Shows
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 62: Taking Technology Fandom to the Next LevelEpisode 62: Taking Technology Fandom to the Next Level
Guest: Christoph Hein
Most of us are ambivalent about the technology we use at work. Ideally, we don’t even want to think about it. We know that technology enables business operations to proceed at a speed and scale that would have been unthinkable just a generation ago. In fact, anytime our work-technology attracts attention to itself, it’s usually not for a good reason.
But sometimes a piece of technology gets a foothold somewhere and becomes the basis for a community of passionate fans whos...
2022-12-1429 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 61: ESG and Sustainability ReportingEpisode 61: ESG and Sustainability Reporting Primer
Guest: Bill Primerano
ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) and Sustainability Reporting requirements for businesses are well on their way to becoming unavoidable. For some companies it’s another example of costly government overreach that adds to the workloads of an already stretched workforce, while for others it’s an opportunity to drive efficiency, innovation, and long-term business success.
The goal of this episode of the AskQueBIT podcast is to break down the task of ESG and Sustainability Reporting using an Analytics lens, separating requirements definition from data wran...
2022-09-0126 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 60: Analytics Shorts: 3 StoriesEpisode 59: Analytics Shorts: 3 Stories
Guests: Tyler King, Deepak Kumar, A.G. Tan
This week we are showcasing three of QueBIT’s expert consultants: Tyler King, Deepak Kumar and A.G. Tan. They have so many great stores to tell, but very little spare time, so we came up with this idea of the three-minute-story. Tell us about a favorite project in about three minutes by recording it on your own phone, whenever you have a moment!
It’s a fun format, and you get to hear about a global convenience store company, a reta...
2022-07-2113 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 59: Breaking Down Silos between Finance and OperationsEpisode 59: Breaking Down Silos between Finance and Operations
Guest: Amyn Dhamani
Specialized functions – or “Silos” – evolve in companies for a very good reason. It’s simply more efficient to clearly partition all the work that needs to be done, so that everyone knows what is expected of them without having to spend a ton of time coordinating and communicating. Imagine a soccer team where no-one has a clear responsibility, and everyone is BOTH a striker and a defender: this team is unlikely to prevail against one of equivalent skill whose players adopt more traditional roles.
All g...
2022-07-0720 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 58: Whatever happened to IBM Watson?Episode 58: Whatever happened to IBM Watson?
Guest: Mike McGeein, IBM
In early 2011 a computer called Watson, developed by IBM, stunned the world by beating two of the all-time best human players of Jeopardy, a TV quiz show. To pull this off, Watson had to navigate vast amounts of unstructured knowledge, while also dealing with uncertainty, adding orders-of-magnitude complexity to the combinatoric problems solved by chess-playing computers of past generations.
Watson ushered in the dawn of the latest age of Artificial Intelligence (AI), well ahead of Apple Siri (Oct 2011) and Amazon Alexa (Nov 2014), and...
2022-05-1916 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 57: How to be a Transformative CFOEpisode 57: How to be a Transformative CFO
Guest: Brian Frohn
Large influential consultancies like McKinsey, Gartner and others have been talking for several years now about how the responsibilities of the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) are expanding to include their companies’ digital activities. This makes sense, since the Office of Finance is the most central of all functions in any business, and embracing digital technology is the only way for Finance to stay connected in an age when data volumes and velocities are exploding.
But just because it makes sense doesn’t mean that...
2022-04-1424 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 56: Predictive Planning for FinanceEpisode 56: Predictive Planning for Finance
Guest: Justin Croft
How can Artificial Intelligence (AI) help the Office of Finance? Since most of the AI use-cases in the media revolve around intelligent assistants (like Siri and Alexa), or self-driving cars, it can be hard for those of us who support businesses in quantitative functions – such as Finance – to see where AI is relevant to our jobs.
But Predictive Analytics is a sub-topic within the broader field of AI! Predictive Analytics – which encompasses familiar mathematics like linear regressions – is all about using the patterns of the past to...
2022-03-3123 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 55: A New Era for Procurement and SourcingEpisode 55: A New Era for Procurement and Sourcing
Guest: Bryan Baum/Anaplan
Procurement and Sourcing are critical functions, especially at companies whose prosperity depends on maintaining well-oiled supply chains. A job that requires diligence and attention to detail under normal circumstances, suddenly calls for quick decisions and agility, when times become volatile.
This week we have a fascinating conversation with Bryan Baum, an experienced Procurement and Sourcing manager, who now leads the Procurement, Sourcing and Supply Chain Solutions group at Anaplan, a vendor of connected planning software platforms.
Among other things...
