Watching the lights go down at LucidEra - lessons learned

It’s always unfortunate to see a fellow startup shut its doors, even when you compete with it, since strong competitors validate the overall concept for which we’re all fighting – the benefits of on-demand business intelligence.  The benefits are real. The value to customers is real.  Unfortunately for LucidEra, their particular approach – specific applications, instead of general BI solutions -- proved itself weak in the marketplace.

Here’s one fellow competitor’s opinion on what they got right and what they missed.

What LucidEra got right:

• LucidEra was a strong evangelist for why on-demand can be a faster, lower cost, and more effective option, and the industry is better off for it.

• LucidEra understood that, for many companies (and especially small and mid-size ones), having a solution that can be up and running quickly is very important.   Companies want answers as quickly as they can, and if given the choice between an expensive, time-consuming deployment and a quick one, they’ll pick the quick one.

• LucidEra also understood that where BI can be most powerful is at the point where it really impacts the business – at the front lines, like the sales team.

 

What LucidEra missed:

 

• Customers want full-fledged BI made easier, not simplified applications. LucidEra’s solution to the customer need for quicker and easier BI was to offer applications instead of a true BI solution.  This meant a standardized data model approach and standardized reports. This approach requires customers to adapt their business problem to the LucidEra solution, when what customers really wanted was a quicker, easier solution that fit their particular business needs.

• The ability to handle multiple data sources matters. To simplify deployments and deliver quickly, LucidEra started off focusing on Salesforce.com data only.  However, customers often wanted to combine that data with information from other systems, like their marketing, finance, and operational systems.  While LucidEra started moving in this direction later, it prevented them from getting crucial customer momentum when they needed it.

• Customers want the flexibility and power of true BI. While customers like rapid deployments, they also want to know that the system is powerful enough to answer spontaneous business questions or identify and address unusual trends as they arise – all things which you can get from a traditional BI solution.  And they want a system that will grow with them as their needs grow.  If you wanted something other than that standard report, how easy was it to get there?  It appears that they didn’t have a strong answer for that.  There are a lot of components that go in a true Business Intelligence solution – LucidEra was hoping that customers would be willing to sacrifice power and flexibility for speed and low cost.  It seems that customers want the power along with the speed and low cost.

 

There may be some industry naysayers out there who will wave LucidEra’s demise around as a flag of surrender for the overall on-demand business intelligence space.  I think that this is shortsighted.  While LucidEra may be an example of why overly targeted BI applications don’t have a large enough market to survive, it is not a harbinger of doom for the overall on-demand BI industry.

There are other vendors out there, Birst being one, who offer the speed, low cost, flexibility, and scalability that customers demand.  They are thriving because they are doing right what LucidEra got right, and they are also providing the pieces that were missing.

For companies interested in learning more about Birst as they consider their options after LucidEra, you can read more about our solution at birst.com/salesforce or you can find us on the Salesforce.com App Exchange.

Birst is also offering a “Quick Switch” program whereby LucidEra customers who switch to Birst by August 1, 2009, will receive 25% off of subscription services. For more information, contact the Birst Team.

 

Birst now available on the Salesforce AppExchange

We are happy to announce that Birst is now available on Salesforce.com's Force.com AppExchange.

In our recent Early Summer Release, Birst introduced Salesforce Connect, a data connector that allows salesforce.com customers to easily analyze their Salesforce CRM data, including custom objects, within Birst.

So, you're probably thinking as you yawn, don't a lot of other companies do this already?  What's the big deal?

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="160" caption="It's more exciting than you think."][/caption]

There are a few big reasons that this is an exciting development. Yes, other companies connect to Salesforce information and analyze it.  What Birst does differently is:

• Analysis and reporting on custom objects, in addition to standard Salesforce data. Many companies have customized their Salesforce solution to fit the unique information and processes required by their business. So they have built what are known as "custom objects."  Other solutions can easily handle standard data, but they can't analyze nor report on custom objects.  If it were important enough for a company to build the custom objects in the first place, they probably want some reporting on them.  That's where Birst comes in.

• Analyze your Salesforce information with information from other systems and databases that are important to you. Birst also allows business users to analyze data from other systems, such as marketing, finance, and operations, along with their Salesforce CRM data. This means that you can run reports that you simply can't do with other solutions -- you can see, for example, which marketing campaigns (marketing system) are driving opportunities in Salesforce CRM and real revenues (financial system).

• Enterprise class business intelligence that's easy to use and scale. If you are a larger company, you're probably looking beyond standardized charts and reports - you want in-depth analytics that's easy to use and easy to scale over time.  Before, your only choice was going with Salesforce in combination with a complicated, traditional BI provider.  Now, you have an easier to deploy, easier to use, on-demand option.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="207" caption="Did you say custom objects and multiple data sources? Now we're paying attention."][/caption]

It's for reasons like these that Birst has already been chosen by customers like Rackspace Hosting.  As Sean Wedige, the Vice President of Sales Technical Operations at Rackspace Hosting said, “Birst was the only vendor that we believed could quickly get us a powerful business intelligence solution that not only handles custom objects, but also combines information from other systems".

