(5-Oct-10) Technology professional Sri Vemparala believes that it’s important to choose analytics tools based on how well they support business needs. But he also understands that, oftentimes, the business doesn’t know exactly what it needs from analytic applications.
That’s why Vemparala, manager of reporting and business intelligence (BI) at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., thinks that the emerging category of packaged business analytics tools could be a big help to some organizations. The packaged applications typically are pre-configured for different types of end users, sometimes in specific vertical industries. As a result, Vemparala explained, they can serve as an effective guide to analytics capabilities and potential uses for business professionals.