Blog
Leadership and personality…
Forrest Breyfogle posted a great question over at Linked-In: Does our corporate leadership's relationship-building strengths make it a challenge for them to truly understand and resolve the fundamental system improvement and re-engineering needs of the financial...
The Elkhart Project…
It doesn’t take a lot to imagine what an 18%+ unemployment rate does to ancillary businesses. These days you probably don’t need to make a reservation at a restaurant, and my friends in plumbing and construction businesses are – well – hurting. As I’ve read all this coverage about our neighboring city I want to say “Yes, but…”
Business intelligence not what it can be…
A recent article on SearchDataManagement.com about a Gartner Group conference on Business Intelligence (BI) discusses the fact that business intelligence is probably the number one priority for CIOs, but most companies have not translated that prioritization into high...
Sustainability…
This post is a departure from my usual ramblings about how real-time access to accurate, actionable data can help drive business transformation, save money and increase profits. Actually it is still about data and how we're responding to data, but has a slightly...
Sample reports wanted…
Here is a chance to participate in Hertzler Systems' development effort. Sometime in the next few months we'll be releasing Version 8 of GainSeeker® Suite. One important capability in this new version is a brand new report writer. I saw a sneak preview of it the other...
Hitting my forehead with the palm of my hand…
A couple years ago we sponsored a research report by the Aberdeen Group on best practices in Six Sigma deployments. You can download a copy of the report, and a companion white paper that I wrote for the report called "Leveraging Technology to Transform Culture." For...
Are Facebook & Twitter irrelevant?…
I love this post from Thomas Wailgum at CIO.COM. His title says it all: "Wake Up People! Forget Twitter and iPhone Apps, and Focus on SAP and ERP Apps." I've been on Twitter now for several months and I confess that I find it addicting. I still can't decide if it is...
Dashboards and Desktops…
Several years ago I started practicing what I preach, at least when it comes to making better use of data in my business. What did I do that was so radical? I started using control charts to track my key business metrics. Imagine that! We set up a simple data entry...
Bottom of the trough?…
Recently I met with my friend and board member, Dennis Blyly. While he is quick to point out he is not a macro-economic expert, Dennis is a very smart guy with his fingers on the pulse of a lot of businesses. Dennis brings a really useful 50,000 foot view of the...
Posting 14% profit increase in a down economy…
With all the economic doom and gloom in the main stream media, let's take time to celebrate Del Monte Foods' Third Quarter Earnings report, which boasts a 14% profit increase for the third quarter. In a Del Monte Foods press release, Richard G. Wolford, Chairman and...
