Talk:Board International

Request for several revisions to update Board International article
Hi,

As an employee of Board International, I have a conflict of interest in editing the article directly. I would like to request several revisions to bring the article up-to-date and reflect the current status of the organization. Please could someone review my suggested edits below and apply them to the article if seen as appropriate?

Company Infobox: Note - the logo was updated in a rebranding exercise which took place in 2019. A request for the upload of the new logo has already been made separately using the Wikipedia Files for upload wizard
 * We now have a joint HQ in the USA. Proposal: Add Boston, USA to the Headquarters box
 * The current version of the product is now Board 11 but this development is ongoing. Proposal: Make the product information more generic, replacing "Board 10" with "Board Decision-Making Platform"
 * The number of locations is currently missing. Proposal: Add Number of Locations field with '27' and Number of Locations Year field with '2020'
 * We serve customers worldwide. Proposal: Add Area served field with 'Worldwide'


 * ✔️ for logo update by Benstown, ✅ for adding Boston HQ, ❌ for the rest. The product can just be described in the article. In my understanding, the location field in company infoboxes usually refers to retail locations, like number of McDonalds' stores, not number of corporate offices. Describing your service area as worldwide is superfluous. Altamel (talk) 17:36, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

General:
 * Since rebranding in 2019, the company is no longer referred to in all capitals (BOARD) but just as Board (see the website for evidence of this). Proposal: Replace all instances of 'BOARD' with 'Board'


 * ✔️ by Nnadigoodluck. Altamel (talk) 17:36, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Introductory paragraph: This contains several pieces of outdated information, including customer names, numbers, and countries in which we operate. There are several other changes in terms of the way in which the software is classified as industry terminology has developed over the years. Proposal: Replace existing introductory paragraph with the following text:

Board International is a software vendor jointly headquartered in Chiasso, Switzerland and Boston, USA. The company operates worldwide from 27 office locations and has more than 3,000 customers including Coca-Cola European Partners, KPMG, Puma, and Toyota. The company's Decision-Making Platform - Board - combines Business Intelligence, Integrated Business Planning, and Predictive Analytics capabilities in a single solution.


 * I don't like either this version or the version in the article. Both just feel promotional, like listing your most prominent customers and describing your product with marketing-speak. Could you offer a non-promotional summary instead? Altamel (talk) 17:36, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

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History: There is currently no company history present but I would like to insert a new section for this, containing the following information. I have tried to include external sources where possible though some of the information, being specifically announced by the business, is only available on the Board website:

History
Board International was founded in 1994. Since its inception, the company has seen numerous consecutive years of rapid growth and increased its presence through the opening of offices worldwide.

In May 2016, a minority investment in Board International was made by Grafton Capital. The company also established its co-located headquarters in Boston to help drive expansion in the North American market.

Board ran its first global user conference, Boardville, in 2017.

In 2019, a majority stake in the company was acquired by private equity investor Nordic Capital.

In 2020, Board launched its Marketplace, a hub for customers to access ready-made solutions designed by Board and Partner organizations.


 * I like the idea of adding a history section. But the lack of secondary sources is problematic. What I mean by that is sources that are not by Board, not by companies with a financial relationship with Board, and not press releases either. I would like to mention the user conference somewhere, as it sounds important, but I can't find any independent sources covering it. Altamel (talk) 18:43, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

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Product: Here I would like to update facts about the product, bringing it in line with current industry terminology. Much of the existing information dates back to 2012 so is severely outdated or has broken links - including outdated information about the product's technology. Proposal: remove this outdated information and broken links, updating the current product section to the following:

Products
Board International offers one product, the Board Decision-Making Platform which unifies Business Intelligence (BI), Corporate Performance Management (CPM), and Predictive Analytics in a single environment to deliver an Integrated Business Planning (IBP) approach.

Board is typically used to manage activities and processes such as:
 * Data analysis
 * Management reporting
 * Budgeting
 * Planning
 * Forecasting
 * Financial closing

Board also offers prebuilt applications for Financial Consolidation and Lease Accounting. The latter manages IFRS 16 and ASC 842.

As with organizations that deploy standalone Business Intelligence software and strategic planning software, Board is used to in an effort to improve management decision-making, increase productivity, and lower costs. Due to its drag-and-drop nature, no coding is required to develop applications within the Board platform.

Technology
As of Version 7, the Board toolkit featured a service-oriented architecture that relied heavily on Microsoft technology, especially the .NET Framework with its Windows Communication Foundation. This allowed for tight integration with other Microsoft products, such as Microsoft Office, but required Windows in order to run the full client, a limitation which was identified by Gartner as a possible factor for preventing a deeper market penetration.

The introduction of the .NET-based Board 7 earned the company a ''Microsoft. NET Swiss Innovation Award'' in 2010.

In 2012, the company introduced an update of the proprietary multidimensional database that Board is based on. This new technology was labeled as HBMP (Hybrid Bitwise Memory Pattern). It introduced a new compression method that combined disk-based and in-memory database approaches. It supported both relational and multidimensional data models.