2022-03-1719 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 54: Use KPIs to Make Integrated Planning EasyGuest: Deepak Kumar
As a company grows and needs to develop specialized functions such as “Sales”, “Operations” and “Finance”, keeping everyone coordinated and on the same page takes more and more concerted effort. Over time, this natural separation leads to separate systems, business processes and data sets, since different functions have varying technology-support needs. While an individual function’s technology investment can lead to day-jobs becoming easier in that function, there is a cost in terms of added complexity in the data and technology landscape, which makes it harder to get a holistic view of the business.
In this...
2021-12-2323 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 53: Connecting Supply Planning to DemandGuest: Bruna Garcia
In 2021 “Supply Chain” went from being an esoteric piece of business jargon, to being a household phrase. We will leave it to the popular press to fan the flames of public anxiety while lambasting industries plagued with Supply Chain problems. Instead, we will dig into how companies plan both demand and supply in order to manage their supply chains, and what challenges they need to overcome to produce and transport their goods in an efficient, timely and profitable manner.
Our guest this week is Bruna Garcia, who is a Solution Architect and Mast...
2021-12-0916 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 52: Allocations for the Insurance IndustryEpisode 52: Allocations for the Insurance Industry
Guest: Chris Willson
Isn’t profitability the same as revenue? Why does the difference matter?
If these questions sound boring, how about this one: How would you feel if you went out to an expensive dinner with your siblings and agreed ahead-of-time to split the check equally, but then one sibling orders (and consumes) twice as much as anyone else?
Shouldn’t they pay their “fair share”?
This comes up in business when there are multiple entities competing for resources. For example, product lines co...
2021-12-0228 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 51: Accelerating down the Home Stretch of xP&AEpisode 51: Accelerating down the Home Stretch of xP&A
Guest: Andy Weiss
Some of the most important beneficiaries of a good Planning & Analysis process are on the front lines of the business. These are the people in sales, operations and line management whose day jobs are emphatically not about planning and analysis, but about building relationships, serving customers and doing the business of the business. These people also need data to do the best jobs they can, but if it is not convenient and easy to get it, they will naturally yield to more pressing...
2021-09-3026 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 50: End-to-end Integrated Planning Processes at ChemturaEpisode 50: End-to-end Integrated Planning Processes at Chemtura
Guest: Jessica Quiles
Everyone is talking about Extended Planning and Analysis – or xP&A – these days. On paper, it is easy to appreciate the benefits of integrating planning across finance and operational functions, which include making it easier to get everyone working together towards consistent strategic goals, wasting less energy on reconciling stand-alone plans and forecasts, and increasing forecast accuracy by removing biases.
In reality xP&A is difficult. The challenges range from the political, to the practical. The three critical requirements are (1) developing a vision for wha...
2021-07-2924 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 49: The Importance of Data Strategy for xP&AEpisode 49: The Importance of Data Strategy for xP&A
Guest: Mike Burke
At which point does the “data” part of your planning project start to take center-stage? When you go beyond grabbing general ledger trial balances from a single data source, to wanting to truly mine more of your enterprise data for deeper insights, more accurate forecasting, and ultimately better business outcomes.
Everyone knows they have lots of data, but getting to it let alone putting it to work for you can be hard. Half the battle is recognizing the problem, and acknowledging that...
2021-07-0119 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 48: Hybrid Cloud for Planning, Reporting and AnalysisEpisode 48: Hybrid Cloud for Planning, Reporting and Analysis
Guest: Mike Cowie
It’s the summer of 2021 and IBM has been airing a series of TV commercials on something called “hybrid cloud”. One of them features racing driver Jamie Chadwick asking “why should your business go hybrid?”, and concluding “... so you can focus on, you know, winning!”.
As specialists in extended, integrated planning and analysis, QueBIT’s mission is to help our clients win by having the data, models and tools they need to plan with agility, and make better decisions faster. While the vision sounds si...
2021-06-2420 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 47: Why xP&A is Not Just Marketing HypeEpisode 47: Why xP&A is not just marketing hype
No guest
Extended Planning and Analysis – or xP&A – is having a moment right now. It is the latest piece of jargon being hyped up by analysts like Gartner (who coined it) and planning software vendors like Anaplan, IBM and Workday Adaptive. Even QueBIT is talking about it!
But is it JUST hype? In this week’s podcast episode, we explain why we believe it is more than mere hype, and represents a very real shift in how companies are rethinking their planning and report...
2021-06-0312 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 46: Taking the First StepEpisode 46: Taking the First Step
Guest: John Sterner
It’s interesting how human beings are used to planning journeys through life – like vacations, going to college, and retirement – but when it comes to buying technology, there can be a tendency to want everything at once.
