What are sales control systems?
In the October 1987 Journal of Marketing an article appeared that has since come to inform, in very large degree, how modern organizations manage and motivate their sales forces. The article, written by Erin Anderson and Richard Oliver, introduced the world to the concept of “control systems.”
What they discovered should change the way you think about how you manage your sales team, and it should. They discovered two main approaches to organizing, motivating and compensating a sales force and, as usual, both systems are not created equal.
Data Visualization for Logistics
There’s something undeniably exciting about seeing live data streaming in, though it’s hard to describe exactly what’s so exciting about it. Is it seeing little blips move around a screen in real-time? Is it seeing the numbers change in a spreadsheet?
At VisualCue, we’ve had the opportunity to enter many businesses that had real-time, streaming data capabilities with no great way to visualize it. Every time we are brought in to implement a solution at one of these sites the thrill, for us anyway, is always the same. Seeing live data, for us anyway, makes it real. It’s easy to separate a static spreadsheet from anything tangible in the real world because, by it’s very nature, a static spreadsheet isn’t alive with data. As soon as the data stops coming in, it becomes a historical document.
But when you’ve got real-time, streaming data you are seeing exactly what’s happening in the moment, and that’s always exciting. Now you just need to do something with it. And that’s where we’ve learned a few things.
Become a data visualization expert
A few months ago, we had Tom Hull- VP of Florida Polytechnic University, tell us his thoughts on the impact of big data analytics in small-medium enterprises. He started off his article by stating that “The presence of big data analytics and the number of students who are pursuing a big data analytics degree has grown exponentially with the emergence of digital technology and the advancement of other high-tech fields.”
In that simple sentence, Hull brought forth a lot of great ideas. Most importantly, he brings out that big data analytics has spawned a new and vibrant field of study that is growing exponentially.
It got us thinking. As a new generation of students are pursuing a degree in analytics, there has been a concurrent explosion in new data visualization technologies that are designed to help anyone, regardless of training, analyze large data sets easier.
5 Ways to Increase Executive Efficiency
Continuous improvement is a great idea. Come to think of it, it’s a great way to live life. To always be striving to be better at whatever it is you do keeps you active throughout your professional and personal life. It means you’ll never be complacent or lazy, and by the end of your career you’ll be a true master at whatever task you’ve undertaken and that has to feel good.
While everyone should always be striving to improve what they do, for some professions and positions it is an absolute necessity in order to not only be successful and happy, but to survive at all.
We’re talking about the managers and executives out there: those individuals entrusted with making the decisions that will guide the actions of entire teams and organizations. Profits are determined and jobs are kept or lost based on the decisions of these people, and as they improve so to does the entire team or business.
At VisualCue our entire business is built around improving efficiency. We’ve seen how a lot of managers and executives improve and gathered our favorite stories to boil it down to five basic principles.
Best Business Intelligence Tools for CEOs
Do a quick Internet search of “best business intelligence tools for CEOs.”
Seriously, go ahead. We’ll wait.
Yeah, it’s not that heartening of a picture. And unless something has seriously changed in the time since we’ve written this article it’s especially depressing that the first site to pop up isn’t a list of amazing BI tools for the C suite, but rather an article entitled “sell your CEO on business intelligence software tools.”
We’re here to solve that problem by providing not only a list of current business intelligence tools for CEOs but also why our search didn’t turn up much.
5 Keys to Great Data Visualization
Recently, we’ve written about how just changing the way you look at a problem can offer new insights into its solution. Not only that, but looking at problems in a new way can actually lead you to faster, more accurate decisions than slogging through mountains of information and trying to solve the problem in the traditional, more analytic method.
That whitepaper got us thinking about the best data visualization tools available today, and what exactly goes into them. As we were doing some research we discovered that all of the best data visualizations and tools to create them had a few common aspects to them.
So think of this as a checklist with examples- run down this list before you make any software purchases to ensure that you’re getting the best tool out there to help you be more efficient and have even provided examples to show you what we mean.
Interview with Robson Granero
Surely everyone out there, at some point, has had to move. Whether it’s for a new position at work, a new school or just for a change pace, packing up a lifetime’s worth of accumulation and heading out to a new place can be both an exciting and simultaneously daunting task.
Think about it. Even moving just across town can be a logistical nightmare. Items need to be lovingly packed and stored, trucks need to be ordered, blankets need to be secured to keep furniture from scratching and that’s not even counting the army of loyal friends or a handful of professional movers to help actually lift your material life from one location and put it in another. And that’s just residential.
Small wonder then that for the big moves, like those between countries or where the items being moved are more than just pants and shirts, entire teams of logistics professionals are needed to make the process as smooth as possible. These businesses exist to make large, complicated moves easier. They arrange pick up, transportation, temporary storage and eventual relocation into the new home. The best services also help the person moving with any necessary paperwork, domestic help or maintenance their new place might require. And in a process with so many steps, there is bound to be data.
Seeing All The Facts
In a January 2006 article for the Harvard Business Review titled “Decisions Without Blinders,” authors Max Bozerman and Dolly Chugh bring out an interesting point.
While the majority of their article focuses on the concept of “bounded awareness- when cognitive blinders prevent a person from seeing, seeking, using, or sharing highly relevant, easily accessible, and readily perceivable information during the decision-making process,” they do bring out another interesting facet of the science of decision making that many might not have considered.
They write that “Even when spared a deluge of information and given sufficient time to make decisions, most individuals still fail to bring the right information into their conscious awareness at the right time.”
The Two Types of Decisions
Business is made of decisions. While some have a more dramatic impact on the business all decisions, large and small, are important. That’s why discovering how to make smarter decisions is so crucial to the continued growth, or even existence, of any enterprise. Luckily, the scientific community has recognized the importance of understanding the decision-making process and has made numerous, recent discoveries that shed light on the process.
What is the impact of IOT on Big Data?
“Big data” is a catchphrase in both the tech and business worlds. Referring to the vast amounts of data generated by connected technology, big data is a tool that many businesses can use to make their advertising and other marketing efforts more effective. Data and using data for analytic purposes is not new, but what is new is the vast amounts of data now available to us, and that data has come available largely due to the Internet of Things (IoT).
The more devices and machines get connected to each other and the Internet, the more data is going to flow through those devices into the pool of “big data.” But what is the relationship between the two? Are they two sides of the same coin, as Tamara Dull of SAS implies, or are they connected but different? While they may not be the same thing, the Internet of Things and big data are definitely connected.