Share what you know with millions of people

Focus is the best place to turn what you know into remarkable content

×

Ron Dimon

Follow Following Unfollow

Senior Principal, Infosys Consulting

98 points

An experienced Enterprise Performance Management consultant with a passion and proven track record for designing and implementing strategy to execution systems.
9 years @ Deloitte, 8 years @ Oracle/Hyperion, 4 years @ Business Foundation.

March 14, 2011

Ron Dimon and 8 other people answered this question

Will you purchase the iPad 2?

Not yet. I'm still enjoying the iPad 1 and don't really need the cameras, extra speed, etc. more

Information Technology

March 14, 2011

Ron Dimon asked a question

How do you "operationalize" Shared Value?

Business Intelligence & Analytics

Corporate Social Responsibility

Feb. 23, 2011

Ron Dimon is now following

Feb. 21, 2011

Ron Dimon recommends this comment by Eric Schwarz

Nine Questions to Ask a Rep Before You Buy a Business Intelligence System

Ron - Don't forget my company, Information Builders. This is not a sales pitch, but our WebFOCUS product is highly regarded and should be considered by anyone examining BI platforms. In addition to its comprehensive BI capabilities, it leverages our iWay integration technology to access ... more

General Management

Information Technology

Business Intelligence

Feb. 21, 2011

Ron Dimon and 6 other people commented on a brief

Who Owns CRM: Marketing or Sales?

Great question. In some organizations (I would call them 'mature' CRM orgs), as already mentioned, it's an AND, not an OR question. Marketing owns CRM up to a certain point in the selling funnel - for some it's the stage right after lead conversion to ... more

Business Systems

Feb. 12, 2011

Ron Dimon is now following

Feb. 12, 2011

Ron Dimon is now following

Feb. 12, 2011

Ron Dimon is now following Dana Gardner

Jan. 21, 2011

Ron Dimon and 5 other people answered this question

What are the top questions a buyer should ask a BI vendor?

Hi Becky, please see my focus briefing at
http://www.focus.com/briefs/information-technology/nine-questions-ask-rep-you...
Nine Questions to Ask a Rep Before You Buy a Business Intelligence System
Thanks,
-Ron more

Information Technology

Business Intelligence

Business Intelligence Vendors

Jan. 12, 2011

Ron Dimon and 9 other people answered this question

How can the sales team benefit from having a Business Intelligence system in place?

This is a great thread, very useful.
Have a look at my article in Business Performance Management (BPM) magazine on how Business Intelligence (and BPM) can impact the sales process across teams (sales, marketing, finance, operations) - and how BI impacts the sales decision cycle:
http://businessfoundation.typepad.com/bf_blog/2010/10/making-your-number.html more

Information Technology

Business Intelligence

Business Intelligence Applications

Dec. 27, 2010

Ron Dimon and 2 other people answered this question

What is master data management or MDM?

To add some more details to what Hrvoje has said,
MDM lets you manage the change - including synchronizing, version control, validate/verify, audit trail - of master data such as business dimensions, reporting structures, hierarchies, attributes and business rules across data warehouses, data marts, analytic applications, ... more

Information Technology

Business Intelligence

Master Data Management

Dec. 20, 2010

Ron Dimon and 1 other person answered this question

How can a business intelligence solution improve the decision making process in a business?

Great question.
Here's how a BI solution can improve the decision making process:
1. Fact-based is usually better than gut-feel: http://www.turnaround.org/Publications/Articles.aspx?objectID=767
2. Faster decisions improve company performance: http://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/dingman/pdfs_docs/Paper_Baum_SuccessfulEntrepreneu...
3. BI improves confidence in the numbers (vs. disparate, multiple, un-controlled spreadsheets and other sources of data - usually BI data ... more

Information Technology

Business Intelligence

Business Intelligence Implementation

Dec. 3, 2010

Ron Dimon and 2 other people answered this question

Best backup for a Mac?

I use Time Machine (comes with Mac OS) and an external hard drive
as well as Mozy for off-site. Mozy is unobtrusive and the latest version of their Mac client software is very good. more

Information Technology

Backup Software

Nov. 22, 2010

Ron Dimon and 1 other person answered this question

Any examples of hidden costs in BI investments?

This is a great question as, like you say, "all costs in" are not well understood in many business and I.T. investments. I'll take a stab around on-premise, enterprise BI initiatives and think from a Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) perspective (NB: this would be ... more

Information Technology

Business Intelligence

Business Intelligence Applications

Business Intelligence Software Solutions

Nov. 19, 2010

Ron Dimon and 2 other people answered this question

What should my online marketing strategy address?

Here's how you would start:
1. Define your Goals & Objectives - what do you want to accomplish
- thought leadership
- brand awareness, pure hits
- customer conversion, monetization
- competitive differentiation
2. Set measures and targets so you know how you're doing (click-through rates, cost per click, bounce rate, ... more

Marketing Strategies

Online Marketing

Nov. 18, 2010

Ron Dimon answered this question

How can I learn the basics of business finance?