Perhaps it is because there is “software program” involved? Perhaps software vendors have been too successful in invoking “magic” to overcome natural and healthy skepticism in order to satisfy their quarterly sales quotas? Or perhaps we buyers succumb to feeling intimidated by technology we don’t understand, and hesitate to ask...
2021-05-2024 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 45: Software Evaluation PrinciplesEpisode 45: Software Evaluation Principles
Guest: Christine Schoenen
There is so much technology being thrown at us each day that deciding which software tools to invest in is overwhelming. It’s one thing to take a chance on a free app on your phone, but a completely different thing to spend tens of thousands of dollars (or more!) on something like a software platform for analytics. This is where companies turn to trusted experts like QueBIT for guidance. But how do the experts know what to recommend? Don’t they face a similar problem?
In t...
2021-02-2517 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 44: The Sad Truth about DataEpisode 44: The Sad Truth about Data
No guest.
“Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration” is a famous quote attributed to Thomas Edison. The QueBIT version of this is “Successful analytics is one percent modeling and 99 percent data preparation”! When you are shopping for technology, just as when you are shopping for anything, it helps to be informed.
The goal of this week’s podcast is to share a foundational truth about every analytics project, whether it relates to financial or operational planning, or an enterprise reporting initiative.
2021-02-1811 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 43: 2020, The Year of AnalyticsEpisode 43: 2020, The Year of Analytics
No guest.
2020 was a difficult year on many fronts. It was also a year when companies needed to get more out of analytics technologies, to mitigate some of the challenges. Analytics evolved from being a “nice-to-have” to being an absolute necessity. Analytics helps you monitor what’s going on in your business and make data-driven predictions about the future.
2020 was also the year when QueBIT’s focus on extended planning and analysis (xP&A) as an analytics application area began to gain traction. xP&A plays to our strength...
2020-12-3106 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 42: Launching a Diversity and Inclusion ProgramEpisode 42: Launching a Diversity and Inclusion Program
Guests: Andrew Chavis, Dallas Crawford, Odile Davis-Wolfe & Gus Slaughter
In Episode 39 we talked about how companies that have inclusive cultures and embrace diversity also end up with real business advantages. These are a consequence of attracting the best talent, and then creating the conditions for that talent to meet their potential. Other positive impacts are increases in employee engagement, morale and loyalty. The “right thing” from an equity and justice point of view, turns out to be the right thing for business success as well.
Today’s Ask...
2020-12-1740 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 41: From “Spreadsheet Hell” to Better Decisions at EversourceEpisode 41: From “spreadsheet hell” to better decisions at Eversource
Guest: Fran Berger
As the largest utility in New England, Eversource has all the planning and reporting needs one would expect of a Fortune 500 company – and maybe more! Operating in a highly regulated and unionized industry while also a public company, not to mention occasional acquisitions and mergers, leads to some unique challenges.
According to Fran Berger who manages performance and financial systems at Eversource, the decision to invest in IBM’s Planning Analytics technology platform (then called TM1) thirteen years ago was prescient and far...
2020-12-1023 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 40: Why Master Data Management MattersEpisode 40: Why Master Data Management Matters
Guest: Clare Hutton
Our clients often ask us whether we “do” Master Data Management (MDM). It’s a good question because Master Data Management is important to DO, but answering the question can feel a bit like tip-toeing through a minefield. This is because the term “Master Data Management” means different things to different people. QueBIT’s answer may be “yes” or “no” depending on what you are thinking of.
This is why, when QueBIT launched its internal Guilds initiative in 2019 as a way to build community through having cross...
2020-12-0319 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 39: Diversity, Inclusion … and Transformative AnalyticsEpisode 39: Diversity, Inclusion … and Transformative Analytics
No guest
This episode was partly inspired by an article in the November-December 2020 issue of the Harvard Business Review titled “Getting Serious about Diversity: Enough Already with the Business Case”. The point of the article is that harnessing diversity to add value to your business is not just about hiring more women and black people to check a box, but about HOW willing you are to reshape your power structure to harness that diversity.
In QueBIT’s 20+ year history of delivering successful analytics-based projects to hundreds of companie...
2020-11-1912 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 38: You Can’t Have Agile Planning Without Building ModelsEpisode 38: You can’t have Agile Planning without Building Models
Guest: Richard Creeth
Most businesses rely on spreadsheets as a tool to inform, and to drive decision-making. Often these spreadsheets contain models where certain inputs drive calculations to produce outputs. Examples of common calculations include [Units] * [Price] or sales projections. Because spreadsheets are so ubiquitous, easy and (sometimes) FUN to build models in, they tend to proliferate across businesses, like weeds. This is where well-known limitations around controls, auditability, scalability, collaboration and accuracy begin to dilute the benefits of using them. And yet – a business cann...
