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Herschel Chandler

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Managing Principal, Visionary Solutions Today, LLC

98 points

Sept. 30, 2011

Herschel Chandler and 20 other people answered this question

Should the government forgive student loans?

I never support forgiveness - I support tight controls on who gets the loans and for what. A whole industry developed around ways to provide education services to get at the student loan money. I know students that use loans for things like plastic surgery. ... more

Economy

Finance

Government

Stimulus

Sept. 7, 2011

Herschel Chandler and 1 other person answered this question

How do I evaluate our current reporting system?

Whew. That's a question that could result in a really long answer.
Let me start with it depends - Is the current system meeting the needs of the business in a cost-efficient manner? If yes, then no need to proceed.
So you need to start with ... more

Information Technology

Business Intelligence

CMS

Reporting

Sept. 7, 2011

Herschel Chandler recommends this answer by Craig Rosenberg

What do you expect from data.com?

I feel like this is a lot of "lipstick on the pig". This is Jigsaw with a fancy new name and marketing campaign behind it. If you just want data to send unsolicited emails or cold call, you can use data.com but it is really ... more

Information Technology

Aug. 22, 2011

Herschel Chandler answered this question

What are the pros and cons of outsourcing business intelligence?

In answering this question outsourcing to me means the works the work of delivering BI - the data integration work and building the presentation layer. Outsourcing the platform itself, such as moving to the cloud, is a different matter.
Outsourcing the mechanics of BI can provide ... more

Information Technology

Business Intelligence

Information Management

Outsourcing

Aug. 22, 2011

Herschel Chandler and 1 other person answered this question

What's the difference between metadata and data dictionary?

There isn't really a difference, a data dictionary is metadata. However, metadata is typically quite a bid broader than what is contained in a data dictionary. Though I'd say a data dictionary is the most common form of meta data and often where metadata efforts ... more

Information Technology

Business Intelligence

Data Dictionary

Information Management

Aug. 16, 2011

Herschel Chandler answered this question

Before moving to mobile BI, what steps should a company take? What policies should be in place?

The biggest first is determining your information assurance / security strategy. What policies must any device support in order to have information delivered to it and in what form? E.g., perhaps only emailed dashboard snapshots versus a live connection.
Once the security requirements are understand device ... more

Information Technology

Business Intelligence

Information Management

Mobile BI

Aug. 16, 2011

Herschel Chandler and 1 other person answered this question

What is the significance of data profiling?

I take a little different tack on the term data profiling. I separate data profiling from data auditing because I see them as two different components of an overall data quality assessment.
To me data profiling is simply content without context. It is an analysis of ... more

Information Technology

Business Intelligence

Data Profiling

Information Management

Aug. 9, 2011

Herschel Chandler is speaking at this roundtable

Self-Service BI, what does it look like? How do you evolve towards Self-Service BI?

Information Technology

Business Intelligence

Information Management

Self-service BI

July 18, 2011

Herschel Chandler and 2 other people answered this question

Do enterprise software applications have any sort of effect on an organization's valuation?

Absolutely they do. This is usually one of the rating criteria in Merger and Aquisition valuations. How easy or difficult will it be to incorporate or merge the operations of the two groups? Starting with the same or similar software platform always helps. Of course ... more

Operations

Sales

BPM

Business Intelligence

3 more topics

July 18, 2011

Herschel Chandler and 1 other person answered this question

If a company is just implementing a BI solution, how should they start to educate their users?

The process should begin well before a BI solution is implemented. Mature BI solutions enable optimization of business process. Many business users, except perhaps those that come from other organizations with a mature BI program, don't really know what is possible within the realm of ... more

Information Technology

Business Intelligence

Information Management

User Education

July 5, 2011

Herschel Chandler and 3 other people answered this question

Is there a room for a new ERP system?

Consider a SaaS model. Not enough players in that market and one thing SMBs think about constantly is capital outlay. more

Information Technology

Operations

Small Business

ERP

June 2, 2011

Herschel Chandler and 1 other person answered this question

What are some of the challenges to deploying mobile BI?

One of the biggest challenges to deploying mobile BI is data security. Going beyond simple email attachments, we're talking about putting a BI server out on the internet so that true interactive BI from mobile devices is possible. Many clients struggle with allowing data to ... more

Information Technology

Business Intelligence

IBM0324

Information Management

2 more topics

Jan. 27, 2011

Herschel Chandler and 1 other person answered this question

How can you utilize predictive analytics to engage and retain customers, and improve your overall relationships?

There are many customer related metrics available that are easily researched. However, all of the related to managing the customer lifecycle from attracting new ones, to keeping good ones, or dropping bad ones.
The first step prior to a solid predictive analytics capability is integration ... more

Marketing

Customer Engagement

Customer Loyalty

Customer Relationship

4 more topics

Jan. 27, 2011

Herschel Chandler and 3 other people answered this question

What are the most important considerations in implementing a business intelligence process?

I think the most important consideration in implementing a BI process is CHANGE. It's the one area that I most often see overlooked. Building an effective business intelligence solution means not only IT changes, but more importantly changes to the business.
Implementing the best, most ... more

Small Business

Business Intelligence for Small Businesses

Jan. 5, 2011

Herschel Chandler and 1 other person answered this question

How can I best focus my BI efforts on delivering the right information to the right people?

The BEST way to focus is to have a good assessment of the landscape of information needs and apply limited resources to obtain the most bang for the buck.
The basic concept of BI is to get the right information to the right people. The ... more

Information Technology

Operations

Business Intelligence

Business Intelligence Solution

Jan. 5, 2011

Herschel Chandler and 1 other person answered this question

What are some strategies to help companies prioritize their business analytics projects?

A roadmap much be created as part of the initial strategy effort. The roadmap is essentially a top down approach the complexity of which is based upon how well business goals are articulated and how well they align with the goals of executives responsible for ... more

Information Technology

Business Analytics

Business Analytics System

Business Intelligence

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