Ryan Morrell, Channel Executive, IBM Software Group

Does your organisation have AQ?

Check out an exciting new way to measure your success with analytics.

It’s a fact: analytics-driven organizations outperform their peers in every metric that matters. Now, there’s a way to know how well you're using analytics - and where to go next.

We call it your “Analytics Quotient,” or “AQ” for short . It measures how ready you are to apply insight to your strategy, processes and tactics; how quickly you can re-allocate resources and re-orient your people to make better decisions; and how effectively you can act based on how well you know your past performance, current results and future possibilities.

It’s simple: The more you embrace analytics, the higher your AQ. The higher your AQ, the better the business outcomes - for you, your team and your entire organization.

Take IBM's free AQ quiz now to learn your score. It’s quick, it’s easy, and it will put you on the path to better business outcomes, whether you’re an aspiring newcomer or a wizened analytics master.

When you’ve finished, IBM will give you:

or watch the videos below 1st ...

Why Watson and SPSS Are IBM’s Big Data Yin and Yang

The New Value Integrator ... Insight from the IBM global CFO study.

The 2010 IBM Global CFO Study – involving more than 1,900 CFOs and senior Finance leaders worldwide – provides the largest window into the CFO mindset during the worst economic downturn in decades. Surprisingly, cost reduction was not at the top of their agenda. Instead, CFOs ranked "providing inputs into enterprise strategy" as most important.

The study uncovered a select group of Finance organizations – called Value Integrators – that have found a way to excel. In every area of the Finance agenda, their effectiveness surpasses their peers. Not only are they better at helping their businesses navigate uncertainty and complexity, but on every financial measure assessed, their enterprises outperform.

To learn what distinguishes these Value Integrators – and how you can develop those same capabilities in your own organisation – Register and download the 2010 IBM Global CFO Study today. 

Watch the short video below for more information:

May 2011 Nucleus Technology Matrix puts IBM #1 in Analytics

The May 2011 Nucleus Technology Matrix puts IBM in the front for Functionality and Usability in the area of "Analytics".

They said ...

"Breadth of offering, application usability, and the ability to help organizations expand deployment scopes all make IBM Business Analytics a leader."

 "THE BOTTOM LINE - Organizations continue to invest in analytics in order to both improve productivity and enable better decision making.

The Technology Value Matrix evaluates vendors that have a global presence and provide functionality in the three core analytics areas: business intelligence (BI), performance management (PM), and predictive analytics."

Welcome to the next generation of Business Reporting

An excerpt from the white paper "Regulatory & Statutory Reporting Your XBRL 2.1 Guide" by: Matthew Hill, MD Cortell Australia, May, 2011

Demands for Reporting and the Method of Reporting is Evolving (and continues to do so!)

The importance for reliable reported data has never more been the focus of local regulatory authorities than now. The production of reliable and auditable results is increasingly becoming the focus of CEO, CFO, Tax, Risk and other leaders within corporations as they strive to better understand their business and provide the information required to the regulatory bodies in the most time efficient manner possible.

Recently, we have had the global financial credit crisis, which saw certain corporations' fall from grace due to misrepresentation, fraud and irregularities in their financial returns. As a result, authorities have introduced tighter controls with a focus to ensure organizations can, and do, report in a manner that is easier for the required regulatory organizations to evaluate, scrutinize, audit and ultimately take action when needed.

Welcome to the next generation of business reporting.

IFRS, GAAP, Basel II, Sarbanes Oxley, XBRL, Statutory Business Reporting (SBR) are to name a few such requirements that corporations are now required to meet. With increased obligations to submit returns there comes the inevitable overhead in the production of such information.

Greater focus is being placed on information technology to decrease the manual nature of such reporting. Executives are demanding greater insight, superior quality of information and flexibility from the people and tools available to them.

No longer do people want expensive resources using spreadsheets to collate and consolidate data for reporting purposes. They want those same individuals analyzing the data and providing value to the business and leveraging the systems to provide fast, accurate and auditable information.

Traditionally, corporations have addressed these problems by creating a stable of spreadsheet analysts, but while this may disguise the problem short term, it does not remove the problem, nor is this a reliable platform from which to complete their mandatory reporting obligations.

Corporate reporting systems house significant volumes of data that should be reused across other areas of the business. Often our own reporting systems are fragmented, isolated and a copy of the same or similar data stores used by other departments. It raises concerns over accuracy and validity of data and the logic behind multiple siloed reporting environments.

There is no reason why the same data being used to report to APRA, the ATO or ASIC cannot be captured and used within a single, centralized reporting environment for our own internal reporting process. We need to re use the data footprint across an organization in a more effective and consolidated manner. 

Featured on YouTube

Each month we will feature an IBM Cognos YouTube video that we picked out just for you :)

This month features Business Analytics Highlights from IBM's Information On Demand 2011 conference.

Drive innovation and business optimization with the best in technical and business education at IBM's Information On Demand conference!.

Click on the play button below:

Latest Business Analytics & Cortell news

• IBM Business Analytics Forum 2012 - Discounted early bird invitation
  
• Jude Prakash from John Danks won the iPad2 contest we ran to celebrate the launch of our new website.  Congrtulations Jude, and thank you to all who entered the contest.
• This month's featured White Paper ... "Transforming Performance Mangement" authored by PM expert Jeremy Hope.  A must read if you're keen to discover the six reasons why performance management systems so often fail to meet user expectations
• See what the Cortell team have been up to
  
• News streams from various Business Intelligence & Business Analytics news like InfoWorld, CIO Insight, Computer World ... in one place
• IBM Cognos BI Radio ... currently 33 episodes on topics like "Episode 23 - The Performance Culture"
• Latest press releases on IBM Cognos
• A technical news section on all IBM Cognos products and capabilities

Upcoming events relevant to your industry or subject matter

• We are seeking Expressions of Interest in attending Cortell's Customer Workshop Automated Financial Reporting (FSR) & Predictive Analytics (SPSS) in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. Click the Read More button below to learn how the workshop will add value to your business, and complete your Registration of Interest form online. 
• Featured Business Functional Area Events

You can outperform your competition.

IBM Cognos Business Analytics software helps your organization better understand, anticipate and shape business outcomes. You can achieve breakthrough results and out perform your competition.

Cortell Australia will engage your team with senior business consultants who will help you assess which capabilities within IBM Cognos' Business Analytics derive the most business value.

We offer an initial high level assessment followed by a customised demo and quotation.  We can also help you build your internal business case.

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