State of the industries

2005: thrive to survive

by Keith Ferrell

Responding to demand drivers with agility, enhancing global connectivity, optimizing profitability, extending customer management, converging, coordinating, adopting supply chain innovations: These are just some of the goals set in place by the various business sectors you'll be reading about in this special section of Teradata Magazine. The diversity of companies' objectives points to the increasing suppleness of the data warehouse, its information and the tools available to manage it, along with the increased flexibility of industry solutions.

More than ever, one size does not fit all. A "single view of the business" is the awareness you need in order to realize the multiple purposes, programs and objectives your enterprise faces and seeks to accomplish. What do you want your enterprise to become? Or perhaps "what is it required to become?" is a more accurate question.

The effect of compliance regulations across industry lines cannot be overstated, and it is explored in the following pages from a variety of perspectives. The same can be said of heightened competitive pressures-whether coming from longstanding business adversaries, from the "new kid on the block" or from customers who are increasingly armed with information and expectations of their own.

Growth is a factor that many enterprises must decide how to handle. When faced with the growth potential embedded in next-generation technologies, how do companies prepare for the transition while, at the same time, preserving and extending those products and values current customers most appreciate?

As you meet the markets and industries profiled here, pay special attention to the ways in which each uses information resources, capabilities and tools in response to a variety of day-to-day operational concerns.

Throughout this section, you will see a growing partnership between process and vision, analytics and imagination, insight and brass-tack practicalities, tactical decision-making and business operations-all of which can be powerful alliances.

Businesses need that kind of power today in order to find optimal solutions for the challenges faced by business sectors such as manufacturing, communications, insurance, healthcare, pharmaceutical, financial services, retail, travel, transportation and government.

It has been said that businesses have never faced a more competitive and aggressive environment than that of today. Yet there are plenty of companies and institutions that seize this environment to excel, to thrive and to become industry leaders.

Where industry best-of-breed leads, others will follow. By then, of course, the leaders will be pushing themselves, their imaginations and their data warehouses toward new accomplishments.

But that's tomorrow's story. For now, take a look at today's state of the industries. T