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'Business Objectives Equation': An Emerging Model
Let's agree that generally a business has four objectives, and let's express those objectives as a summation, thus:
Efficiency + Productivity + Profitability + Growth [1]
How does this 'equation' relate to the functional areas of business?
Well, the production/operations/R&D functions of business will ideally focus on efficiency and productivity; the finance/accounting/sales/marketing functions will focus on profitability; and the strategy function will focus on growth (or stability, or renewal, as the case may be). Naturally, there will be overlaps in these set of relationships (e.g. production will have to understand corporate strategy to understand how daily operations fit into the overall picture, etc.). The challenge facing the discerning business is really to optimize this very simple equation.
[Perhaps someday, I will expound on this seemingly simple proposition to account for the various complexities and constraints that businesses do in fact face.]
[1] A business could conceivably have other objectives. I refer here though to the corporate entity whose objective is to maximize profit. Also, another important objective -- effectiveness -- is subsumed under the productivity objective.
17 July 2006
Some Interesting Observations
The following are two observations that essentially say the same thing about the state of computing and information technology today, but appear at first glance to be contradictory. In any case, both ring a clear message of truth, and the discerning IT professional will do well to listen.
Observation 1:
Most people affiliated with corporate information technology ... will assume "business-facing" roles, focused not so much on gadgets and algorithms, but on corporate strategy, personnel, and financial analysis. -- Gartner.
Observation 2:
The real value of [information technology] is [increasingly] less in acquiring a skill in technology tools ... than in [managing] complexity, [navigating] and [accessing] information, [mastering] modeling and abstraction, and [thinking] analytically in terms of algorithms, or step-by-step instructions. -- Edward D. Lazowska, University of Washington.
Some things I'm interested in...
Core Analytics
These are tools and applications used to provide business users with better metrics, or to define or analyze a past or current state... Core analytics include queries, reporting, analysis, etc.
Predictive Analytics
More mathematically complex than core analytics, these are tools and applications that are used to determine the probable future outcome of an event. They includes data mining, clustering, decision trees, market basket analysis, regression modeling, neural networks, genetic algorithms, text mining, hypothesis testing, decision analytics, etc.
Previous entries in this section have been retired here.
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