In 2016, Board Cloud was launched, enabling access to Board-based solutions via a web browser. Board Cloud is hosted on Microsoft Azure.

In 2019, the underlying Board technology was completely rewritten with the release of Board 11, featuring the new WAVE Engine.

Effectiveness
A 2012 case study by Nucleus Research analyzed the effectiveness of Board when used as a company-wide business analytics solution. The research was based on three years' worth of actual data from Marketing General, a Board customer. It came to the conclusion that the introduction of Board allowed Marketing General to "raise profits, reduce customer churn and increase organizational productivity" while producing an average annual benefit of $119,962. It was calculated that, on average, the system saved six working hours a week per manager and IT worker.


 * I can't approve this. Both this version and the article's version are somewhat promotional, but I think the article is written better. Can you be more specific about what parts of the article are outdated? If you're referring to the Version 7 paragraph, I've changed it to past tense. If the article makes a claim that is no longer true, I'll look into fixing it. But if the claim is old but still true, or the article is just missing newer products, I'm not going to make revisions unless you provide secondary sources. Altamel (talk) 18:43, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Recognition
Board is routinely evaluated by internationally recognized research and advisory firms. Recent evaluations include:


 * A Leader in the Nucleus Research CPM Technology Value Matrix 2020
 * Leader and Gold Medalist in the Info-Tech BI Data Quadrant 2020
 * Market Leader in Integrated Planning and Analytics by BARC 2020
 * Experience and Trust Leader in Dresner’s Wisdom of Crowds EPM 2020
 * Best Performer in the Ventana Research Value Index for BI and Analytics 2019
 * A Visionary in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Financial Planning & Analysis Solutions 2019

In 2018, Board was named a Niche Player in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Analytics and Business Intelligence Platforms. Board is rated as one of only two vendors "offering a modern analytics and BI platform with integrated financial planning and reporting functionality", which works on-premises as well as in the cloud. Among the cautions noticed by the Board reference customers, there were the lowest data volumes sourced by MOLAP or ROLAP datasets, without use cases of clients performing complex analyzes on different types of data sources. Furthermore, Gartner measured the need for improved documentation, online tutorials, and a more empowered online user community.

In 2019, the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Analytics and Business Intelligence Platforms confirmed Board as a Niche Player, focused on "re-engineering the core calculation and storage engine to take advantage of parallelization and concurrency and to be more flexible on how data is modeled". Among the cautions, the need for keeping user enablement in focus was removed.

Board has also received more than 40 international awards and accolades for its software offering.


 * This awards listing is way too long. I've trimmed it down because even the existing awards section is too promotional. I'm rather skeptical of Gartner Magic Quadrant because the award has been criticized for not being financially independent, namely, that companies who hire Gartner's services may derive an advantage for receiving the award. Altamel (talk) 18:18, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Offices: There are an increased number of Board offices now in more countries. Proposal: Update the office locations as follows

Offices
Board International has a total of 27 offices spread across five continents and 19 countries.

Board International's worldwide subsidiaries and their exact locations are as follows:

Headquarters

 * Board International (Chiasso, Switzerland)
 * Board Americas (Boston, USA)

Local Offices

 * Board Argentina (Buenos Aires, Argentina)
 * Board Americas (Texas and California, USA)
 * Board Asia Pacific (Singapore)
 * Board Australia (Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane, Australia)
 * Board Belgium (Brussels, Belgium)
 * Board Deutschland (Frankfurt and Munich, Germany)
 * Board Denmark (Frederiksberg, Denmark)
 * Board France (Paris, France)
 * Board Hong Kong (Hong Kong, China)
 * Board India (Mumbai, India)
 * Board Italia (Milan and Rome, Italy)
 * Board Iberica (Barcelona and Madrid, Spain)
 * Board Japan (Tokyo, Japan)
 * Board Mexico (Mexico City, Mexico)
 * Board Middle East (Dubai, United Arab Emirates)
 * Board Netherlands (Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
 * Board Nordics (Kopenhagen, Denmark)
 * Board Switzerland (Zurich and Geneva, Switzerland)
 * Board UK (London, United Kingdom)


 * ✅ for updating the number of offices; ❌ for updating the list. I've removed the full list because of our policy against such lists, Wikipedia is not a directory. I'm sure Board is rightfully proud of its recent expansion. But one side effect of that growth is that at some point, Wikipedia has to start summarizing the company's operations, and so lists have to be trimmed down. Altamel (talk) 18:18, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Daniel at Board (talk) 10:38, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Hi Daniel, and thank you for your suggestions. I'm afraid most of them have been declined, for being either promotional or relying too heavily on Board's website as a source. Please see my responses and comments above. Best, Altamel (talk) 18:47, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Hi, thanks for taking the time to review the suggestions and provide feedback. Daniel at Board (talk) 09:56, 20 May 2020 (UTC)