Analytics – Mike Hammons

June 12, 2021February 13, 2023

About HSO

HSO is a multinational information technology and management consultancy company that provides a range of services to clients across various industries. Established in the early 1990s, HSO has since grown into a leading player in the IT services market, with a presence in Europe, North America, and Asia. The company’s offerings include cloud computing, digital transformation, business process management, and customer experience management, among others. HSO’s mission is to help organizations navigate the ever-evolving digital landscape and unlock new opportunities for growth and competitiveness.

HSO has a strong reputation for delivering high-quality services and has been recognized for its expertise by industry organizations and analyst firms. The company places a strong emphasis on innovation, continuously investing in new technologies and approaches to help its clients stay ahead of the curve. HSO also prides itself on its commitment to sustainability and corporate social responsibility, actively working to minimize its impact on the environment and supporting local communities in the regions where it operates. With a focus on delivering value to its clients and making a positive difference in the world, HSO is well-positioned for continued success in the years to come.

March 19, 2019

Microsoft Data Insights Summit is almost here!

Just a quick note to let my guests and regular readers know I will be at the Microsoft Data Insights Summit next week.?http://datainsightssummit.com/

I am really looking forward to the event and just dropped a blog post over at my?AKA home. Read more about why we are going and how you can still benefit even if you are not able to attend.

https://www.akaes.com/insights/aka-to-attend-2019-microsoft-data-insights-summit/

If you are in the Seattle area or plan to be at the Summit as well, let me know. I am always open to connecting with folks.

Thanks!

Mike

February 9, 2016

Gartner Magic Quadrant for BI and Analytics 2016

Microsoft in Leaders Quadrant…Again!

As I wrote a post a couple of weeks ago?http://www.michaelhammons.com/gartner-magic-quadrant-for-bi-and-analytics-2015/ the latest?Gartner Magic Quadrant for BI and Analytics 2016 has been officially released.

If you didn?t catch last year?s MQ, here is a link: Gartner Magic Quadrant for BI and Analytics 2015

And here is a link to the 2016 version: Gartner Magic Quadrant for BI & Analytics 2016

A summary of the 2016 highlights of Gartner’s?assessment on Microsoft BI below.

Microsoft is seeing strong uptake due in large part to?substantial product improvements?as well as very aggressive pricing. The Pro version is a very affordable $9.99 per user per month. Compared to pretty much any other BI and Analytics options available, it is the most cost effective.

Here is one of my favorite quotes “Microsoft is positioned in the Leaders quadrant, with strong uptake of the latest release, major product improvements, an increase in sales and marketing awareness efforts, new leadership and a clearer, more visionary product roadmap.” Well said, Gartner.

Key Strengths Summary

Microsoft provides a cloud-based delivery model and one of the lowest per-user pricing / TCO ? Ease of use for business users and the availability of skilled resources rounds out this strength.?
Microsoft received?high scores for online tutorials, community support, conferences and documentation. I have to agree here whole-heartedly as they have done a really good job on tutorials, blog posts, and learning materials. Something I have seen in the Dynamics CRM world as well. All this helps business achieve?product success much more quickly and cost effectively.
Microsoft continues to expand the number and variety of data sources for?connectors and content that includes pre-built reports and dashboards. These too help users get up and running and connected very quickly. In today’s world, agility and rapid time to value are key requirements to success.

If you haven’t checked out Power BI yet, do it, and as quickly as you can. If you would like some help to get up to speed quickly, feel free to reach out to me via my social channels or the contact form on this page:?http://www.michaelhammons.com/about-mike-hammons/?

January 19, 2016

Gartner Magic Quadrant for BI and Analytics 2015

Microsoft in Leaders Quadrant

It’s almost that time again and we shall soon see the Gartner Magic Quadrant for BI and Analytics 2016.

If you didn’t catch last year’s MQ, here is a link: Gartner Magic Quadrant for BI and Analytics 2015

I will paraphrase the highlights of their assessment below.

In Gartner’s view (and I share much of this), Microsoft’s leadership position BI and Analytics is driven by product vision and road map. In addition, and this one is spot on, Microsoft has a “clear understanding of the market’s desire for a platform that can support systems-of-record requirements and deliver easy-to-use data discovery capabilities”.

