Analytics in a Business Context

Michael O'Neil is one of the world's foremost independent IT industry analysts. Over the course of his career, he has helped executives at leading buy-side and sell-side organizations to capitalize new technologies and accompanying business opportunities. He has been a keynote speaker at dozens of events, and held intensive strategy workshops across North America, and in Asia, Australia, Europe and the Caribbean, on issues ranging from channel/ecosystem management to hybrid/cloud roadmapping. And O'Neil has authored hundreds of reports and whitepapers, and two acclaimed management books: Building Cloud Value: A Guide to Best Practice, 2016 (with InsightaaS partner Mary Allen) and The Death of Core Competency: A management guide to cloud computing and the zero-friction management future (InsightaaS Press, 2014). After spending nearly 20 years as a senior executive with vendor-focused analyst firm International Data Corporation (IDC), O'Neil started businesses focused on delivering deep IT/business content to a wider community. Current/recent clients include senior policy officials in Canadian and international governments, IT and business executives with firms looking to transform their business operations through the application of advanced technologies, corporate finance firms, academic institutions, US/global research firms and other consulting organizations - as well as sell-side firms ranging from global IT product and service suppliers to niche cloud vendors, channel members and service providers. Most of O'Neil's current consulting work is focused on analytics, cloud computing and data centre operations and economics, and on IT supplier management or GTM/channel strategy. In 2015, O'Neil (again, with InsightaaS partner Mary Allen) launched the Toronto Cloud Business Coalition, uniting buy-side, sell-side, academic and other thought leaders in co-creation of Best Practices positions addressing the most important issues in cloud adoption and use; this initiative has and continues to deliver landmark reports on critical cloud topics. O'Neil and Allen have subsequently launched three additional Best Practice communities, including Vision to Value: The Economics of Data (V2V), DC Foresight, Transformative Technologies in Canada, IoT Coalition Canada, Canadian Analytics Business Coalition. Together with their associated Meetup groups, these communities currently serve approximately 4,000 IT practitioners and IT/business managers and executives. In 2016, O'Neil was asked to develop and deliver a course, Cloud Systems in Practice, for University of Toronto's School of Continuing Studies. Learners taking the course include professionals employed by Canada's major banks and telcos, leading academic institutions, healthcare and other public sector organizations, IT suppliers and smaller Canadian businesses. In 2018, InsightaaS partner with McMaster University's Computing Infrastructure Research Centre (CIRC) to launch the Great Canadian Data Centre Symposium. GCDCS19 is schedueld for June, 2019. Through the course of his career, O'Neil has been a prolific publisher and consultant. In addition to the Best Practice reports and Building Cloud Value, recent publications include: reports providing IT strategy and investment guidance to both business and technology executives, case studies detailing the business impact of analytics and other advanced technologies, extensive research on sustainability, hybrid IT roadmaps for five Caribbean nations, US-focused reports (with Techaisle) on security, Big Data analytics, IT maturity and the "buyer's journey," and buy-side and channel trends in cloud computing, mobility and managed services, and (with InsightaaS) analyses of issues ranging from cloud automation and orchestration to channel management in the hybrid/post-transactional IT industry.