· A 6 hour reduction in the time personally spent searching for information each week, compared to a one hour reduction for all other companies.

· A 28 hour reduction in the time staff spent searching for information each week, compared to a one hour reduction for all other companies.

· 67% of searches return the most relevant results on the first page, compared to 42% for all other companies.

· 15% reduction in customer support costs, compared to a 3% increase for all other companies.

You can find the full report here:  http://tinyurl.com/yh7hoq4

Base on that segmentation, Best-in-Class achieved an 11% increase in operating profits, compared to the Industry Average group that reported a 5% decrease in operating profit.  How do they do this?  First of all, they have a much deeper understanding of their sales pipeline.  Best-in-Class companies indicate that they are almost a third more likely to track their pipeline rigorously than Laggards (79% vs 60%).  Secondly, Best-in-Class have a much better understanding of the relationship between sales and marketing.

Related to analysis of the sales pipeline, linking sales revenue to marketing spend is another capability where there is a big disparity between the most successful and the least successful enterprises.  Best-in-Class companies are 42% more likely to be doing this compared to Laggards.  With few sales opportunities around, the need to ensure marketing spend is as productive as possible has never been greater.  Productive marketing expenditure needs to lead to – or influence – a sales opportunity in some way.  It’s impossible to know if marketing spend is productive unless sales revenue can be connected with marketing expenditure – or at the very least, to marketing touches

Thirdly, Best-in-Class companies manage their receivables better, with 82% of Best-in-Class companies doing this, compared to 75% of Industry Average firms, and only 68% of Laggards.  During times when credit is hard to get, or is only available at higher interest rates, delays in collecting payment from customers can be fatal to a business, starving it of cash.  By closely monitoring payments from customers enterprises can ensure they keep their cash-flow healthy.

You can download the entire report here free if you want to:  http://tinyurl.com/kv8rjz

I saw my first Kindle reader on my commuter train a couple of months ago – now I see 2 or 3 every day, it really seems to be taking off…Very excited to know that our readers will now have the opportunity to access our research from this device.

Kindle users can access The Aberdeen Report at:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b?url=node%3D154606011&field-keywords=aberdeen+group&x=19&y=22

1. Cognos planning users report a shorter planning cycle than many other leading companies.  Even so, they are anxiously trying to find ways to cut the planning cycle further, so that they can plan more often, and be more responsive to the economic turmoil that we all find ourselves in.
2. They also get above average accuracy in the plans they produce – not quite as accurate as the leading companies, but pretty close.

If you want to read more, you can find the full report here:  http://www.aberdeen.com/summary/report/market_alert/6158-MA-planning-budgeting-cognos.asp

There seemed to be a couple of reasons why Microsoft customers did so well.  First of all, those Microsoft customers that took part in the research study were, on average, more experienced than the customers of other vendors.  Talent is precious, but wisdom apparently still counts for something.  Secondly, they seek out projects with a fast ROI more aggressively than the users of other vendors.  Thirdly – OK, so I lied about there being a couple of reasons – Microsoft customers also vigourously pursue automation within their BI environments, so eliminating costs.  You can read my full research brief on Microsoft BI here:  http://www.aberdeen.com/summary/report/market_alert/6119-MA-business-intelligence-tco-microsoft.asp

1. Many of the customer case studies featured were using a Software-as-a-service (Saas) approach to deliver text analytics.  I don’t have data on this yet (research survey on this coming later in the year….), but from customer case studies and discussion with vendors, it seems like roughly 50% have used this approach.  The justification in most cases seemed to be to by-pass IT who the business users couldn’t get to engage – most likely because they just don’t have the bandwidth for it. 
2. Not many users seemed to have put together a solid business case to justify their projects.  However, many reported that their projects had now become indispensable and were a key application within the organization.  This flies in the face of the common perception that we live in an age where only projects with a strong ROI projection get funded.  

While I was surprised by how high the Saas usage is, on reflection it makes sense.  Saas is more likely to break through in new application areas, rather than penetrating established markets that have traditional licence deployment models.  And, the Saas pay-as-you-go pricing model lets business units take on projects without the help of the IT organization.  Saas allows business units to fly under the radar, with no capital investment in IT required.  Who care’s about ROI projections – spend a few thousand dollars, try it for a couple of months, if there’s no value, pull the plug and move on.