Power BI is gaining traction as it matures and cloud adoption grows. I concur and have seen a rapid increase in interest and adoption. I am confident we will see an uptick in the position as Microsoft has been rapidly adding new capabilities to the Power BI platform and it is near parity with the BI applications that have traditionally been selected over it. Add the fact that the “other” BI applications are currently much higher priced; in both acquisition and? deployment costs. This is also noted by? Gartner, “Overall cost of ownership and license cost remain the top reasons customers choose Microsoft.”

To give you an idea of the “power” of this great application, below is an example proof of concept that was provided to a customer recently. There was some shock in awe in that what typically takes them a couple of days to collate the date, do all the Excel lookups and filters and cleanup took several days to complete. This took less than a day to create and is now completely automated.

That’s why I am so excited about Power BI.

To wrap up this post, a great Power BI learning event is upcoming called the Microsoft Data Insights Summit, March 22-23, 2016.? At this event Microsoft will be hosting hands on training, advice from some great experts in Microsoft Power BI and Microsoft Excel. I plan on being there so please reach out if you would like to connect. Go here to see more detail and register: http://www.datainsightssummit.com

December 18, 2015

Power BI Is Going to be Huge

I just have to say, that Microsoft Power BI is completely awesome and amazing.? I?ll explain more in upcoming posts, but it just keeps getting better; almost on a daily basis.

Quite simply:? Power BI, is going to be huge, just huge, and I’m mean enormously huge.

For those of you who don’t know me, I am rarely quick to endorse or embrace a particular product or technology platform.? For me, I have to see it, experience it and believe it before I give my unequivocal support.? So let me just say that I am jazzed and excited about Microsoft Power BI; and more importantly what it can do for you and your business, and I want to share that with you.

No more waiting. No more wasted effort. Far, far less expense.

Until relatively recently, turning data into actionable insight has been overwhelmingly a chore that simply takes far more time, effort and expense than it should.

Time waiting on a Business Intelligence (BI) team to finish their last project before they get to yours; and that’s only if other priorities don’t keep knocking it further down the road.
Effort required to get access to the data; and in a usable format that can easily be used by non-techy types. More often; it still requires a collection of spreadsheets and exports and imports and vlookups and filters and, and, and… ? very repetitive, labor intensive, and chaotic.
Expense unless you are doing the aforementioned Excel dance; most applications and tools have been very expensive. I mean thousands of dollars $$ per user per year expensive. Plus all the time and expense required to learn the darn things.

Power BI can literally transform your data into rich visuals and dashboards to see, understand and act on on what matters to you. Stay in the know, spot trends as they happen, and push your business further.

I’ll be posting more content in the coming weeks and months that I believe will get you as excited as I am about this new(ish) platform.

For starters, here are the slides and a link to a webinar I did recently titled “Power Up with Power BI”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK1sfN2BTsw

Welcome to your brave new world!

November 16, 2015

CRMUG Dynamic Duo Series: Power Up Your CRM with Power BI

Join Me for this CRMUG Webinar

Thursday, November 19, 2015 (2:00 PM) to Thursday, November 19, 2015 (3:00 PM) (Eastern Time)
CRMUG Virtual Event

In this CRMUG OneSource Dynamic Duo series webinar, you will learn about the powerful out of the box integration functionality available with Power BI and Dynamics CRM Online. Expert Mike Hammons will show how you can analyze your CRM data with interactive Power BI dashboards and reports, providing you with quick self-service insights into the data you need to manage your business.

About the OneSource Dynamic Duo Series:

This CRMUG OneSource series dives into the robust functionality that comes from the Dynamic Duo of Microsoft Dynamics CRM + Microsoft Office/Office 365. Recent Dynamics CRM updates have deepened the integration of CRM and Office, making your experience simple, familiar, and immersive. Learn how to harness the great power and productivity delivered by this pair of heroes with the CRMUG OneSource Dynamic Duo Series!

