With the recent acquisition of Coremetrics by IBM, last year’s acquisition of Omniture by Adobe, and the upcoming acquisition of X by X, you have to ask yourself, where is the web analytics industry headed anyway?

Well, let me introduce you to the Republic of BI.

The Republic of BI (BI = business intelligence) metaphorically represents the vertical integration happening in our industry today. It’s the same phenomenon that occurred in the financial services industry ten years ago (and, in fact, in every industry that has ever existed). Banks buy insurance companies, insurance companies buy stock brokers, stock brokers buy insurance companies…and so goes the circle of life.

In the case of our industry, the business case is all about strengthening the bonds, and reducing the friction, in the code that holds the web supply chain together.

Adobe didn’t buy Omniture because they think that web analytics is the next big growth wave. No, they bought Omniture because they believe a web analytics company is the perfect complement to their other web platform offerings. That is, Adobe calculated that by adding a web analytics product to their mix it would increase the value of their whole, whereby furthering their position as a leader in the larger digital production industry.

On a more personal level, let me introduce you to my Republic of BI at Microsoft.

They are:

• Sally in advertising.
• Payal who manages our customer databases.
• Jared the web dev.
• Qiana the designer.
• Bob in IT.
• Sunny in marketing.
• And, lest I forget, Hans in finance.

All of us have our individual role, but none of us can do it well without the other.

The same is true for our industry. The same is true for our association.

That is why I am excited to announce the formation of the WAA Advisory Council. This Council will be headed up by former WAA Board President Alex Langshur. Alex will be drawing from a diverse group of leaders from various industries, academia, other associations, and government. This council will help extend the reach of the Association into other industry sectors and contribute towards enhancing the brand and stature of the WAA. I am excited to see Alex step up to this and help WAA grow stronger.

So, welcome to the Republic of BI. It’s a land you already occupy. A territory where we need to find peace and profitability with designers, IT’ers, marketers, and the like. It’s a land where we should fight to make the borders more porous, rebel against departmental sovereignty, and rise up to make the collective stronger.

Sure, we could wait for Sally in advertising or Bob in IT to do it; it’s hard work. But who better to organize the Republic? Who has all the data, the customer knowledge, and the clearest line of sight into the modern competitive landscape? Man, I wish I knew a few people that fell into that category. They just might be able to change our world.

It’s time to stand up, reach out, and be the optimization you wish to see.

Get involved today.

Peter

Comments

[Kelly McClean]

Hi Peter,

I'm currently leading an analytics review at my company. Rapidly came to the conclusion that the thing that's missing is a lens that I can use to look at all my data, web, sales, eCRM etc.

Import/Export of external data sources is very useful, but the vendors all fail because either the GUII sucks or legally the data center is in the wrong country or they only offer a SaaS product.

Looking forward to hearing more from the Republic of BI.