Category "Big Data"

My Story on Why I’m Joining ClearStory Data

Kurt J. Bilafer - November 4, 2014 - Big Data

While traveling the globe talking to customers about big data analytics for the past several years, one thing I’ve heard from Singapore to San Francisco is that businesses want solutions to analyze their ever-changing business problems quickly and effectively while minimizing IT engagement and costs.

With that in the back of my mind, something clicked when I came across Silicon Valley-based startup ClearStory Data. ClearStory has developed a cloud-based solution for big data discovery that lets businesses move many disparate data sources into the cloud, where they are harmonized, enriched with relevant third-party data and translated into stunning visual representations.

To start with big data, start small and use your “I”s

Kurt J. Bilafer - March 7, 2014 - Big Data, Business Intelligence, Predictive Analytics

To get started with big data analytics, think small. Pick one problem to solve, and build an analytics solution for it. What kind of problem? One that leverages your two I’s: impact and influence. Picking a project with the potential to have a big impact, and getting the right people talking about it is the best way to build an appetite for analytics.

I’ve seen this work myself, in the sales organization at SAP. We are very much a sales driven company, and we use our own solutions. We salespeople spend most of our day in our CRM, our customer relationship management solution, and we also used to spend a fair amount of time in Excel.

What the duck . . . ?

Kurt J. Bilafer - November 27, 2013 - Big Data, SAP

At SAP Insider in Singapore last year, we had a little fun with rubber ducks that turned into something of a meme for the conference. My keynote included a rubber duck and the social media lounge featured a flotilla of yellow rubber ducks floating in a glass tank.

Afterwards, I started to see rubber ducks cropping up at various SAP events all over the world, so at this year’s Singapore Insider event, the ducks were back in full force, prompting a few people around the globe to ask me for an explanation.