2020-10-0138 min
Manufacturing Talk RadioSolving the Competitive Price Riddle with QueBITDallas Crawford, Advanced Analytics Executive wth QueBIT explains how manufacturers can tighten up on their pricing inputs to learn where the opportunities are to lower costs and compete better on price. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
2020-09-0833 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 37: Learning about SplunkEpisode 37: Learning about Splunk
Guest: Jim Miller
It’s not easy keeping up with technology but one of QueBIT’s Master Consultants, Jim Miller, has found a neat way to do it: he writes technology books in his free time! Jim’s latest book, which will be available at the end of the month, is called Mastering Splunk 8.
In this episode Jim gives us a short introduction to what Splunk is, illustrated with real-life examples of how to put it to use. Then he takes us through his process for producing a book starti...
2020-08-0715 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 36: Analytics Shorts: 3 StoriesEpisode 36: Analytics Shorts: 3 Stories
Guests: Christine Schoenen, Dan Viterise, Jim Miller
This week we are showcasing three of QueBIT’s expert consultants: Christine Schoenen, Dan Viterise and Jim Miller. They have so many great stores to tell, but very little spare time, so we came up with this idea of the three-minute-story. Tell us about a favorite project in about three minutes by recording it on your own phone, whenever you have a moment!
It’s a fun format, and you get to hear about a property mana...
2020-07-3013 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 35: Cash ForecastingGuest: Gary Quirke
What do “cash forecasting” and “looking out for bears” have in common? Both these activities have existential consequences. The damage a bear can cause is obviously terrifying to think of, but if your company runs out of cash and you lose your job as a result it can be quite frightening too.
A company with a good model-driven cash forecasting process can anticipate cash problems far enough in advance to take mitigation steps, for example to delay payments, renegotiate terms or cut costs.
If its cash forecasting process is sufficiently detailed...
2020-06-0429 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 34: The Hidden Heroes of Planning, Forecasting & AnalysisGuest: AG Tan
Planning, forecasting, reporting and analysis are core business activities served by analytics technology. Many companies are busily re-doing plans and forecasts in response to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, to figure out how to stay in business (when demand has plummeted) or how to maximize capacity (when demand has sky-rocketed). At the frontlines of all these efforts are financial analysts working in the corporate finance, treasury and operational planning functions. If they do a good job, better decisions are made, a company survives, jobs are saved, and the economic recovery is hastened.
This is...
2020-05-2816 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 33: Recommendations for Planning in a COVID-19 WorldGuests: Justin Croft and James Saronson
When there is so much going on around you that you can’t do anything about, it is helpful to reflect on the things you can control. If your job involves business planning and forecasting, it’s about becoming more comfortable with uncertainty. This can be done by exploring a range of possible scenarios ahead of time, so that you are prepared to act regardless of which scenario plays out.
There is nothing new in this concept: planners explore scenarios all the time.
But the COVID-19 pandemic has...
2020-05-0715 min
Roman Prokopchuk's Digital Savage ExperienceEp #165 Co-Founding and Growing A Company Through Almost 2 Decades Interview With Catherine Jirak COO & Principal QueBITI got to interview Catherine Jirak.
We spoke about:
Her journey before QueBIT
Founding QueBIT
QueBIT's how and why growth happened.
3 defining events that got QueBIT from a 2 person to a 100 person company.
The things the company had to overcome over the years.
What motivates her to succeed.
Weaknesses she turned into strenghts
Advice she has for the audience.
And much more.
Catherine is the Chief Operating Officer for the regional consulting offices, responsible for all of the company’s operations, including sales, service, and support. Catherine is co-partner of QueBIT Consulting and has been in th...
2020-05-0522 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 32: Embedding AI in FPA ReplayEpisode 32: Embedding AI in FPA Replay
Guest: AG Tan
This episode is a replay of an in-person keynote presentation delivered at IBM’s offices in New York City in November 2019. The purpose of the talk was to demystify the value of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for planning and forecasting use cases in extended Planning and Analysis (xP&A = integrated financial and operational planning and analysis), and to provide practical advice on what it takes to get started. We explained the relationship between AI, Machine Learning and Predictive Analytics, and went on to provide a checklist of co...
2020-04-2333 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 31: Analytics in Uncertain Times: COVID-19 editionEpisode 31: Analytics in Uncertain Times: COVID-19 edition
Guest: Gary Quirke
QueBIT has clients from all industries, that range in size from smaller and mid-sized businesses to giant global companies. Surveying our client base is like looking at a microcosm of business in general, and so in this week’s podcast episode, we speak with QueBIT CEO Gary Quirke about how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting our clients, and the ways in which analytics are helping them cope.
