00:37 – Introducing today’s guest, Anjum Sadaqat, who shares his background in finance and the decision to start a business intelligence solutions company 08:02 – Anjum breaks down best practices for approaching B.I. solutions, including the varied yet necessary roles of finance, marketing and sales 18:09 – Anjum speaks to some of the visual B.I. application solutions his organization has worked on24:11 – Anjum discusses a project his organization is working on with the International Humanitarian City in Dubai 30:16 – The importance of having a gesture-driven mobile platform in the world of B.I. visualization 38:37 – Anjum speculates on the future of B.I. EPISODE QUOTES“One of my biggest frustrations throughout my career was that I couldn’t get the right data in the hands of the right people at the right time.” (02:04)  “I think any project in B.I. that is owned and run by the business has about a 90-100 percent chance of success.” (07:38)  “In this digital age everything’s gotta be mobile. If you’re not mobile first, people don’t want to use it.” (12:50)  “I didn’t know that Dubai was one of the largest hubs for humanitarian aid until I got into the project. And I’ve been living in Dubai the past fifteen years.” (25:10)  “We almost underestimate our potential customers or the users of B.I. I think they’re very open to being flexible, as long as there is a solution that allows them to play with things and be able to get things.” (33:54)  “I don’t think users are gonna take over our jobs. And I don’t think technology is going to eradicate us either.” (42:22) LINKS MENTIONEDLimitless BI WebsiteAnjum’s LinkedInInternational Humanitarian City Website

Limitless BI

S2E6 - Visual B.I. Application Solutions with Anjum Sadaqat

00:37 – Introducing today’s guest, Heather Hill, who shares her background in business intelligence, highlights from her career and how she has advocated for more women in B.I. 05:33 – Heather speaks to the impact that Covid-19 has had on her personally and from a business perspective 07:51 – Heather shares her opinions on big data, the vital role it will continue to play in our future and best practices for managing and governing our data 13:05 – Heather discusses the challenges organizations face when it comes to ownership of data 16:05 – Challenges Heather has faced when moving her repository data to the cloud and how to overcome these obstacles 19:21 – Heather speculates on the prospect of doing good B.I. against unstructured data 23:44 – Heather speculates on the future of B.I. and expounds on the importance of user adoption EPISODE QUOTES“We’re still on a journey to get to the place where we can elevate our data to action.” (08:59)  “The biggest challenge is the hybrid environment. You can move your repository, your data warehouse, up to the cloud. But probably not every component of that architecture is cloud-enabled.” (16:21)  “If the journey of B.I. is to move away from a technology-focused user to a business user, then it’s hard for that user base to do B.I. on that unstructured data. I don’t think the tools are easy enough yet for the audience that we’re trying to get to.” (19:46)  “I think data storytelling is a new, hot topic of really having the folks who are telling a story with the data, rather than you having to go drive to the answers and really elevating that message to more actionable insights and actionable analytics.” (24:04)  “I think data governance is becoming more and more important as people are struggling.” (26:17)LINKS MENTIONEDLimitless BI WebsiteHeather’s LinkedIn

S2E5 - Big, Bad Data: How B.I. Is Adapting to Overcome Challenges Posed by Unstructured Data with Heather Hill

00:37 – Introducing today’s guest, Harvey Smith, who speaks to his background in information technology and business intelligence 05:38 – Harvey expounds on the work he’s done at Holman Strategic Ventures, including their latest app, LYNKD and their shared vehicle subscription concept, Flexdrive 17:24 – Harvey speaks to the resounding impact that Covid-19 has had on his organization and their clients’ businesses 21:13 – Harvey’s thoughts on how the shift towards a gig economy is impacting business intelligence 24:37 – The work Harvey has done with predictive and artificial intelligence (A.I.) solutions 30:01 – The process of hiring talented developers, programmers and other subject matter experts 32:48 – Harvey speculates on what the future of B.I. applications will look like EPISODE QUOTES“Basically we [Holman Strategic Ventures] build products and we look for opportunities adjacent to the core. And that’s been our mission for the last three years.” (06:37)  “Imagine that you don’t want to lease, you don’t want to buy a vehicle. You just need a vehicle just for a certain amount of time and you don’t want to rent a vehicle. You could actually subscribe to a vehicle for the type of use you wanted.” (12:25)  “Particularly, when you look at the FedExs, the Amazons of this world, they’re part of a gig economy. And those vehicles have to be up. If that vehicle’s down, then packages aren’t being delivered on time.” (16:37)  “When you’ve got people doing work for you remote – whether it’s Lyft drivers, snow plow drivers, lawn care, housesitting – it’s crucial to have the data to give you the comfort that it’s being managed correctly. It truly is management by metrics now.” (22:02)  “It’s also critical that you understand and bring some real world experience to the data because you can make data fit any story that you want.” (28:02) LINKS MENTIONEDLimitless BI WebsiteLink to LYNKD AppHarvey’s LinkedIn

