Yellowfin & Macquarie University earn Ventana Research 2011 BI award

International Business Intelligence (BI) vendor Yellowfin and client Macquarie University have received two awards for Location Intelligence (LI) at the sixth annual Ventana Research Leadership Awards.

Yellowfin was announced the Ventana Research 2011 Leadership Award Winner for LI, while Macquarie University was recognized as the Ventana Research 2011 Leadership Award Leader in LI. Yellowfin is the first Australia-based software vendor to win a Ventana Research Leadership Award. Macquarie University is also the first Australia-based university to take home a Ventana Research Leadership Award.

The awards recognized the Yellowfin and Macquarie University BI implementation as the best 2010/11 worldwide example of LI and the most likely to produce significant business value heading into 2012.

“The Yellowfin – Macquarie University joint analytics program demonstrates how strategically analyzing location-based data can deliver organizations previously unheralded operational insight,” said Mark Smith, CEO and Chief Research Officer, Ventana Research. “Yellowfin has helped Macquarie University empower business and academic decision-makers with the information needed to underpin effective resource, infrastructure and strategic planning as well as student acquisition initiatives.”

The 2011 global awards were open to any organization and vendor that had delivered a BI implementation during 2010/11. The awards recognize individuals and organizations that have advanced business leadership and achieved outstanding business outcomes through the use of technology.

Award submissions, judged by Ventana Research’s world-renowned industry research team, were scored according to their use of people, processes, information and technology, the best practices developed and the project’s business impacts in 2010/11 as well as the projected value in 2012.

Macquarie University Information Director, Dr Neil Fraser, said that Yellowfin’s LI technology is enabling Macquarie to analyze large location-based datasets to uncover questions, answers and opportunities at a micro and macro level.

“We can now accurately map where our students are coming from and develop effective marketing strategies accordingly,” said Fraser. “For example, we can monitor student intake around the world or traffic flow around the campus. We can even analyze where our funding comes from based on locality – the opportunities are limitless.

“Widespread self-service access to reporting and analytics is vital for our success as a university. Being able to visualize our data is key to discovering these types of problems and opportunities and Yellowfin delivers that.”

Yellowfin CEO, Glen Rabie, said that the internationally recognized award acknowledged the capacity of Macquarie University’s BI implementation to improve the quality of teaching and student services in an era of greater competition.

“Macquarie University is utilizing reporting and analytics to create considerable competitive advantage in the Australian and international higher education markets,” said Rabie. “Being able to identify where current and prospective students are coming from, and how the location of university resources and infrastructure impacts the quality of learning, will continue to deliver Macquarie University significant business value.”

The Yellowfin – Macquarie University implementation also won the People’s Choice Award at 2011’s inaugural Excellence in Business Intelligence Awards.

Award winners were announced from a shortlist of six finalists at the Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing 2.0 Conference, 26 October 2011, Sydney, Australia.

The winner of the People’s Choice Award was chosen by conference attendees, which included a raft of industry leaders, veterans and experts, who nominated the case study they found most inspiring.

The awards, coordinated by The Australian Business Intelligence Leadership Forum, were open to any organization or vendor that delivered or participated in the delivery of a BI project within Australia since 1 July 2010.

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About Ventana Research

Ventana Research is the most authoritative and respected benchmark business technology research and advisory services firm. We provide insight and expert guidance on mainstream and disruptive technologies through a unique set of research-based offerings including benchmark research and technology evaluation assessments, education workshops and our research and advisory services, Ventana On-Demand. Our unparalleled understanding of the role of technology in optimizing business processes and performance and our best practices guidance are rooted in our rigorous research-based benchmarking of people, processes, information and technology across business and IT functions in every industry. This benchmark research plus our market coverage and in-depth knowledge of hundreds of technology providers means we can deliver education and expertise to our clients to increase the value they derive from technology investments while reducing time, cost and risk.

Ventana Research provides the most comprehensive analyst and research coverage in the industry; business and IT professionals worldwide are members of our community and benefit from Ventana Research’s insights, as do highly regarded media and association partners around the globe.


About Yellowfin

Yellowfin is a global Business Intelligence (BI) software vendor headquartered and developed in Melbourne, Australia. Yellowfin is a highly intuitive 100 percent Web-based reporting and analytics solution.

About Macquarie University

Macquarie University is a leading Australian research university located in Sydney, Australia. It enjoys a beautiful 126 hectare, park-like campus close to the high-technology corridor running from Sydney’s north-west to the city.

The University enrols about 37,000 students across four faculties. Macquarie is a proudly international university, with around one-third of its current students coming from more than 117 countries, and alumni found worldwide.

Also affiliated with the University are several research centers, schools and institutes including the highly regarded Macquarie Graduate School of Management.

Macquarie is consistently ranked in the top tier of Australian research universities and among the top 2% of universities in the world by various sources.

Macquarie is a modern university with many new facilities resulting from a $1 billion infrastructure and capital works program together with Government and private investment.


For further media information, interviews or images, please contact:

  • Lachlan James, Yellowfin Communications Manager – lachlan.james@yellowfin.com.au, 03 9090 0454, 0431 835 658
  • Greg Welsh, Macquarie University Communications Manager – greg.welsh@mq.edu.au, 02 9850 7456, 0407 200 474

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