Today Aha! (http://www.ahasoftware.com/insight.html) presented to the BBBT. Aha! is a provider for "a new generation of software for business to compete with collaborative, closed-loop, predictive analytics.". Looking to capitalize on the gap between analytics and the operational processes that could best use them, Aha! proposes to close the loop just as Six Sigma and TQM have advocated for years.
What to Like:
- I liked the fact that a SaaS company was moving to link strategy analytical models with operational processes. This is a bold approach for an organization with data access challenges outside the corporate data center.... Then again SalesForce.com was a bold challenge to move the sales funnel outside the data center as well.
- I also liked the fact that Aha! views analytics as being much more than something that you can accomplish in MS Excel or with the SUM() function in SQL. Along the continuum of analytics, Aha! looks at the highest levels of optimization and predictive analytics and how to put those analytics to use within the above mentioned operational business processes.... Not just models that "operate" in isolation among the guys/gals in the "white lab coats".
- Finally, I really appreciated that not only does Aha! take the improvement concepts of Six Sigma and TQM to heart in their preamble... Aha! brings that into their stated methodology to link the modeled results to their brand of collaborative analytics.
What not to Like:
- The demo provided lots of good information to the user. However, I would have expected a more robust dashboard environment. But this is a slight disagreement with the presentation layer. It was agreed at the BBBT that it is/was much more important to have the data accurate than pretty. In this Aha! provides the confidence that the numbers presented are accurate and faithful to the model. Enhancing the 'human factors' is a relatively easy exercise.
In Summary:
I really like the features and functions of the Aha! SaaS Axel Services Platform and the methodology of the Aha! implementation. In combination, they represent a good proposition for many organizations. However, there are refinements to the human factor aspects and the overall high level messaging that Aha! need to make before the Axel platform can really move from the niche opportunities, that it has been filling, to a mainstream product offering that moves beyond those niches.
But again, SaaS pioneer Salesforce.com must have seemed like a niche player to many at its start to link sales performance with operational data. While Aha! may not be in SalesForce.com's class in the future; Aha! is making strides to take advanced analytics from the lab to the frontline.