S2E4 - Adapting to a Gig Economy and What That Means for B.I. with Harvey Smith

00:37 – Introducing today’s guest, Donald MacCormick, who speaks to his background in business intelligence and highlights from his illustrious career 07:10 – Donald breaks down the cycle of business intelligence, technology and IT 12:47 – Donald speaks to why self-service B.I. means different things to different people 17:13 – Acquisitions in the B.I. industry 19:50 – Donald speculates on the future of B.I. 24:29 – Why Excel remains so pervasive and popular 30:19 – Donald provides his thoughts on enterprise reporting systems and the numerous other ways B.I. can be utilized 39:31 – Donald gives his opinion on Covid-19 and the future impact it may have on our world EPISODE QUOTES“The sad thing is that we have gone through at least three cycles and we’ve just delivered slightly better capability to the same people over and over and over again.” (10:00)“That’s what business intelligence is like. It’s a supply chain that gets the right thing to the right people.” (16:16)“Technology has moved on, but actually in the last thirty years, has B.I. really changed that much? And, will it change in the next five? I don’t know, but I could take a guess.” (19:36)“I characterize it [Excel’s popularity] as the three ‘F’s: it’s familiar, it’s flexible and it’s free.” (24:52) “If an enterprise reporting system is something that end users can quickly and easily access the data they need then it’s good.” (30:51)“It’s a time of change. And if you can spot how your business fits into that change, then you can thrive.” (41:03) LINKS MENTIONEDLimitless BI WebsiteDonald’s LinkedIn

S2E3 - A Time of Change: How B.I. Has Evolved Throughout the Years with Donald MacCormick

00:42 – Introducing today’s guest, Jefferson Lynch, who speaks to his background in business intelligence and some of the projects he’s been working on with predictive A.I.08:40 – Trends Jefferson has observed in predictive A.I. and where he sees A.I. fitting into the business intelligence equation 18:38 – Jefferson makes the case for utilizing intelligence automation over artificial intelligence and provides specific examples 21:45 – Where Jefferson sees B.I. going in the next five years 24:58 – Jefferson speaks to the impact Covid-19 has had on his company and how they have pivoted in these difficult economic times EPISODE QUOTES“I think what we’re starting to see is there’s a common way to go about tackling that kind of problem. And I think what’s left to happen is these more defined problems likely get encapsulated into the likes of a B.I. tool and to allow someone who isn’t necessarily an expert predictive modeler to adjust and set up that problem in that particular company.” (14:32)  “A little anecdote if I could, there was someone who is the head of quite a large hedge fund who said to me, ‘What we’re aiming to be is more Iron Man than Terminator.’ What he was getting at is that actually to be really augmented, and enabled, and helped, but still to be wholly human as well, was his aspiration for them as a company.” (16:09)“Lots of organizations have been taking advice on what their information and B.I. strategy should be. And, I think the general move continues to be towards the act of self-service.” (22:09)“I think a potential benefit for its longer term, if this [Covid-19] all carries on, is I think maybe we’ve had a limiting belief, in a way, in that thinking we had to meet physically with an organization that we haven’t perhaps gone after businesses in other countries.” (28:41)LINKS MENTIONEDLimitless BI WebsiteJefferson’s LinkedIn

S2E2 - Predictive Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) with Jefferson Lynch

