Frustrated by Google Search?

Using Google for business research can be a frustrating exercise. You need intelligence on your prospects, customers, industry and competitors, but with Google you sometimes come up empty handed.

To get a better results read this article by Margaret Locher for CIO magazine.

Six Techniques to Get More from the Web than Google Will Tell You.

"Google is great, but it can't always tell you what makes a website or source of research material authoritative. Professional librarians and researchers explain where to look online to find the professional, technical and industry expertise you need." Read The Article Here

Business Intelligence is a key to business success. Google and the other search tools are excellent sources of information for external Business Intelligence. Selectory.com from Harris Info and FirstResearch.com from the company of the same name are two other excellent tools that we use.

Internal Business Intelligence is accomplished with products like Crystal Reports, Knowledge Sync, FRX or Business Alerts and more. SWK has expertise with each of these solutions and delivers Business Intelligence solutions to business in a wide range of industries who use SAGE MAS 90, 200 ERP, MAS 500 or Sage BusinessWorks.

Remember, "What you don't know can hurt you: Business Intelligence was once a 'big company thing,' but this is no longer the case; a new generation of products has made it possible to rein in the reporting chaos that exists in many mid-sized organizations," reports Jacob Stroller for CMA Management Magazine.

Getting Business Intelligence right is no an easy task. CIO Magazine in two articles by Diann Daniel provides these perspectives. 

In the article "Using Business Intelligence Well: Keys of High Performers" she writes "Business Intelligence may be one of the hottest information technology topics today, but that doesn't mean every company is equally adept at maximizing BI's value. IDC, in a Teradata-sponsored survey, categorized only a portion of the 1,072 companies as excelling in their use of business intelligence. The survey found a number of differences between companies that use BI well, and those whose use is merely average."

Diann explains in another article "10 Keys to a Successful Business Intelligence Strategy"  how to get it right.

She writes "A new Forrester Research report suggests that you need to have an executive sponsor and a business intelligence strategy in place before you start thinking about which vendors to evaluate. You need to establish your vision for your business intelligence strategy before you bring technology into the conversation"

She also points out that "Business Intelligence implementations require guidance from a partner (like SWK) who has deep experience."

The report suggests that you should be "prepared to spend $5 to $7 on services for every $1 on software, and cautions: Do not outsource the fine-tuning of business intelligence. The process requires a high degree of collaboration among end users, analysts and developers."

The people at SWK have a great deal of expertise in this area and could be great partners for your BI initiatives.

To learn more contact Alex Nastashkin at SWK Technolgies today. You can reach Alex at 973-758-6126 or visit our website at www.swktech.com

By Peter Conway, November 2007