Uncertainty is always present in business, but the pandemic amplifies it. Analytics tools, when used well, he...
2020-04-0812 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 30: Analytics for Hospitality & Property ManagementEpisode 30: Analytics for Hospitality & Property Management
Guest: Walter Hugo Añez
Customer experience is a hot topic in every business these days, but in the hospitality industry it has always been paramount! When you walk in the doors of a hotel or a resort as a customer, your expectations are already sky-high. No one goes on an expensive vacation “hoping for the best” after all! Meeting these high expectations is the non-negotiable everyday reality of everyone in hospitality. How do they do it – and still make a profit?
In today’s podcast episode, Walter Hu...
2019-12-0531 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 29: Predictive Forecasting: Under the CoversEpisode 29: Predictive Forecasting: Under the Covers
Guest: Scott Mutchler
If you have ever worried that Predictive Forecasting as an application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning is more hype than reality, then this podcast episode is for you! There is a lot of superficial information being put out to sell us all a gleaming vision of an AI powered future, leaving us with a sense that magic must be involved!
In this episode, QueBIT’s Chief Data Scientist Scott Mutchler confirms that it is not magic, and then goes on to explain – in t...
2019-11-0725 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 28: The Challenge of Implementing Analytics on a Global ScaleEpisode 28: The Challenge of Implementing Analytics on a Global Scale
Guest: Dan Viterise
People, especially developers and other technologists like me, tend to view analytics projects through the lens of “the technical challenge”. Even if we know that activities like “requirements gathering” and “getting buy-in” are important, they may still be allocated less time and energy than activities related to system architecture, data wrangling and model building which appear – in the moment – to be the bigger challenges.
In this week’s podcast, Dan Viterise tells the story of a global luxury brand that had the reasonable...
2019-10-3119 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 27: Analytics in the Health Insurance IndustryEpisode 27: Analytics in the Health Insurance Industry
Guest: Ryan McKinney
If you heard that profit margins in the health insurance industry can be as low as 3%, would you be surprised? Much as consumers like to complain about health insurers, let’s also give them their due because they are in a difficult business!
In this week’s podcast, Ryan McKInney educates us on how the health insurance industry works. In the simplest terms, it’s about expanding membership, controlling medical costs and managing cash. Complexity comes from all the things that the insurer has li...
2019-10-2531 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 26: Trusting the AI Forecast in FinanceEpisode 26: Trusting the AI Forecast in Finance
Guest: Allen Hudson
Many companies are looking for a way to transcend the limitations of Excel for financial and operational planning, reporting and analysis. They need something that will enable them to securely centralize their data and models (so that both numbers and calculations are managed in just one place), collaborate easily, all while still retaining the flexibility to adjust in response to changing business conditions and organizational structures.
Moving away from Excel to a planning software platform is just the first step, but it is...
2019-10-1622 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 25: IBM Cognos Analytics – a New Paradigm for Business IntelligenceEpisode 25: IBM Cognos Analytics – a New Paradigm for Business Intelligence
Guest: Gus Slaughter
Back in the early 2000s Cognos was the leader in enterprise business intelligence (BI) platforms. In July 2008 Forrester Research recognized Cognos Business Intelligence as the most modern and scalable BI platform on the market. Cognos BI brought “pixel perfect” push and pull reporting to the enterprise on a robust platform that ensured data security and responsiveness, even with large numbers of users.
Valuable as this is, businesses today crave ever-increasing levels of agility, and the old model of IT-maintained and admini...
2019-09-2628 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 24: Planning for Change ManagementEpisode 24: Planning for Change Management
Guest: Brian Moore
Regardless of whether you like or dislike change, the best way to manage it is to assume there will be disruption! When change comes to a business in the form of a new software solution, we sometimes forget the disruption part because (by definition) a new software solution will be “better” and “make life easier”. If that were not the expectation, we would not be spending the money!
When our guest, VP of Consulting Services Brian Moore, leads a project to implement a new financial analytic...
2019-09-1917 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 23: Predictive Price OptimizationEpisode 23 - Predictive Price Optimization
Guest: James Saronson
How to price your product or service is a fundamental question in any business. If you price too high, you may sell less than you might, and if you price too low you may earn less than you might. Either of these scenarios can affect profit margins. To further complicate matters, the “right” answer – or optimal price - may vary depending on where you are selling, and what the business objectives are. For example, if you are launching a product in a new geography and trying to break...