April 22, 2014

Mobility Leads List of Top Digital Priorities

Mobility Leads List of C-Level Top Priorities

CIO Insights just posted one of their slideshows. ?You can view the slideshow of the survey results here: CIO Insight Mobile Priority Survey

The slideshow?is from an Accenture survey that shows mobility leads the list of top digital priorities. The survey, of nearly 1,500 global C-level executives, found adoption of mobile technologies and applications as top of their list of priorities.

While mobility is top of mind of most leading organizations, there are still challenges for some organizations, including;

strategic, organizational and operational shortcomings
struggles in the rollout of mobile capabilities
lack of formal metrics to measure effectiveness
insufficient funding

The good news despite these challenges, companies are moving aggressively to adopt mobile technologies and applications. The focus is geared toward helping them achieve their?business objectives.

While mobility is tops in the survey, rounding out the Top 5 include:

I?am seeing the majority of customers and prospects I talk to ALL have the above top of mind. It’s all related to helping how?we can understand and service our customers better. It’s about customer experience and business impact.

It’s not hard to understand why. I read an article?recently that showed 6 BILLION people now have cell phones. That’s nearly everyone on the planet.?We are clearly a mobile and connected world. So, it’s only natural that?customers and users need to be able to access their business-critical data on the device of their choice from wherever they are.

Another interesting fact from the survey, only 2% of respondents have NO mobile strategy. Let’s hope your organization is NOT one of the 2%. If you are, think about the fact that your competitors are thinking mobile.

Another factoid?is 83% of “leader” organizations compared to 77% of “other” organizations?rank mobility in their Top 5 priorities. Again, are YOU one of the leaders, or other?

If you prefer infographics, Accenture has posted one here for the survey results:?http://www.accenture.com/us-en/Pages/insight-mobility-trends-research-2014.aspx

You can also download a pdf of the survey here:?http://www.accenture.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/PDF/Accenture-Mobility-Research-Report-2014.pdf

July 29, 2013

Power BI for Office 365

Here is a quick update from an announcement made at the Microsoft WPC (Worldwide Partner Conference). Power BI for Office 365 is a self-service business intelligence (BI) solution delivered through Excel and Office 365. Power BI users have data analysis and visualization capabilities to identify business insights from their on-premises and cloud data. One of the most exciting new features of Power BI is Q&A, a natural language based experience for interacting with data. Microsoft still has not really made clear exactly what Power BI is, e.g. is it a new product, a re-branding, a new service? From what I can tell it looks like a little bit of rebranding of Power Pivot with some new features thrown in. Hopefully soon Microsoft will provide more details on exactly what this is, what are the costs, how is it configured and all those other fun questions. In the meantime, a little more about the Q&A feature. Q&A builds upon allows the use of natural language to find, understand, and report on your data. Here are a few examples: ?Show London clients? In this example, an Excel workbook with data about customers and their locations has been saved to Office 365. Q&A is interpreting the search query and displaying corresponding information from the workbook to create a list of customers that are based in London. ?Show number of products? Similarly, ?show number of products? is being interpreted to count the number of products found in the data source. ?Number of songs per year? Further, Q&A automatically chooses a suitable visualization based on what is requested. ?Total number of employees for finance, HR, marketing in Europe by employee country? In this example, Q&A automatically chose to display three maps, one for each division. It opted to display maps because the country column is marked as a geography data column. ?Show our sales pipeline with opportunity size greater than $20,000? So what will you need to get Power BI Q&A to work with your organization?s dataset? An Excel spreadsheet with a Power Pivot model saved to a Power BI site in Office 365. So, if you are using Excel and Power Pivot today, you are on the right track to use Q&A over your own data once it is available. Microsoft will be posting more about the features included in Power BI so stay tuned here for more updates. In the meantime head over to http://www.powerbi.com and check out more details.

July 18, 2013

Why Is Quality Data Key To Today?s Medical Device Industry Trends?

Why Is Quality Data Key To Today’s Medical Device Industry Trends?

quality-hospital-analytics | Photo Courtesy of johnfranciesim http://www.flickr.com/photos/81168466@N07/8230679458/sizes/q/

Medtronic always has been at the forefront of medical device industry trends. In a recent interview on MassDevice.com, Medtronic CEO Omar Ishrak explains the need that a lot of life sciences companies have to prove the overall economic value of their technologies.

