Scenario-analysis

The data mining techniques and methodologies presented by Charles Halliman work. Whether your focus is research, marketing or consulting you would be wise to invest in "Business Intelligence Using Smart Techniques".

Any business owner or corporate executive looking for competitive opportunities or an effective way to avoid being blindsided by competitors' activities or trapped by unfavorable trends should think about applying the business intelligence system clearly laid out in Business Intelligence Using Smart Techniques.

Charles Halliman's pragmatic approach is perfect for our times. While so many are desperately trying to keep afloat, thinking their only choices are to sink or swim madly, Halliman suggests a manageable process to uncover possibilities for breaking out of the doldrums. It's a challenge to divert resources to efforts like developing business intelligence, perceived to take extraordinary amounts of time and offer payoffs only in the long-term. But Halliman shows this does not have to be the case.

Halliman not only presents very straightforward tools for analyzing and using business intelligence to develop actionable ideas, he shows how text mining techniques can reduce the time and resources needed to turn large amounts of information about competitors and business environment trends into manageable business intelligence.

While the neatly packaged system Halliman describes can be used to more accurately assess a company's current situation and identify immediate tactics, its bigger return will be realized when used as part of an ongoing program of identifying success strategies for the ever-unfolding future. Even the near-term future holds opportunities, in the economy's turnaround. Now is the time for a company to ready itself.

Better yet, why not put the company on the leading edge of that recovery now, by being better informed about the business environment and competitors' activities? If they're in a holding pattern...imagine the possibilities!

The book provides an easy-to-follow, structured method of presenting information. Halliman employs review and preview techniques, so the reader can understand the context of new information, each step following logically from the last, with summaries that describe a progressively growing, but comprehendible and manageable system. Real examples give the reader hands-on experience as the system is built and then comes together to yield realistic actions.

In Business Intelligence Using Smart Techniques, business intelligence consultant Charles Halliman emphasizes the analysis of business information already gathered by corporate researchers, managers, and policy makers. Halliman presents an informative introduction to the performance of environmental scanning using "text mining" techniques, and utilizing scenarios and manual simulations to perform competitor analyses. Readers will learn to convert business information into business intelligence for sound marketing strategies and production policies, showing how potentially profitable actions can be taken based on gathered information drawn from today's highly competitive local, regional, national, and global marketplace. Highly recommended reading for business students, entrepreneurs, policy strategists, and corporate marketing executives.