2019-09-1224 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 22: A Practical Approach to Innovation in AnalyticsEpisode 22: A Practical Approach to Innovation in Analytics
Guest: Andreas Kugelmeier, IBM
Innovation is much easier to talk about than to do in practice. Challenges include getting buy-in from groups you depend on but have little leverage over, and resisting the urge to go for a BIG vision. In this episode, Andreas Kugelmeier from the IBM Data and AI Labs, talks about the concept of a Business Analytics Innovation Loop as a practical, low-risk and high-reward approach to effecting innovation. The concept has strong parallels with the notion of agile software development, in which progress...
2019-09-0627 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 21: Everything you always wanted to know about TestingEpisode 21: Everything you always wanted to know about Testing
Guest: Jim Brinnen
When implementing a new analytics system, testing is sometimes treated as a “nice-to-have” rather than a core requirement. While no one says up-front that testing is a low priority, it is not unusual for there to be inadequate dollars, time and planning set aside for testing. While this is true for any software application implementation, it may be particularly true in analytics because analytics projects are often initiated and owned by the Line of Business, rather than IT. This is a good thing beca...
2019-08-2933 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 20: Data VirtualizationEpisode 20: Data Virtualization
Guest: Keith Hollen
Data Virtualization technologies can be used in a number of different ways, including real-time operational reporting and analytics against multiple source systems, and quick-and-dirty data exploration! As business users increasingly expect to have direct access to data for self-service analytics, data virtualization can be an effective way to make that possible.
In this episode, QueBIT Data Expert Keith Hollen explains what data virtualization is, and how it fits into the pantheon of data management tools and strategies. While not a replacement for a true data warehouse, it...
2019-07-2517 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 19: Lean Demand ForecastingEpisode 19: Lean Demand Forecasting
Guest: Dan Barrett
Dan Barrett, QueBIT’s Advanced Analytics Technical Sales Manager, claims that MOST companies waste far too much time on demand forecasting!
Considering how crucial an accurate demand forecast is to planning your supply chain, this is a bold statement. Keep in mind that Dan is NOT saying that you don’t need a demand forecast: of course you do! The problem he wants to address is accuracy, and his point is that more people spending more time on it does not typically result in a commensurate incr...
2019-07-0531 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 18: The Evolution of Business IntelligenceEpisode 18: The Evolution of Business Intelligence
Guest: Robin Wilkinson
It turns out that Business Intelligence (BI), as a concept, has been around since 1865! Back then it was a manual paper and pencil process, but it still enabled one business to prevail over its competitors by making better data driven decisions. Today we are dealing with massive amounts of data, technology has evolved tremendously, and people have evolved too!
In this episode Robin Wilkinson, who is the General Manager of QueBIT’s Business Intelligence and Data Management practice, gives us a BI history lesson an...
2019-06-2723 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 17: Analytics for Retail BuyersEpisode 17: Analytics for Retail Buyers
Guest: Jim Hanifin
As on-line shopping becomes the norm, the traditional retail industry is going through a lot of adjustments. Employing analytics technology to increase operational efficiency and make better decisions faster is an obvious avenue to take.
In this episode we speak with Jim Hanifin who recounts the journey at a retail customer he worked with recently. We go into detail about how their retail buyers transitioned from a weekly paper-based analysis and planning system, to an on-line dashboard that put the data at their fingertips in...
2019-06-2125 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 16: How to become an Analytics ExpertEpisode 16: How to become an Analytics Expert
Guests: Daniel Williams, Odile Davis Wolfe, Pete Horgan
QueBIT has grown by cross-training business and finance people in analytics technology, and by cross-training engineers and computer scientists in business and finance. Meanwhile analytics experts such as data scientists are at a premium in the marketplace, and many finance and business leaders are recognizing the need for their business and financial analysts to develop more technical skills, so as to be able to service growing demands for data and insights in support of better decision making! Specifically, there is...
2019-06-1434 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 15: A Financial Consolidation is an Analytics Project!Episode 15: A Financial Consolidation is an Analytics project!
Financial Analytics is an important branch of the field of Analytics. It involves data management, modeling and reporting. A Financial Consolidation system is a Financial Analytics project that brings together data from one or more ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system together with a financial model with the purpose of producing consolidated financial reports. Not only are these obligatory for regulatory reporting, but they can also be a strategic asset. Shorter month-end closing cycles, coupled with detailed product/segment/regional/entity/etc reporting made available quickly, to front line managers...
2019-05-2319 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 14: Nerding out on FP&A!Episode 14: Nerding out on FP&A!
