08 Wed Oct 2014
Posted in Ask Martyn, Best principles, Business Intelligence, Strategy, tactics
What triggers a review of organisational strategy?
Well, typically organisations usually shy away from major strategy reviews when things are just ticking over quite nicely. The old axiom of “if it isn’t broke don’t fix it”, has a lot of power of persuasion, even in cases where the logical and coherent thing to do would be to continually review strategy.
07 Tue Oct 2014
Tags
Banking, Behavioural Economics, Big Data, business intelligence, Business Management, Demagogism, Dogma
Martyn Richard Jones
Remastered for 2026
Much of my consulting work is done in the Financial Industry.
I was there when the crisis was prepared, when it was baked and when it was brought out of the oven.
There are many theories about what went wrong.
Most of them are misleading, misinformed or simply crap.
Mainly to protect the guilty.
07 Tue Oct 2014
Posted in Architecture, Best principles, Business Intelligence, Data Warehouse, Dogma, Knowledge, Offshoring, Outsourcing, Peeves, Risk, Strategy
Tags
Behavioural Economics, Business Enablement, business intelligence, Business Management, business strategy, Challenges, Data Warehouse, Demagogism, Dogma, Financial, IT Strategy, Offshoring, Organisational Autism, Outsourcing, Requirements management, Risk
Martyn Richard Jones
I wrote a piece titled “Mugged in Data Hell.”
It told the story of a CIO who was hoodwinked, cajoled, bullied, bribed and patronised into doing the wrong things, continuously.
As my mate Bill said, “It packs big punches, and doesn’t hold back with the shit-kicking truth”.
06 Mon Oct 2014
Posted in Best principles, Big Data, Creativity, Executive, Knowledge, Management
Tags
Analytics, Behavioural Economics, Big Data, Dogma, Economics, Financial, Goal Setting, Marketing, Strategy
Martyn Richard Jones
Remaster 2026
Hi, I’m Ricky Jonesy-Innit, boss of Becci Boo Investments.
Last week, we said goodbye to our best commodity trader.
He’d been with us for years.
06 Mon Oct 2014
Posted in Architecture, Best principles, Creativity, Data Warehouse, Dogma, Excellence, Management, Offshoring, Outsourcing, Strategy
Tags
Behavioural Economics, business strategy, Creativity, IT Strategy, Organisational Autism, Strategy
Martyn Richard Jones
Remastered for 2026
Like many people around the world, I have certain expectations.
When I want some artwork done for a sales campaign, yes, I expect the people that I commission to show a lot of creativity.
When I want to read a novel, go to the theatre or simply chill out watching a movie, yes, I do expect some degree of creativity.
05 Sun Oct 2014
Posted in Best principles, Creativity, Dogma, Knowledge, Management
Martyn Richard Jones
Remastered for 2026
Here are three stories that illustrate the connection between creativity and what we do in business. Jack’s Retail Story talks about the expansion of retail business; Jill’s Colour Book Story highlights a hugely pervasive tendency, even in these times; and Martyn’s Summer Story argues that there is a strategic time and place for some things.
04 Sat Oct 2014
Posted in Best principles, Excellence, Knowledge, Process
Tags
Behavioural Economics, Business Enablement, business intelligence, Business Management, business strategy, corporate assets, IT Strategy
Martyn Richard Jones
Remaster 2026 – Galicia, Spain
Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence professionals need to think about how their vision will align with and support the corporate vision. Still, they also need to consider how the Data Warehouse vision aligns with addressing the challenges to the vision of the organisation, as well as taking into account the challenges to the vision of the Data Warehousing team, and also, challenges with any conceptual and informational structuring of the corporate vision, forces/challenges and strategy.
04 Sat Oct 2014
Posted in awareness, behaviour, Best principles, Knowledge
By Martyn Richard Jones
Some people claim that strategy is primarily about building advantage[1]. My view is that this is not strictly accurate. Strategy is about overcoming significant challenges and achieving significant objectives; it is not intrinsically about building advantage, as if business operated in a perfectly symmetrical universe where commercial life played itself out as some perfect tinsel town idea of what business should be and what success should look like.
03 Fri Oct 2014
Posted in Best principles, Business Intelligence, Masterclass, Peeves
Tags
Behavioural Economics, BI, Big Data, business intelligence, Business Management, business strategy, Demagogism, Dogma, enterprise data warehousing, Information and Technology, Offshoring, Organisational Autism
Written by Martyn Richard Jones
These are my principles for successful Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence. If you don’t like them, I have others. Musings on being led by the nose by experienced practitioners of charlatanry, deception and obfuscation.
02 Thu Oct 2014
Posted in Best principles, Business Intelligence, Data Warehouse, Knowledge
Tags
Behavioural Economics, business intelligence, Business Management, corporate assets, data integration, Demagogism, Dogma, information management, Offshoring, Outsourcing, Requirements management, Strategy, traditional assets
Written by Martyn Richard Jones
Continued from Part 1: Crème Continues…
Part 1 can be found here -> Part 1
“We had recently acquired a media news and entertainments business – Media Macaroni International, and we were planning on integrating their general ledger into the corporate IT landscape. One morning I received a call from the CIO of the newly acquired company, inviting me to their site for a meet and greet event.”
“So I moseyed on down to Tinsel Town and got a briefing from not only the CIO, but the full board of directors of Media Macaroni.”
“To cut a long story short, they basically put me on the spot. Either I integrated the entire Data Warehousing across the corporate in 9 months, or we would have serious problems of convergence. The message couldn’t have been clearer. Either I got my act together and made this acquisition work, or what looked like a humongous hot potato could be burning my mouth anytime soon.”
“I told the directors there and then that the mission was going to be incredibly difficult to fulfil. However, the mood changed.”
“Their CIO looks across the table and tells me that he can help me out of the hole. You see, we have employed a service company that does most of our IT work for us, and according to us at Media Macaroni they are the bee’s knees.”
“So ‘who are these guys’, I ask. Back comes the ominous response: The Taffia Connection”
“So, back home, I call all of my business managers together to discuss the next steps, and despite the misgivings of most of my department heads, and indeed my gut instincts, I become convinced that we should give The Taffia Connection a chance to tell us what they can do for us”.
“So, to cut a long story short, I bring in The Taffia, they give me a dog and pony show on what they can do for us… full data integration, enterprise application integration, enterprise data warehousing, business intelligence, MDM, CRM, Data Quality, Total Quality, IT Business Alignment up the wazoo, and I find the message so compelling that we initiate contractual discussions with The Taffia Connection”.
“As a result, and against all the best advice of my own best staff, I decide to outsource a large chunk of the integration, CRM, EAI, EDW and BI work to The Taffia Connection, work which I am assured will be carried out very cost-effectively by the offshore sister company Bogartsys (whose unofficial slogan at the time was ‘powered by gerbils, motivated by greed’) To be honest, I thought it was great; hell, my board thought it was great. You have to understand the mood of the times. It was all crazy. We were all crazy”.
“Then over the following two years I lost all my friends, my staff who once worshipped the ground I walked on, loathed me, my cat Lucky died of loneliness and depression, my family refused to talk to me, and every now and then a stray dog would pee on the alloy rims of my two year old beamer”.
Part 3 can be found here -> Part 3
Many thanks for reading.
File under: Good Strat, Good Strategy, Martyn Richard Jones, Martyn Jones, Cambriano Energy, Iniciativa Consulting, Iniciativa para Data Warehouse, Tiki Taka Pro
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