Business personnel at all levels are looking to have access to data and create insights. These insights, formerly in the hands of just a few professionals, are now being democratized and allowed to be had by all.

Implementing a successful business intelligence platform requires “business outcomes” to be starting points for solving client challenges, according to Harriet Fryman, VP of portfolio marketing for IBM Analytics. Dave Vellante and Paul Gillin, cohosts of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, revealed how IBM plans to provide “self-service analytics for all.”

Capabilities

“Great data needs great analytics” and vice versa, stated Fryman, who said one cannot work without the other. IBM Watson fulfills this need for IBM consumers, and combined with its acquisition of Cognos, Inc., the company created a business unit that delivers a dashboard experience for reporting on those analytic results. The two work together to handle inquiries that can be as simple as keywords and create reports and models that can be collaborative. IBM expanded Cognos by increasing the number of sources of data it can utilize as well. According to Fryman, this experience has been dubbed the “re-imagined BI.”

Spark, said Fryman, is “going to be the analytic operating system” at IBM forming a “foundational layer.” The primary benefits being an increase in the speed of analytics and the ability to apply algorithms to real-time data consumption.

Hiding complexity

The “re-imagined BI” of today looks to hide the complex systems that are providing the insights. IBM’s strategy here is clear, and Fryman explained that it’s much like “driving a car” in that most people don’t understand “each part” that makes up the car, but that doesn’t stop them from being able to drive it.

In this way, IBM wants to make analytics accessible to even those who aren’t tech-savvy but still want to make insights for themselves. The company’s focus on hiding complexity extends to its services, which now focus more around working to understand a client’s “business outcome” and working “backward” from that to provide a solution, and that methodology was emphasized by Fryman.

Watch the full video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of IBM Insight 2015. And join in on the conversation by CrowdChatting with theCUBE hosts.

Photo by SiliconANGLE