We’re getting ready for Tableau Conference 2016 here at Ironside. With only a short time left until November 7th, our team is preparing for which parts of the conference they’re most excited to take in. And, more importantly, developing strategies for prioritizing where to spend their time. I got a chance to catch up quick with Crystal Meyers and Katelyn Tolbert, two of our Tableau-certified consultants, to hear what they’re looking forward to and get their perspectives on where people should be focusing at the conference. Read more
Tag Archive for: Ironside Team
LEXINGTON, MA – Ironside, a Boston enterprise data and analytics service firm announced last week the appointment of David Michelson, Chief Operating Officer. Michelson joins the company with over 20 years of business and technical consulting leadership, helping clients solve their most critical business issues. Read more
Ironside is happy to announce that one of our long-time professional services veterans, Scott Misage, will be taking on a broader management role as our Business Intelligence Practice Lead. With his history as a crucial contributor to and point person on many diverse and complex analytics projects across a variety of industries during his time as an Engagement Manager, Scott was a natural choice to head up the Ironside Business Intelligence practice and keep us at the forefront of innovation in the space.
About Scott
Scott is one of those rare leaders who is fully immersed in every possible detail of Ironside’s business analytics offerings but who can also deliver on the big picture and see the overall goals and strategies behind those individual solutions. This is why Scott has made a name for himself as a top thinker around both the performance of our solutions and their integration with one another.
Scott’s Specialties: Business Intelligence Advisory and Implementation, Performance Management Strategy, Enterprise Data Management and Architecture, Data Discovery, Bimodal Analytics, New Technology Discovery/Evaluation, Analytics Adoption
Focus and Goals
In his new role as Business Intelligence Practice Lead, Scott is committed to expanding our clients’ understanding of what a business analytics solution can do for them.
“It’s way more than just your standard BI reporting,” he says. “With all the advancements that have occurred, both in terms of the expanding focus on data discovery and the integration of predictive capabilities, business analytics is becoming this central connective fabric that really unifies and communicates across your whole environment. Through data, it unlocks the past, present, and future of your organization.”
This evolution is something Ironside already has a jump on due to Scott’s leadership in embracing and pushing forward a philosophy of bimodal analytics. Building on both our foundation in traditional enterprise BI structures and innovations in the areas of visualization, dashboarding, and data discovery, Scott is helping us provide the ad hoc capabilities that are in such high demand currently without compromising on the governance standards that allow analytics systems to function effectively.
“The whole bimodal analytics idea really hinges on balance,” he states. “It’s about getting a conversation going between your formal mode 1 BI infrastructure with all those recurring enterprise reports and your moving-at-the-speed-of-business mode 2 data discovery tools that uncover new insights. The key is to make sure there’s a process in place for this and that data quality gets kept as the main priority.”
Scott is also involved in building a deeper connection between the Business Intelligence and Analytics Advisory practice areas. Because there are so many tools out there on the market, having the ability to smoothly transition between evaluating options and building strategies and executing the technical elements needed to make those recommendations real is critical.
“We’re spoiled for choice in terms of business analytics tools, so it can get tricky to find the exact right fit,” he asserts. “Our practices together have the unique ability to both evaluate the tools from a technical and business perspective and then see the results of those evaluations through to completion, enabling the client along the way and delivering highly valuable solutions.”
If you’d like to see more of Scott’s perspectives as both a consultant and Business Intelligence Practice Lead, check out the articles he’s written on our website. You can also visit our Business Intelligence page to see what Scott’s team is involved in and how they can help you discover and build your ideal business analytics solution.
Ironside has placed the reins of our information management and data integration practice into the hands of one of our strongest data handling experts: Geoff Speare. Geoff will now be serving in a broader strategic and management capacity as our Practice Lead for Information Management. His deep expertise across both traditional and big data-oriented infrastructures, passion for bimodal analytics, and focus on governance make him the ideal thought leader to drive this part of our organization.
About Geoff
A long-time Ironside veteran, Geoff is an information management mastermind who can transform collections of data into solutions and architectures that keep businesses growing. The powerful integrations and data management strategies he creates show our clients that efficiently organized data is an invaluable asset improving all aspects of a business. Geoff works with tools from SSIS to PureData Systems for Analytics in order to provide the right answers for each client.
Geoff’s Specialties: Enterprise Data Architecture and Integration, Data Warehousing, Data Integration, Bimodal Analytics
Focus and Goals
Information Management Practice Lead is an apt title for Geoff, as many of the initiatives and solutions he’ll take on in his new role bring together elements from Ironside’s other practice areas.
“Information management is critical to all of the solutions that Ironside provides,” he says. “I’m really looking forward to helping businesses understand and solve the challenges they face in organizing and providing the right data to the right people. We’ve been doing this work for a long time at Ironside and have a lot of experience we can bring to bear.”
The infrastructure foundations that the Ironside Information Management team will build under Geoff’s leadership will provide the solid platform upon which organizations build their analytics strategies, meaning that their approaches need to be flexible enough to account for the many data handling options emerging in the modern landscape. Geoff is excited to take on all these different methods and make them a reality for our clients.
“Much more data is moving to the cloud now, which creates new challenges in putting it in one place for analysis,” he asserts. “Add to that the increased demands for timeliness and flexibility created by data discovery tools and the need for dynamic solutions is greater than it’s ever been. Businesses are shifting from warehouse-only architectures to approaches that can meet the requirements of bimodal analytics.”
