Businesses are at various levels of maturity relative to investments in business intelligence data and systems. For the most part, Business Intelligence (BI) as an IT and data investment has been the domain of Fortune 500 companies. Advances in cloud computing and SaaS/managed services bring BI to small and mid-sized companies and offer compelling solutions to business users of large organizations that struggle with getting the information they need and want from their data and IT. In particular, what is increasingly becoming the norm is small and mid-sized companies that have big company data issues.

Brand is the social contract of business, the implicit agreement between the parties in a transaction about the nature of their long-term relationship. One is tempted to quote Hobbs to the effect that economic life devoid of brands tends to be “solitary, poor, nasty brutish and short,” a description eerily evocative of today’s commercial environment. As with political theory, when discussing brand it is easy to slip into morality tales. The recent collapse of the Tiger Woods and Toyota brands calls up images from Greek tragedy with choruses of talking heads lamenting their fall from greatness.

In two executive interviews, Mike Hickey, President Pitney Bowes Business Insight, and Bernard Gracy, Vice President, Business Development for Product and Services, PitneyBowes discuss the organizational challenges and benefits of integrating location intelligence into workflows and product and service lines. Bernard Gracy talks about how the integration of location intelligence into services and operations resulted in $1 million per year in telecommunications cost savings, and increased profitability and an 8 point uplift in customer satisfaction in their document management group.