Guest: Beth Thomas
The Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) function is the original analytics function within any organization. The Profit & Loss (P&L), Balance Sheet and other financial statements tell the story of the business. When they are correct, timely, and reach the right audience, they are invaluable for identifying problems and driving informed decision-making.
This week, Beth Thomas who is the General Manager of QueBIT’s Financial and Operational Performance Management business, and a former Manager of FP&A herself, shares her insights and experiences. She ta...
2019-05-1618 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 13: The Evolution of Analytics SolutionsEpisode 13: The Evolution of Analytics Solutions
Guest: Gary Corrigan
15 years ago, when Gary Corrigan first sold analytics technologies, customers were looking for technology platforms. Today the landscape has changed, and customers are now looking for solutions to their specific business problems. That’s a significant change! It’s as though customers have gone from wanting to buy a truckload of bricks to shopping for ready-built houses – and Gary has had a front row seat!
In this week’s podcast conversation, Gary articulates very clearly what the value of analytics technologies are to businesses, and how...
2019-05-1019 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 12: My Bank FIRED me as their customer!Episode 12: My Bank FIRED me as their customer!
A few years ago, A.G. – who lives in the United States - received a letter from her bank in Denmark telling her that their relationship would be terminated. A.G. still had several thousand dollars deposited in a checking account as well as an investment account. This personal story leads into a discussion of profitability modeling and allocations in general, and customer profitability modeling – especially in the context of financial institutions – specifically. Profitability models are a very interesting Analytics use case for several reasons. They are valuable as they c...
2019-05-0222 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 11: Surprise! Analytics isn’t about Changing your Business!Episode 11: Surprise! Analytics Isn’t About Changing Your Business!
Guest: Joel Kehm
Analytics is NOT about changing your business: it’s about running your business better! If your business is about manufacturing widgets to sell, your intention with analytics is probably not going to be to close down your factories and do something else. The value of analytics lies in improving the quality of what you do. It sounds obvious, but you can’t fix a problem that you don’t know exists, can you? Analytics is all about organizing your data, and presenting it back to...
2019-04-2517 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 10: Implementing Predictive Demand Planning at a Paper ManufacturerEpisode 10: Implementing Predictive Demand Planning at a Paper Manufacturer
Guest: Tim Corrigan
Predictive Demand Planning is the classic application of Advanced Analytics. The idea is that historical actual data (how much of product X did you sell in region Y during time Z?), potentially combined with relevant external data (weather, demographics, economic indicators), can be used to forecast demand at a level of granular detail and accuracy beyond what can be done manually, using statistical techniques.
In this episode, QueBIT’s Director of Strategy and Process Improvement Tim Corrigan recounts his experiences implementing a...
2019-04-1826 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 9: Using APIs to Customize your Analytics Solutions Episode 9: Using APIs to Customize your Analytics Solutions
Guest: Mike Cowie
At QueBIT our purpose is to help companies make better decisions faster. Everything starts with data, which is used to understand the past, ACT in the present, and anticipate the future. Simple as that! For the most part, as consultants, we deliver analytics solutions using technology platforms created by other companies. But from time to time, that is not enough.
In this week’s episode Mike Cowie, QueBIT’s Director of Strategic Solutions, explains what an API is, how they have evolved and gi...
2019-04-1127 min
Roman Prokopchuk's Digital Savage ExperienceEp #71 Interview With James D. Miller Author & QueBIT Consulting Master Consultant - Roman Prokopchuk's Digital Savage Experience PodcastJames D. Miller is an innovator and accomplished Sr. Project Lead & Solution Architect with 37 yrs. of extensive design and development experience across multiple platforms and technologies.
His roles include leveraging his consulting experience to provide hands-on leadership in all phases of advanced analytics and related technology projects, providing and delivering recommendations for process improvement, report accuracy, adoption of disruptive technologies, enablement and insight identification. He currently is a Master Consultant at QueBIT Consulting. He will be hosting a webinar in May, Webinar: Facial expression classification solution using IBM Watson Studio .
His literary works include:
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2019-04-1116 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 8: Turning the Office of Finance into a Center for Data AnalyticsEpisode 8: Turning the Office of Finance into a Center for Data Analytics
Guest: Cathy Jirak
When Cathy Jirak and Gary Quirke founded QueBIT about 20 years ago, they were really just looking for a way to get their lives back! They enjoyed being consultants implementing financial planning, analysis and reporting solutions but found that there was a downside to success: 80 hour work weeks!
In this episode Cathy talks about why QueBIT was founded and how they were able to grow the company without sacrificing quality. As businesses are under ever more pressure to be...