00:42 – Introducing today’s guest, Kate Wright, who speaks to her background in business intelligence and how Covid-19 has transformed her work with SAP Analytics Cloud 08:44 – Kate shares SAP’s vision for business intelligence and the future of the intelligence enterprise 13:09 – Kate explains SAP’s aggressive strategy in business intelligence, specifically developing a cloud-based analytics platform 16:27 – Trends and changes Kate has observed in business intelligence 19:11 – Kate provides her thoughts on the role of IT in augmented B.I., the emergence of predictive A.I. and where she sees B.I. going in the next five years 24:29 – Kate looks back on what SAP could have done differently with their business intelligence strategy and what the future of augmented B.I. holds EPISODE QUOTES“Most of my career has been spent on business intelligence, and the last few years I’ve been focusing on SAP Analytics Cloud.” (02:36)“The reason that SAP is focused on our message of the intelligence enterprise is because we believe – and I personally believe – that the future of enterprise applications has to be more intelligent than it is today.” (09:18)“And when they think about analytics and they think about B.I., we want them to also start thinking about simulating, and forecasting, and correlations, and classifications. Because everyone is going to need B.I. The bread and butter is not changing anytime soon, but let’s start allowing people to do more. And that’s a big part of what we’re doing.” (11:59)  “When I have dialogues with a CFO or a CRO – no matter what line of business you’re in – the need for information and the need to really understand what you can change, how you can change it, and have that transparency is top of their mind. And they are genuinely curious.” (18:05)“I think our [SAP’s] strategy to double down on cloud, invest heavy in augmented analytics, bring those analytics domains together, continue to evolve the business intelligence platform, those have all been the right decisions. I just wish we had done that with a larger dialogue and a larger connection with some of our business objects customer community.” (25:28)LINKS MENTIONEDLimitless BI WebsiteKate’s LinkedIn

S2E1 - Augmented Analytics & Business Objects with Kate Wright

Podcast Production & Marketing by FullCast

Season 2 Preview

01:12 – Introducing today’s guest, Chris Sinkwitz 01:35 – Chris’ background in the home building industry 04:31 – What business intelligence means to Chris 05:39 – Unique challenges that the home building industry faces 07:35 – Utilizing B.I. for land acquisition 09:44 – Chris discusses the fallout from the housing crisis of 200812:45 – The role B.I. played in helping the home building industry recover from the housing crisis 15:23 – How Chris’ organization is utilizing B.I. 17:09 – Lessons learned from the 2008 financial crisis 18:50 – Chris speaks to how the housing industry is better prepared today as opposed to 200820:14 – Chris talks about the successful marketing B.I. dashboard solution he oversaw 23:50 – Interesting takeaways from this dashboard solution 25:34 – Other B.I. solutions Chris has collaborated on 29:12 – How the usage of B.I. has changed in the home building industry over the past five years 31:53 – Chris discusses starting his own business 33:42 – New B.I. initiatives that Chris is focusing on currentlyEPISODE QUOTES“Business intelligence is looking at data holistically and comprehensively. And, it allows you to prove correlation versus causation, use your data as strategic competitive advantage, even find answers to questions you didn’t even know you had.” (04:42)“The firm I was working at we had roughly 2,500 employees at the top of the market. And the housing crisis, when that hit, within several months we went down to 750 employees give or take.” (10:27)“In putting that marketing dashboard together, they were able to see real time how these leads were coming in.” (21:42)“I think there’s a lot of examples [of business intelligence] that we can go through and look at how this has helped the industry and certain firms are actually taking advantage of it.” (28:53)LINKS MENTIONEDLimitless BI WebsiteChris’ LinkedIn

006 - Home Building with Business Intelligence Initiatives with Chris Sinkwitz

00:59 – Introducing today’s guest, Leslie Warden 01:36 – The moment Leslie knew she wanted to become an Egyptologist 04:03 – Leslie speaks to some of the excavations she’s participated in 08:21 – A non-glamorized look at archeology 10:53 – The primary goal of archeologists 12:26 – How archeologists piece together the past from broken objects 15:32 – Collecting, documenting and analyzing data 18:57 – The incredibly vast amount of data that Leslie and her colleagues collect 20:39 – How business intelligence can help in the collection, classification, and analysis of this data 22:34 – Challenges Leslie has faced incorporating business intelligence into her excavations 30:18 – Modifying the business intelligence dashboard to include classification and input functions 33:32 – Other benefits Leslie has experienced with the dashboard 35:27 – Leslie speaks to the reaction other specialists have had to the dashboard 38:19 – Next steps for Leslie’s use of business intelligence in archaeology EPISODE QUOTES “Looking back on it, it was just the whole kit and caboodle, if you will, right? Animal-headed gods! What’s not to like about animal-headed gods?” (03:10) “We just move so slowly because we’re reconstructing ancient life based on the little bits and pieces that are left for us. And, if I’m just digging for the showy complete objects, I’m actually wasting 98-99 percent of what’s actually remaining.” (10:53) “And then for the analysis, you’re left with a bit of a challenge because there is clearly far too much data from any excavation to be entirely analyzed and entirely published.” (17:08) “What I have found to be my personal challenge is learning the language of the tech and the tech team and them learning the language of the archaeology so that we can actually have productive conversations.” (25:46) “It [the dashboard] took that three-step process and made it into a seamless and beautiful one-step process, which of course limits human error.” (31:15) “I’m a huge advocate for getting people from the tech world and from the computer world involved in excavations because there’s so much that we have to share with each other.” (41:08) LINKS MENTIONED Limitless BI Website Leslie’s LinkedIn