This atmosphere of change opens up a wide array of opportunities to innovate in the information management and data integration space. Geoff sees this as a chance to get more people exposed to the behind-the-scenes processes they previously haven’t thought about and help them effectively control their environments.
“A lot of data movement is invisible to users – except when it doesn’t work,” he states. “Creating solutions that are easy to maintain and to understand is something I’ve done a lot of and believe very strongly in. I’ve seen many times the benefits of keeping all of these perspectives in mind, and look forward to bringing that approach to even more of Ironside’s clients.”
If you’d like to see more on how Geoff views information management, data integration, and business analytics, check out some of the articles he’s written. You can also check out our Information Management team page to see how Geoff and his team can help you take advantage of the information that’s critical to your organization’s success.
Ironside is excited to welcome Matt Barter into our ranks as our Industry Lead for Crime Prediction & Prevention. As a currently active police officer in an urban New England city, Matt is perfectly positioned to understand the unique challenges law enforcement officials at any level face and uncover the solutions that will let them proactively reduce crime in their communities. Read more
Ironside is excited to welcome Maria Ippolito into our organization as our new Practice Director for Sales Performance Management. She’s a high-energy, results-driven executive who has over 25 years of experience in engineering, marketing, sales, and sales operations management. Maria’s dynamic blend of expertise and industry experience perfectly embodies Ironside’s commitment to meeting the unique requirements of each of our customers’ sales performance management (SPM) goals and provides the foundation needed to take our existing SPM practice to the next level.
With a proven track record of driving overall profitability and effectiveness of sales channels in both startup- and enterprise-level technology and life sciences companies, Maria is able to hit the perfect mix of technical skill and strategic awareness needed to show clients the value that SPM processes can bring to their organizations.
During her career, Maria has directed and supported initiatives around many SPM-related activities, such as:
- Business planning tool implementation
- Sales analytics and reporting
- Quota setting and territory design
- Compensation design and administration
- ICM system implementations
- CRM implementations
- Sales process design and optimization
- Mobile sales enablement deployments
- Competency profiling for sales force recruitment and expansion
- Sales training and coaching
Regardless of the project she takes on, Maria’s core focus is always transformation to drive top line revenue and bottom line cost savings. She redefines how companies think about their sales process and the technologies they’re using by building highly functional teams, planning and rolling out process changes, and acquiring the tools organizations require to improve and optimize.
Maria’s list of credentials is extensive and distinguished. She has held key directorial positions at places like Smith & Nephew, Sales Science, Bolt, Beranek & Newman, and ITP Boston, Inc. and has overseen major process changes and improvements at all these companies. She also served as a cofounder of her own company, which was based on manufacturing simulation software that she took part in developing after receiving her Master of Science and Bachelor of Science degrees in Industrial Engineering and Electrical Engineering from Purdue University.
Here are some highlights from Maria’s numerous accomplishments:
- Successfully integrated two separate sales forces into a single unit after a $1.7 billion acquisition by Smith & Nephew, the largest they had ever made. Assimilated three different sales channels and restructured the entire US field organization, including new territory alignments and compensation plans.
- Built a world-class ICM system from the ground up at Smith & Nephew, transforming what was a manual process relying on Excel spreadsheets into a robust automated database for compensation plan design simulation and compensation plan efficiency analysis. The infrastructure she put in place now supports 1200 reps on 40 plans across 5 channels.
- Established a center of excellence for commercial process optimization at Smith & Nephew to drive internal efficiencies and sales force effectiveness.
- Championed Smith & Nephew’s transition to a modern business intelligence (BI) framework, providing a self-service sales analytics tool to the company’s field reps to encourage data-driven sales activities.
- Rebuilt the North American sales team at Bolt, Beranek & Newman, motivating the existing employees and recruiting new sales executives and technical consultants to create a high-performance sales engine.
- Developed and marketed the first commercially available input-driven manufacturing simulation software for optimizing discrete part manufacturing processes, cofounding her own company, Horizon Software, Inc., based on the technology. Horizon was later acquired by ITP Boston, Inc.
If you’d like to see what SPM can do for your company, check out our SPM page.
Lexington, MA, September 2, 2014 – For the second year in a row, Ironside has been recognized on the Inc. 5000 America’s Fastest Growing Private Companies list. For 2014, Ironside is ranked #546 on the list, twenty spots up from their 2013 ranking of #566.
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Over 90 golfers attended Ironside’s 3rd Annual Golf Tournament at The International Golf Club in Bolton, MA on Wednesday September 11th. This year’s event was the largest to date and we would like to thank our sponsors, IBM, Avnet, and a big thank you to one of our customers, the Acushnet company. Acushnet had sent over a few experts from Titleist who set up a demo tent and provided golf shirts for the Ironside team. In addition to our sponsors, we would like to thank everyone who participated in yet another successful golf event.
Temperatures exceeded 90 degrees that day, but it did not spoil the fun! Following golf, cocktails and hors d’oeuvres were served in the clubhouse along with an awards ceremony for the 1st and 2nd Place groups, longest drive, closest to the pin, and our favorite award the losing group!
Thank you again to everyone who joined us; we can’t wait for next year!
You can view the entire photo album on our Facebook page: http://irns.de/162tBsZ
Ironside is a data, analytics, and AI consulting and technology implementation company. We work with clients to understand their business objectives and day-to-day challenges, then employ our deep expertise in data strategy, architecture and engineering, integration, business intelligence, AI, and generative AI. We create technical solutions and practical approaches designed to drive smarter, data-driven decisions across a company and help it move further and faster toward its business goals.