Salesforce Connect is available to all levels of Birst customers, including users of the introductory free version, Birst Free. Birst also offers rapid implementation services for custom deployments, and has a network of systems integrator partners to assist with implementations.

You can see Birst on the Force.com App Exchange by clicking here.

To check out the full press release and see what else Sean had to say, click here.

To go to the Birst for Salesforce microsite, go to www.birst.com/salesforce

Birst's Early Summer Release 2009 now available!

We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of Birst's Early Summer Release 2009.  This release features major improvements to the Birst user experience. Now it’s even easier to create the reports and dashboards that you need to run your business effectively.

Feature improvements include:

• New Flex interface for ad hoc reporting that’s more intuitive and easy to use


• Expanded array of advanced chart types, including gauges


• Easy “click” menu of options helps you quickly to do what you want to do in the ad hoc reporting area


• Easy “color picker” speeds the time to create custom formatted charts


• New “set-based” filter type


• Dynamic data-driven assignment of users to groups, for easier user management

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="306" caption="Early Summer Release 2009!"][/caption]

All Birst customers will be automatically upgraded to the benefits of the Early Summer Release 2009. All of your existing data, reports, and dashboards should transition smoothly to the new version.

To learn more about the Early Summer Release 2009, including feature descriptions and an FAQ, go to birst.com/earlysummerrelease2009

Not a Birst customer yet?  Even people who sign up for free today will automatically get the Early Summer Release 2009.  Click here to request a free account for the leading on-demand business intelligence solution available today.

Thanks for your continued support, we hope that you enjoy the Early Summer Release.

From ad gurus to data geeks - Andrew McAfee on the diminishment of Don Draper

Andrew McAfee, the MIT professor who has a blog on the business impact of information technology, recently posted a compelling article titled "The Diminishment of Don Draper."

Don Draper is the lead character from AMC's mid-century advertising drama, "Mad Men."  For those not familiar with the series, Don pulls in big advertising consulting fees for delivering suave, charismatic pitches for consumer products. While hailed as a genius or a guru, it's not really clear, as McAfee points out, that Don actually generates a positive ROI for his clients.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="320" caption="Got an ROI for that, Don?"][/caption]

McAfee proposes that companies are moving towards a more data driven decisionmaking model, even when it comes to more historically fuzzy areas like advertising and marketing.  He cites the major hurdle to this more data-sensitive model as mostly culture oriented - that is, companies often don't have the true organizational and political will to run experiments and find out the truth.  They often decide what to do, then marshal "facts" and arguments to support the pre-made decision.

While I don't disagree with this, I think there is another issue at play here, and it's demonstrated by the positive example he cites of Staples office supply using the market research company Affinnova to help determine which packaging design options are most appropriate for their recycled office paper line.  Affinnova broke down the different elements of package design and, in a very cool experiment, tested those 22,000 potential combinations before 750 panelists over the course of a week.  The resulting patterns in preference for design, font, color, etc. led Staples to redesign their packaging.  While no results are given, it's presumably a success.

The only catch?  Staples presumably has a huge market research budget and the luxury of taking the time to hire the consulting firm, set up the study, run it for a week, and analyze the results.  So even if your organization wants to be data driven, unless you have the dollars and the time to do this, companies may be wondering if their only choice is to turn to your internal Don Draper to make a best guess at what the customer wants.

Rather than resort to Don, I would suggest that you can turn to your internal business intelligence solution to analyze the data that you already have to get an answer more affordably, and faster. It might not be as cool an answer as Affinnova can provide, but you can examine how historical package changes have impacted sales, analyze current buying trends, and come up with a more rational triangulation. Ifyou're using an on-demand business intelligence solution, achieving this should take limited amounts of time and funds, and leaves you with an ongoing analysis that gives you more insight over time, rather than a consulting report that reflects just a moment in time.

If you're curious about McAfee, check out his blog. He provides refreshingly rigorous, thoughtful, and lengthy blog postings about technology and business.  He is currently an Associate Professor in the Technology and Operations Management area at Harvard Business School, and a visiting Associate Professor at the Center for Digital Business in the MIT Sloan School of Management.

"Year of Selling Dangerously" now on Slideshare

One of our most popular webinars has been our "Year of Selling Dangerously" webinar about sales tactics and the sales analysis that you need to know in tough times.

We've now made the slides available on Slideshare, so that anyone can benefit from these sales reporting and analysis tips.

The Year Of Selling Dangerously - Sales and Analytics Tips for Dangerous Times

View more OpenOffice presentations from birster.

If you'd like to see the full webinar, click here. To learn more about Birst and sales analytics, click here.