005 - Digging Into the Data with Leslie Warden

01:02 – Introducing today’s guest, Shaun Taylor 01:22 – Shaun’s background with business intelligence and technology 02:37 – Shifting into a second career in education 03:01 – The changes Shaun has seen in the CIO role throughout the years 04:23 – What business intelligence means to Shaun 05:33 – How new business intelligence technologies shape out decision-making 06:47 – How Shaun got involved in business intelligence 07:54 – The multiple challenges Shaun faced as CIO of the Tacoma Public Schools 09:50 – The data challenge 11:10 – The challenges that public school systems face 13:27 – The importance of metrics 15:32 – How long it took to extract business intelligence metrics from the public school system 17:18 – Developing business intelligence dashboards 20:26 – Key factors that drove the actions that led to such a dramatic increase in graduation rates 22:07 – How the outside community impacted the success of Shaun’s business intelligence dashboards 23:15 – How the community, school board, and faculty reacted to this data 25:16 – Shaun speaks to the ripple effect this dashboard has had on other school districts 26:31 – Next steps for the Tacoma School District 29:25 – Next steps for Shaun in his consulting business 31:47 – The challenge to change the education system itself EPISODE QUOTES “And when I retired from the navy that’s when I tried to decide how to best leverage what I understood about information and how to help kids.” (02:27) “What is the definition of success? That became a pretty challenging topic amongst the school board, the leadership of the district and also the community, because everyone had their own perceptions as to what success is.” (12:24) “By the way, in education, ‘business intelligence’ is not a term they like to use because they think they’re different from business.” (14:50) “Each two to three years, we added more benchmarks to see what else maybe we can do to influence better results for the kids. By the time we were done, just last year, our graduation rate is up eighty-seven percent from fifty-five percent.” (18:45) “Education is a human intensive industry.” (21:01) “Ya gotta have leadership buy-in and ya have to have leadership credibility to be able to pull something off like this.” (25:59) “We need to hold school districts, administrators, and teachers accountable for what’s happening in schools.” (32:26) LINKS MENTIONED Limitless BI Website Shaun’s LinkedIn

004 - Taking Them to School with Shaun Taylor

00:47 – Introducing today’s guest, Don Woods 01:04 – Don speaks to his role at ARI 02:34 – Telematics explained 05:50 – What business intelligence means to Don 07:19 – How business intelligence has evolved at ARI over the years 09:48 – Don speaks to the vendor management dashboard solution that ARI created 14:48 – Meeting customer needs 15:30 – Measuring the results of this business intelligence dashboard solution 16:23 – Challenges ARI has faced while doing business in Germany 18:28 – The role of analytics 19:11 – The Fleet Health Card 23:19 – How Don and ARI built the algorithm necessary to build their predictive model 25:25 – Customer reactions to the new data tools that ARI is developing 26:47 – The prescriptive and human element of business intelligence 31:28 – Other ways to differentiate through vertical markets 33:25 – Future plans for telematics 36:31 – Remarketing 37:42 – What Don believes the ultimate goal for business intelligence will be 41:54 – Don speaks to other technologies such as artificial intelligence EPISODE QUOTES “Really what it [business intelligence] means to me is what it kinda says on the tin, right? It really is generating intelligence for the business. So it’s really about using data to drive good business decisions.” (06:05) “All of a sudden it starts to snowball. Once you start gaining that competency, then you start to see lots and lots of different areas where this happens, where you’re able to use the data to make and find nuggets of information.” (25:04) “It’s kinda like brushing your teeth. If you didn’t brush your teeth for twenty years but then you brushed today, you’re compliant with brushing your teeth. But the damage has been already done. ” (28:45) “You’re starting to see that there’s more data crunching and there’s more strategic thinking around data being done across all areas of organizations.” (38:22) “It’s really a fun space, this automotive and telematics space, to be involved in right now.” (44:26) LINKS MENTIONED Limitless BI Website Don’s LinkedIn ARI’s Website

