QueBIT's March Newsletter

March 2017 Newsletter

This quarter's QueBIT happenings, delivered straight to your inbox.

Welcome to QueBIT's Quarterly newsletter! The goal of this communication is to highlight events & technical developments, while promoting education & best practices to enhance your Analytics investment. We would love to hear your feedback on our newsletter, and share any ideas you have for topics to be covered in upcoming editions.

Feature Article

Collaborative, Interactive Demand Planning Driven by Predictive Analytics

Cash flow is king. Companies that manage cash flow significantly outperform their peers. Accurately predicting demand for products and services is key to maximizing cash flow; allowing for reinvestment to maximize returns and customer satisfaction. Traditional approaches to “predicting” demand have been naïve: assume a certain seasonality and trend. The problem is that the underlying trend (or demand pattern) for your product and services is driven by internal and external factors. Those factors might include: price, competition, macro-economic factors, product lifecycle and others. If you don’t include these factors into your forecasting process, it’s reactive not predictive. Predictive modeling/forecasting allows you to take a data driven approach where these factors can be quantified and leveraged to generate truly forward looking forecasts. However, as great a machine learning (the technology that predictive analytics/forecasting is built on) is, there is also a human element to forecasting. No model will ever account for all the factors affecting demand so forecasting systems must allow planners, marketing and line of business owners to collaborate to improve the overall forecast.

QueBIT Galileo delivers on all the above requirements. QueBIT Galileo is:

Data Driven

QueBIT Galileo leverages the QueBIT Euclid forecasting engine to deliver truly predictive forecasts. It delivers:

Advanced statistical models (including QueBIT’s innovative ARC algorithm)
Causal forecasting (with many input variables) + seasonality
Predictive “bootstrap” modeling for new items
Predictive forecasting of extreme low-velocity items (< 1 turn/year)

Collaborative

QueBIT Galileo leverages IBM Planning Analytics (TM1) allowing it to maintain multiple versions of the forecast. Multiple groups of Galileo users can collaborate to make forecast adjustments. Changes to the forecast are tracked separately in detailed Forecast Value Add (FVA) reporting allowing users to identify processes that are adding value (or not adding value) and adjust accordingly.

Interactive

One of the most exciting features of QueBIT Galileo is that it is fully interactive. The high-performance forecasting engine (QueBIT Euclid) allows for 3-5k forecasts/second. This allows Galileo users to test different forecasting scenarios, view the impact to supply and demand, labor and cash flow (and even a full P&L) in near-real time!

Want to know more? Download our latest whitepaper- Galileo Predictive Demand Planning: 3 Critical Elements Necessary For A Successful Demand Planning Solution

Announcements

Data Analytics Reseller QueBIT Adds MicroStrategy to its Portfolio of Solutions

Leading Reseller of Data Analytics to Offer MicroStrategy 10™

January 11, 2017 –MicroStrategy® Incorporated (Nasdaq: MSTR), a leading worldwide provider of enterprise software platforms, today announced that QueBIT, a leading data analytics reseller and consulting group, will begin offering the MicroStrategy 10 platform. Read More

Upcoming Events

Webinar: Upgrade to Cognos Analytics using the latest techniques Register Today!

IBM has released several exciting enhancements to Cognos Analytics over the past year and continues to invest in their best of breed enterprise solution for Reporting and Analysis. Join us for a complimentary webinar on Thursday, April 13th to learn how to prepare for your upgrade, see these new techniques in action and discuss the future roadmap of Cognos Analytics.

Webinar: Write TM1 Rules like a Pro! Register Today!

If you’re a TM1 user, you know rules are how you work business logic into your model. You probably calculate things like salaries and sales, and you may even have more complex calculations in your model such as exchange rates and allocations. Join us for a complimentary webinar on Thursday, May 11th.

MicroStrategy World 2017: April 18-20, Washington, DC Register Today!

Thousands of analytics experts from around the world. 3 days. 1 focus—helping you put your data to work like never before. Get ready for the year's most anticipated analytics and mobility event.

Vision 2017: Orlando, FL May 16-19, 2017 Register Today!

To perform at your highest level, you need insight into the things that matter. You need confidence to make the right decisions. You need the right tools to make it happen. IBM Vision 2017 can help bring new meaning to business performance, illuminating a path forward that you never expected.

Session #1148: (5/17 @ 11:15am) Leveraging Planning Analytics & CDM to streamline Financial Reporting and improve Budgeting at Stein Mart
Session #1095: (5/17 @ 3:00pm) Prescriptive Analytics & CPLEX Decision Optimization and TM1 Dashboard: Combined Planning Power at JLG Industries
Session #1220: (5/18 @10:45) Planning Analytics: Working Alongside Hyperion for Operational Analytics at NiSource
Session #1093: (5/18 @ 10:45am) Leveraging TM1 for Merchandise Planning at Tractor Supply Company

Missed a recent webinar? Watch it NOW!

Webinar – IBM’s Cognos Disclosure Management (CDM) Discover how you can transform the way you collaborate across the enterprise using IBM’s Cognos Disclosure Management (CDM).

Webinar: TM1 User Experience-New Enhanceme nts for the Cloud How do you access TM1? Via Excel, the Web, or both? There are several options, including some new cloud-based front-ends that may interest you.

Webinar – QueBIT Webinar – Parallel Processing in TM1 2.09.17 Want to speed up Turbo Integrator (TI)? Wish your chores, data loads, and batch calculations completed faster? This webinar explores parallel processing in TM1 and proves how this process can speed up your models.

Webinar – Cognos Analytics 11.0.5 Released – It’s a Brave New World! 01.12.17 IBM released the latest version of Cognos Analytics (Cognos 11.0.5) on November 26th, 2016. This newest version includes some exciting enhancements extending the broad capabilities of the product.

Tips & Tricks

TM1 Design Pro-Style: Rules vs. TI

Need Training?

20% off all online courses from now through the end of June 2017! This includes instructor-led and self-paced courses. To receive your discount, use the coupon code Spring20Off when registering training from https://learn.quebit.com/

Blogs

Customer Spotlight

athenahealth, Deriving Greater Business Value from True Integration between IBM Cognos TM1 and IBM Cognos Disclosure Management (CDM)

athenahealth worked with QueBIT first to
implement an IBM TM1 based financial reporting
and planning system, and then to use TM1 as a
data source to their IBM CDM solution so that all
data and narrative content for producing board
reports in Microsoft Office format (including Word
and PowerPoint) is managed in one secure place
accessible by multiple contributors. Get the full story