One of today’s most challenging medical device industry trends is that medical device innovation must demonstrate economic value. In fact, lowering costs is now mandated with the recent health care law changes. “Economic value, in simple terms, is projecting our value proposition in financial terms for our customers, not only the clinical benefits, but the financial benefits,” Ishrak says. This kind of thinking, he adds, is transforming Medtronic’s strategic priorities for the coming years.

But health care’s very nature makes it difficult for companies to present medical devices not as a cost, but as an investment. “The cost of healthcare is incurred during a procedure,” Ishrak notes, but “the benefit of that investment, if you like, is realized at later time and potentially in a different place.” In this context, it’s difficult for any medical device company to follow a patient’s outcome and the health care costs after a procedure has been done.

Medtronic and other companies can begin making the case for investment by partnering with hospitals and running pilot projects to focus on areas that reduce health care costs. The goal is to produce quality data that proves their technologies can reduce overall patient costs.

A CRM solution can help companies like Medtronic by providing ways to monitor these pilot programs and hospitals. Greater visibility through real-time analytics is the key to identifying areas where costs need to be reduced and where cost reduction has been achieved. They then can use that data to put together more qualitative analytics and even a case study to prove the overall effectiveness.

“Once those pilots are successful, we intend to scale them across those systems and eventually do even broader market expansion,” Ishrak tells MassDevice.com. Going forward, Medtronic will assess economic value before spending money on products, he adds, a new approach that will require changing “the mindset and the thinking and the culture in the company.”

Source: MassDevice.com, January 2013

April 18, 2013

Microsoft Convergence 2013 – Summary

Microsoft Convergence 2013 was held in wonderful New Orleans (NOLA), LA, March 18^th-21^st.

NOLA - New Orlease - Microsoft Convergence 2013 - Dynamics CRM

If you would like to see my tweets from New Orleans, go here: http://www.michaelhammons.com/convergence-2013/

The following are a few highlights from Convergence 2013:

Let’s start with growth. Microsoft announced at Convergence 2013 the latest Microsoft Dynamics CRM adoption numbers, with more than 3 million users and more than 39,000 customers.
The opening had some great customer stories. I found it curious the vast majority were B2C customers. Just a coincidence? The posted case studies can be found on the Microsoft website here.
The Marketing Pilot Announcement & Netbreeze AnnouncementAcquisitions.
The new User Interface (UI) recently released with Polaris and the continued direction and new features for Orion. I will include some screenshots soon.
The new cross browser and mobile experiences available across devices

There were a lot of good sessions. In fact it’s often hard to choose which session to go, there are so many good ones! There are a few below that cover the some of the highlights above. In addition you can see the changes coming in the user experience (UX) and user interface (UI). You may need to register herebefore viewing these videos.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM: The New Era in CRM.
- Includes Dynamics CRM vision, the changing role of CRM in the Era of the Customer and what that means for sales, marketing and customer care. Overview of new UI, Marketing Pilot and Netbreeze. Shows a couple of short product demonstrations. Link to video.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Product Recap & Roadmap Primer.
- Details of the roadmap, including mobile, for the future of Microsoft Dynamics CRM over the next 6-24 months. Link to video.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM: Reimagining the User Experience.
- This session covered to see how users today work with CRM across different browsers, mobile devices and Microsoft Office. Previews the great new innovations in user experiences (UX) and design coming in future releases. Link to video.
Advanced Analytics for Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
- Covers reporting and analytics capabilities in Microsoft Dynamics CRM. New and updated analysis capabilities available in Microsoft Excel 2013, PowerPivot, PowerView, Office Apps and other tools with SQL Server 2012. Link to video.
The New Microsoft Office 365: Your New Office – Social Productivity at Work
- Overview of the new Office and Microsoft’s vision for enterprise social. New updates for cloud, social, and mobile. Link to video.
- I you aren’t familiar with Office 365, go now and check it out. The 2013 updates are amazing. I think a whole new level of productivity is available. Awesome stuff, really!