BOSTON, MA--(Marketwire - November 11, 2008) - In the newly released benchmark report,
"Business Intelligence for the Small to Medium Sized Business (SMB):
Analytics Moves Down Market," Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company (
NYSE:
HHS), found that 58% of Best-in-Class SMBs were able to reduce their
"time-to-information" to a real-time or near real-time basis through
deploying Business Intelligence (BI) solutions. This study collected data
from nearly 650 end-user organizations in the SMB space (defined as any
organization with annual revenues below US$500m) and found that these
companies have an increasing focus on better managing their data, deploying
a BI solution that best fits their organization, and managing the up-front
and ongoing costs of BI, in order to improve the speed and quality of their
decisions. To obtain a complimentary copy of the report, visit:
http://www.aberdeen.com/link/sponsor.asp?cid=5463.
As the speed of business escalates, staying competitive is closely tied to
an organization's ability to make timely decisions based on often imperfect
information. BI solutions, while bolstering both the quality of
information and speed of access to that information, were historically
reserved for the more resource laden companies. Prior Aberdeen research
bolsters this notion in revealing that SMBs were, perhaps not surprisingly,
considerably slower to adopt BI as compared to their enterprise
counterparts. As the options for deployment have widened, smaller
organizations are now seeing the benefit that BI can provide and are taking
measures to better understand their data so as to gain improved visibility
into the operation metrics most important to them. By developing a
holistic strategy for BI -- including measures to clean and manage their
data, selecting the most appropriate BI deployment option, and managing the
total cost of ownership (TCO) of BI solutions, Best-in-Class SMBs have
achieved major operational enhancements in their organization.
"In the SMB space, the ability to drive value from a tool such as Business
Intelligence is heavily dependent upon company culture. The organization
needs to understand its data, how it can be transformed to support better
decision making, and who within the organization can benefit the most its
analysis," explains Michael Lock, Senior Research Associate for Business
Intelligence at Aberdeen Group. "Time and time again, the data shows that
Best-in-Class SMBs consistently understand their end-user requirements for
BI and have established an 'information culture' that enables the
permeation of BI capability throughout the organization."
The report is aimed at educating the end-user SMB community as to how
Best-in-Class organizations are building a strong portfolio of
organizational capability and leveraging a suite of technology enablers to
bring about marked improvements in employee productivity and information
availability. The report recommends clear actions for Industry Average and
Laggard SMBs to achieve these types of performance improvements and draw
closer to the Best-in-Class.
A complimentary copy of this report is made available due in part by the
following underwriters: Birst, Business Objects, Cognos, Dimensional
Insight, Emanio, and Talend. To obtain a complimentary copy of the report,
visit:
http://www.aberdeen.com/link/sponsor.asp?cid=5463.
For additional access to complimentary Information Technology Research,
please visit
http://research.aberdeen.com/index.php/Information-Technology/.
About Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company
Aberdeen is a leading provider of fact-based research and market
intelligence that delivers demonstrable results. Having benchmarked more
than 30,000 companies in the past two years, Aberdeen is uniquely
positioned to educate users to action: driving market awareness, creating
demand, enabling sales, and delivering meaningful return-on-investment
analysis. As the trusted advisor to the global technology markets,
corporations turn to Aberdeen™ for insights that drive decisions.
As a Harte-Hanks Company, Aberdeen plays a key role of putting content in
context for the global direct and targeted marketing company. Aberdeen's
analytical and independent view of the "customer optimization" process of
Harte-Hanks (Information - Opportunity - Insight - Engagement -
Interaction) extends the client value and accentuates the strategic role
Harte-Hanks brings to the market. For additional information, visit
Aberdeen
http://www.aberdeen.com or call (617) 723-7890, or to learn more
about Harte-Hanks, call (800) 456-9748 or go to
http://www.harte-hanks.com.
© 2008 Aberdeen Group, Inc., a Harte-Hanks Company
451 D Street, Suite 710
Boston, Massachusetts 02210-1928
Telephone: (617) 854-5200
Fax: (617) 723-7897
www.aberdeen.com
Contact Information: Media Contact:
Michael Lock
Aberdeen Harte-Hanks
(617) 854-5365
michael.lock@aberdeen.com