Yearly Archives: 2014

My Story on Why I’m Joining ClearStory Data

- - Big Data

Screen Shot 2014-11-03 at 2.01.41 PMWhile 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.

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The Intangible Benefits of Social Media

- - Social Media

Social Image

Toward the end of last year, I was named to Analytics Week’s list of the Top 200 thought leaders in big data and analytics.

Let’s put it in perspective–compared to the Justins (Bieber and Timberlake, with 50M followers each) or Bill Gates with over 15M followers, I’m a guppy on social channels. In fact at SAP, I barely make it to the Top 50 most followed employees. Still, it felt good to be recognized because I’ve invested a lot of time and effort in being an active contributor in social media over the last several years.

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Shared Services is a Key Investment Toward Becoming More Strategic

- - Business Strategy

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There is a lot of talk these days about how finance organizations can become more strategic by “partnering with the business”.  It’s the same everywhere, all over the world.  But, it looks different depending on where you sit in the world, and within your organization.

In APJ CFOs and finance organizations are also being asked to become more strategic, and businesses here are growing so fast that this is imperative.  One of the challenges is, they do not always have the technology and infrastructure to do all the tactical things finance has to do and also undertake more proactive, strategic initiatives and still do both things well.

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From terror to top of the heap: My Twitter journey

- - Social Media

Follow me on my Twitter Journey

Over the past three years, Twitter has become an indispensible selling tool for me. So, when I recently took on a new global sales role, I looked around to see what my new team was up to on Twitter. Not much. In fact, when we did a quick inventory of everyone’s Twitter presence, I landed at the top of the heap.

That surprised me. I only have about 2,900 followers, which seems like a small following to me relative to some of the people I admire and follow on Twitter. But, that’s enough of a following to make an impact on my effectiveness as a salesperson. And, it’s apparently enough to intimidate anyone who’s just starting out.

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The Strategic CFO: To be strategic, get specific

- - Business Strategy

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For as long as I’ve been working with and selling to finance professionals, there’s been a lot of talk about how finance can be more strategic.  CFOs in larger multi-national companies, or in more mature markets are already heading down this road. According to a Deloitte Finance Business Partner survey that was presented at a recent SAP event in Singapore, 91% of CFOs reported that they are looking to increase the time spent on finance business partner efforts – meaning they are actively looking for ways to partner with the business to be more strategic.

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