Show me the data!

With apologies to fans of the movie "Jerry Maguire"... there were some really interesting findings in a new study from the Harvard Business Review about what helps business attract and retain top employees. Yes, you need to show them the money... but what I found fascinating was how much people are coming to expect good technology support inside the company.

One thing in particular jumped out at me in the article: Over 60% of respondants in this study wanted better access to business data. And that makes sense — it's what helps them be effective in their work! As the CTO of Amtrak told the Wall Street Journal, "tech issues that make it difficult for employees to do their jobs will ultimately have a negative impact on customer service efforts."

Here at xTuple, we're big believers in the value of unlocking value from your business data. In fact, it's baked into our name. What's that you say? You've never read our Frequently Asked Questions about where the name "xTuple" came from? Well, let me save you a click:

We were looking for something exciting, that speaks powerfully to the possibility for exponential growth in the key business metrics that are important to our customers. Double (2x), quadruple (4x), quintuple (5x) — xTuple. There is also, we confess, a bit of a geek-insider joke (there always is, with software companies). In computer science and mathematics, a "tuple" is a name for any two or more points of data you wish to analyze. In fact, in database circles, rows of the database are often referred to as tuples. So it's ex-tuple, from the database. Get it?

So now you know!

And, you'd be surprised at how much data your xTuple system captures. There's a lot you could learn from what you've already got sitting in your database, and put to good use in your business. Want to learn more? Contact xTuple Professional Services for a free consultation!

Ned Lilly

President and CEO

In October 2001, Ned co-founded xTuple, originally called OpenMFG, with the aim of bringing the worlds of open platform software and enterprise resource planning (ERP) together to solve the unmet needs of small- to mid-sized manufacturers. In 1999, he was a co-founder of Great Bridge, an early business built around the PostgreSQL database which is also the core technology for xTuple today. Great Bridge was incubated inside Landmark Communications, a mid-sized media company where Ned directed corporate venture investments, mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and startup activity. Prior to Landmark, Ned worked for a regional technology group in Washington D.C. and had a brief first career in political media — television, radio and a non-partisan news wire. He holds a B.A. from the University of Virginia and an M.A. from George Washington University.