who have better than average technical now how, and give a talk or two at a conference. What could be easier than helping clueless companies index their content? How tough could it be?
Well, Time Magazine wants to make this type of faux expertise even easier to master. Point your monitored, filtered browser thing at “Why Guessing Is Undervalued” and get a snoot full of the latest powered baloney from a “real” news magazine. Here’s the key passage in my opinion:
Estimation, this research shows, is not an act of wild speculation but a highly sophisticated and valuable skill that, some experts say, is often given short shrift in the curriculum. “Too much mathematical rigor teaches rigor mortis,” says Sanjoy Mahajan, an associate professor of applied science and engineering at Olin College. Many math textbooks, he notes, “teach how to solve exactly stated problems exactly, whereas life often hands us partly defined problems needing only moderately accurate solutions.”
Hey,guessing is really good. Brain surgery, engineering analysis for air craft engines, and automobile brakes—yep, just guess. Why worry about search technology and retrieval technology or flawed outputs from big data systems? Just guess. Works great.
Stephen E Arnold, December 1, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Recommind Wins Raves from Consultant
November 22, 2011
After being highlighted in IDC’s “MarketScape: The Worldwide Standalone Early Case Assessment Applications Report” in September, Recommind, the leader in predictive information management software, is hitting early case assessment hard by working to make eDiscovery more speedy and cost effective.
Recommind has created a new eDiscovery document review solution called Axcelerate Review & Analysis . Axcelerate Review & Analysis uses predictive analytics to pinpoint key documents quickly while automatically assessing document responsiveness, privilege and issue relation before the review process begins.
The Above The Law blog post “Recommind: The Leader In Fast, Accurate Early Case Assessment” states:
Axcelerate ECA & Collection is the first half of Recommind’s fully integrated, end-to-end Axcelerate eDiscovery platform. The patented search-and-categorization platform can identify and analyze data faster and more accurately than any appliance or point solution. And since Axcelerate ECA & Collection works seamlessly with Recommind’s review product, it’s a natural choice for enterprises that want control over eDiscovery costs.
We wonder if this new solution represents the company going back to its roots or if it’s simply complementing its enterprise search initiative. We have noticed a number of white papers, “objective reports”, and analyses running under the banner of some consulting firms. Interesting.
Jasmine Ashton, November 21, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
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