003 - Differentiating Telematics with Don Woods

00:46 – Introducing today’s guest, David Behr 00:57 – David speaks to his role at USPI 01:38 – David’s background in business intelligence 04:19 – What business intelligence means to David 05:13 – David’s first successful integration of business intelligence 08:50 – The value of business intelligence and survey dashboards 11:22 – The Greenfield Business Intelligence Account 14:56 – How the surgery centers at USPI operate 16:47 – Quick wins for David 21:09 – Constantly moving on to new projects 23:13 – The decision to focus on the clinical side of business intelligence 25:59 – Other factors that influence individual clinical cases 27:13 – How David was able to track results from facilities who used the dashboard 27:53 – Feedback from physicians who have utilized the dashboard 29:25 – The behavioral response to business intelligence 30:41 – David’s recent collaboration with high school athletes 33:23 – The next phases of business intelligence 37:09 – David’s ultimate goal for business intelligence EPISODE QUOTES “My passion in B.I. now is much more on the visualization side versus the static report side.” (07:13) “Through the ‘What if?’ they’d also be able to look at if they noticed that their drug and med expense happened to be red each month, they can click on it and it would take you to a whole nother screen that was all the best practices that were collected around drugs and meds.” (20:19) “We’re kinda working on a better way to manage, ‘How do we get those best practices rolling in?’” (22:49) “What we’ve done is we’ve actually broken these cases out into that level on granularity that I can look at ACL with knee scope and then I would only be looking at cases that did an ACL and a knee scope.” (26:31) “I think it makes a difference if the people out there who are driving a business know that they’re being tracked and held accountable to what they’re doing.” (29:52) “So, we’ll have a dashboard we built for the facility, but then we have the exact same one built where you can roll up the numbers to the region, roll up the numbers to the market President so they’ve got visibility as well now which I think at the end of the day helps everybody. ” (30:27) LINKS MENTIONED Limitless BI Website David’s LinkedIn USPI’s Website

002 - Enhancing the Medical World with David Behr, USPI

00:26 – Welcome to Limitless B.I. 00:45 – Introducing today’s guest, Jenny Roberts 01:06 – The goal of the TX2 Program 02:18 – Key metrics that the TX2 Program uses to measure success 04:20 – Collecting the data necessary for this program 06:17 – How the World Wildlife Fund keeps count of the tigers 09:08 – How tigers can predict the future 11:18 – Jenny reflects on how the business intelligence dashboard has benefited her team 14:21 – How the World Wildlife Fund responded to this dashboard tool 16:20 – The impact this tool has had on global governments 17:52 – How the business intelligence dashboard has aided in the success rate of the TX2 Program 20:37 – Next steps for the World Wildlife Fund and the TX2 Program 22:40 – Working with the Cambodian government 23:18 – Jenny praises the level of global government interest in the TX2 Program 24:55 – Jenny shares her plans for future endeavors EPISODE QUOTES “Poaching for illegal wildlife trade is probably the biggest threat to tigers. So it’s very important that we monitor whether we’ve got those safety protection mechanisms in place.” (03:46) “Normally, if tigers go extinct or start to decrease in an area, it’s an indication to us of what’s happening further down the food chain at the bottom. If something in the food chain is not right, then normally the top predator is the one that’s first effected.” (10:09) “We need to act quickly, otherwise there’s going to be far more species and far more ecosystem damage to come.” (10:31) “Often the government doesn’t have the same kind of monitoring intensity that we do for conservation and tiger conservation. So, it’s been able to make it easier for us to communicate what’s going on in their own landscape in some cases.” (15:50) “I think it [the business intelligence dashboard] certainly plays a role in this big challenge of trying to double the number of tigers in the wild. It gives us evidence to support where we’re prioritizing.” (18:20) LINKS MENTIONED Limitless BI Website Jenny’s LinkedIn TX2 Website

001 - Eye On The Tigers with Jenny Roberts, World Wildlife Fund

Full show notes will be available for every episode at https://limitlessbi.com/

Trailer

Join us, as we interview remarkable and thought-provoking guests about innovation, and how to leverage business intelligence to transform and inspire the future of your business. Whether you are an executive, an administrator, an analyst or business user, our objective is to help you and your organization get the most out of your data and introduce you to ways of leveraging what you already have invested in to make better decisions and respond to change. We do this by deconstructing real world applications of business intelligence. Each episode Paul Grill will interview guests that bring you key insights, fresh perspectives, and proven tools you can use and apply to achieve more success personally and professionally. If you already work with data, or would like to better leverage data, explore the human and tech sides of BI, and think outside of the box on finding a way forward to transform your business, then join the conversation. Full show notes for each episode available at LimitlessBI.com.

hubhopper

Limitless BI

hubhopper