Introducing Smart Analytics

About two years ago, I set up the Smart Analytics (SA) research portal. Check it out here at www.smart-analytics.com

Targeting Competitive Intelligence (CI) in the ICT space, the SA portal provides profiles on different companies in different ICT sectors. The portal design and build was and is outsourced to HBI Software Pvt Ltd in Bangalore. The actual research, analysis and content was and is outsourced to HBI Sales Pvt Ltd, also based in Bangalore.

The reports themselves are smart-tagged using smart tags and Microsoft Office web services. This means that users can automatically update downloaded reports once content has been updated. Microsoft liked this so back in 2005, the Smart Analytics portal was made available through Microsoft Office Marketplaces.

In 2006, Microsoft selected a small number of core research data sources to be integrated into the hard copy and OEM versions of Microsoft Office 2007 Suite. Smart Analytics was one of the core data sources selected, so today, users of Microsoft Office 2007 Suite can search Smart Analytics from within the Research ribbon / pane. SA is also available as a core research source in Internet Explorer 7.0.
The relevance of all this today is that we are about to publish a series of reports published by OTR onto the SA portal. It is e-commerce enabled so we can add third-party reports to the portal shop.

One of my own personal targets for 2007 is to encourage content providers based in NZ who create CI related reports in the ICT space to make their content available on the SA portal. Microsoft Office 2007 will provide them with a great route to market and raise their profile in the global market.

Today is not all work however. Tonight there will be a toast to Blackpool FC who managed a 2 - 0 win over Huddersfield in the Easter Monday game. That puts Blackpool into 4th place in the First Division and re-inforces their Play-Off credentials. With just 4 games to go, a trip to Cardiff in May is now well on the cards!