Try this book:
Financial Intelligence: A Manager's Guide to Knowing What the Numbers Really Mean
by Karen Berman & Joe Knight more

Business Finance

Nov. 18, 2010

Ron Dimon answered this question

Whatever happened to the field of Knowledge management?

Here's the latest in the field, from Dave Snowden at today's closing keynote session of Knowledge Management 2010:
http://www.cognitive-edge.com/presentationdetails.php?presentationid=72
Listen to the podcast while you review the slides - fascinating stuff!!
Dave is also the co-author of the HBR piece "A Leader's Framework for Decision Making" at:
http://hbr.org/product/a-leader-s-framework-for-decision-making-harvard-b/an/... more

Information Technology

Business Intelligence

Business Intelligence Solution

Nov. 18, 2010

Ron Dimon and 5 other people answered this question

When looking at Microsoft Sharepoint, what other product should I compare it to?

Compare it to box.net
http://sites.box.net/simple/
Regards,
-Ron

Microsoft SharePoint

Nov. 17, 2010

Ron Dimon and 1 other person answered this question

What is a good argument for investing my IT budget in cloud computing?

The tactical arguments usually center around TCO - Total Cost of Ownership - of your systems (hardware, software, middle-ware, support, administration, and so on). The TCO for cloud solutions is generally lower than for on-premise software + server solutions.
The strategic arguments usually come back to ... more

Information Technology

Cloud Computing

Cloud Computing Costs

Cloud Computing Implementation

Nov. 17, 2010

Ron Dimon and 2 other people answered this question

Can you recommend a good reference book for planning the move to a BI Solution for a company?

I've always liked "Performance Dashboards" by Wayne Eckerson (John Wiley & Sons).
It gives you some background on the role of BI in the organization and helps you assess your organizational & technical readiness. Then it gets tactical and shows you the different kinds of dashboards ... more

Information Technology

Business Intelligence

Business Intelligence for Small Businesses

Nov. 17, 2010

Ron Dimon and 1 other person answered this question

Who are the true thought leaders in Business Intelligence?

In addition to Kimball, Inmon & Dresner, I would add these current practitioners:
(you can see what they are up to on their twitter pages, and it also includes a link to their websites):
Jill Dyche - http://twitter.com/jilldyche
Claudia Imhoff - http://twitter.com/claudia_imhoff
Wayne Eckerson - http://twitter.com/weckerson
Marcus Borba - http://twitter.com/marcusborba
Cindi ... more

Information Technology

Business Intelligence

Business Intelligence Analysts

Nov. 16, 2010

Ron Dimon and 2 other people answered this question

What are the 'standard features' that any finance software should have?

It depends on what kind of Finance software you're thinking of. Robert dealt with Accounting software above, and here are some standard features of a few types of Finance software:
1. Financial Consolidation (sometimes called FCRA)
- Currency Conversion
- Inter-company Eliminations/Adjustments, Minority Adjustments
- Built-in reporting standards (GAAP, ... more

Information Technology

Business Finance

Finance Software

Nov. 16, 2010

Ron Dimon answered this question

What is a good reason for NOT implementing forecasting software?

Here are the reasons you would NOT want to use forecasting software:
1. You are happy with the enormous number of spreadsheets floating around on people's laptops, with different versions, maybe different formulas in each, unshared and hard to consolidate;
2. You are happy with the "finger ... more

Information Technology

Business Finance

Finance Management

Nov. 16, 2010

Ron Dimon answered this question

Where does one start with trying to identify which data is of most material value to the business?

Yes, start with the executive team - they are most interested in executing company strategy and reaching performance targets. These are usually in the areas of
- revenue growth
- operational efficiency/margin improvement
- asset utilization
- cash flow/ cash conversion
- customer sat & innovation
Identifying each of the key ... more

Information Technology

Business Intelligence

Data Management

Following 6 Topics

Business Intelligence

Business Performance

Information Technology

Following 1 Person

Followed by 39 People

Knowledgeable in 24 Topics

Information Technology

#184 of 2263

Business Intelligence

#31 of 246

#214 of 822

#1301 of 2984

Operating Systems

#8 of 21

Cloud Computing Costs

#14 of 21

Business Intelligence Solution

#14 of 22

Business Intelligence Implementation

#15 of 26

Cloud Computing Implementation

#18 of 26

#14 of 27

Data Management

#26 of 42

Marketing Strategies

#34 of 68

#60 of 111

Focus Interactive Summit

#80 of 113

Search Marketing

#56 of 129

Servers and Storage

#108 of 157

Online Marketing

#194 of 360

#354 of 419

Cloud Computing

#255 of 462

#485 of 636

General Management

#677 of 1194

#1394 of 2156

#44 of 51

#134 of 140