2019-04-0411 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 7: Biotechnology Financial Modeling Case StudyEpisode 7: Biotechnology Financial Modeling Case Study
Guest: Lance Antwine
Lance Antwine, CPA and Implementation Manager at QueBIT, has had a long and successful career in finance and technology. In this episode Lance talks about a series of fascinating financial planning models he helped develop at a biotechnology firm. He describes how he worked with different groups to create a fully integrated financial model, starting with a fascinating research costing model (built up from the constituent molecules!), and flowing through to a strategic business plan and a full financial plan incorporating the income statement, balance sheet a...
2019-03-2824 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 6: So you want to use Advanced Analytics to boost ROI? Here’s how.Episode 6: So you want to use Advanced Analytics to boost ROI? Here’s how.
Guest: Lee Allgood
Before he came to QueBIT, Lee Allgood used to work at a large manufacturing company whose customers were retailers. In this episode, Lee talks about his experience implementing an advanced analytics solution at that company to optimize the placement of product samples at retail stores. Product samples were a large expense for this company, second only to salary expense. Optimizing the placement of samples both saved money and maximized revenue leading to greater ROI. The practical advice on how...
2019-03-2222 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 5: How to Shop for an Analytics SolutionGuest: Leo Cohen
Leo Cohen began his professional career as a financial analyst in a very large corporation and has intimate first-hand knowledge of financial analytics including financial reporting, planning, forecasting and analysis. Today, as QueBIT’s NY Metro Sales Executive, he taps into those early experiences to empathize with his customers from the other side, and help them find ways to win back time to do better analyses. Besides telling some entertaining stories about his experiences in the analytics field, Leo finishes up by sharing solid, practical and valuable advice for any company in the market to...
2019-03-1325 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 4: IBM Watson in Real LifeGuest: Jim Miller
QueBIT Master Consultant Jim Miller has an unusual hobby: he researches and writes books about technology! Jim has written successful books on a variety of topics, but today we are going to talk about his series of books on IBM Watson, the most recent of which is called “Machine Learning with IBM Watson Studio”. In our conversation with Jim, we ask him to explain the various tools behind the IBM Watson brand, and then go on to talk about real-world business use-cases for Watson Studio. We wrap up by talking about how ANYONE can get...
2019-03-0512 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 3: A Practical Approach to Predictive AnalyticsGuest: Dallas Crawford Predictive (and other Advanced) Analytics capabilities are often presented in a way that is daunting to the ordinary business person. Meanwhile the demand for people with data science skills is sky-rocketing, and there is anxiety about the opportunity cost of not leveraging these exciting new technologies. In this week’s conversation, we bring this seemingly abstract world down to earth, with a series of real-life examples that illustrate the value – and importance – of looking at these technologies. It turns out that once you focus on the business problem that you are trying to solve – which in QueBIT’s opinion...
2019-02-2318 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 2: Predictive Analytics for Finance: 101 - Ask QueBIT About Analytics PodcastGuests: Gary Quirke
Long before becoming a founder of QueBIT Consulting, Gary Quirke was a Chartered Accountant and financial analyst. That experience informed QueBIT’s original mission of using technology to improve financial reporting, planning processes both qualitatively (better, more accurate plans) and quantitatively (complete plans quicker, with less effort). In this week’s episode, we talk about new opportunities to extend this trend using predictive analytics technologies which are becoming more and more accessible and mainstream. The conversation concludes with useful advice on how any finance department can get started along this path.
2019-02-0817 min
Ask QueBIT About AnalyticsEpisode 1: Why Embed Analytics in Everyday Business Processes? - AskQueBIT About AnalyticsGuests: Gary Quirke (CEO and Co-Founder of QueBIT) & Dallas Crawford (General Manager, Advanced Analytics, QueBIT) QueBIT has made it its mission to help companies embed analytics – including financial and predictive analytics – into everyday business processes. In this first episode, we explain what we mean by “analytics” and talk about the business benefits of deploying analytics technologies. Gary and Dallas share concepts, but illustrate them with real-world examples. The conversation then goes on to explain the value of embedding analytics in everyday business processes, and share practical tips on how to avoid the common pitfalls.
2019-02-0719 min
Roman Prokopchuk's Digital Savage ExperienceEp #9 Company Culture Good&Bad - Roman Prokopchuk's Digital Savage ExperienceEvery company talks about that culture and that they are family, but what does that actually mean. I'm convinced that many companies are smoke and mirrors, and like to call themselves a family without ever addressing their issues. I analyze companies doing it right like QueBIT consulting and some that have fallen from graces like LoveSAC l, but they don't even know it yet. People make you and people break you. Keep your people happy, appreciate their contributions, and maybe they in term will become a family. Roman Prokopchuk the Digital Savage out.
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2018-01-3015 min