Back to the 3 things you need to make your organization data rich, information rich.

The first was personnel, and in a previous entry it was stated that such people probably already exist within your organization.

The second thing one needs is the software.

In order to understand why you might need different software than you already have, one has to examine the difference between reporting and analysis.

Simple reporting is a routine operation whereby a standard output has been defined and is executed on a regular basis and submitted to a manager/decision maker to determine if the operation under their perview is going according to expectations.

Very simple, very routine, very ordinary. The process produces a small amount of targetted information from the data on hand. This informaiton is designed to produce an effecient operation, as per a set of predefined standards.

This maintains the status quo, or at a minimum to improve the operation to an expected level.

Ho hum!

If you want your organization to expand you must go beyond the routine reporting and into the world of new information discovery. This is the world of the analyst. Data examined in a new way will produce new information, which begins the path to knowledge and wealth.

So what about the software.

Most organizations have a plethora of reporting software. There are probably an unending list of reports developed for the many parts of the organization.

What may be missing is the ability within the application to truly analyze the data.

The first level in this area is the spreadsheet. Modern spreadsheet tools include an enormous capability to summarize data in a wide variety of ways. Limited usually by the imagination of the user, rather than the app itself.

Within low volumes of data such apps are entirely appropriate, but to go beyond the realm of thousands of records, and into the realm of millions to billions of records, one needs better software.

This is the realm of the analytical engines, as opposed to the database engine. The latter is designed to control and modify masses of data, while the former is designed to examine it.

In this world I know of two superior products, that have been around since the early days of the mainframes and have continued to evolve over that time. Chances are that if you have heard of either, you know their power, and if you haven't heard of them, you shoud investigate.

If you want your organization to take the next step towards data rich, information rich, provide your personnel identified in the first step with either of these tools.

SPSS - www.spss.com
SAS - www.sas.com