Business Intelligence has gathered increasing profile in recent years as both the IT and Finance functions have become aware of its potential to improve business.
In this paper I profile typical BI scenarios focusing on the deployment challenges and outcomes and hopefully provoke providers to deliver BI solutions in under 45 days .
Introduction
The ongoing crisis in the financial world as we lurch from one bankruptcy to another leaves us with little room for joy and there seems, not surprisingly, like that old Chinese saying suggests, that we are living in “interesting” if not fraught times.
Certainly the events of the last few years affect us as Finance people. Quite apart from the financial challenges we know from Enron that the Government response to AIG, Freddie and Fanny Mae and other banking failures was to legislate even more disclosure.
For any of us who have worked in the US or for a US subsidiary we know the impact of Sarbanes Oxley. It took the US business community some time to comply and my guess is our next “must do” BI project will be disclosure driven.
Agile and now Lean are the words for our times as we need to be responsive more than ever. We need a BI environment that allows us to adapt to the whirlwinds of change or risk failure.
It was Brutus in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, who observed,
There is a tide in the affairs of men. Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat, and we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
With the financial news we receive every day you have got to think that we are on such a sea? The tide is going out and we had better get on board or risk getting stranded.
I understand that it was George Bernard Shaw who observed that “We learn from history that we learn nothing from history”?
Is that like saying “History repeats itself because no one was listening the first time”? This reasonably leads to the corollary “if we do not learn from the mistakes of history we are doomed to repeat them” which provides a useful segue to the topic of this white paper.
To us at Procuity, Business Intelligence gives visibility to our corporate history and we think that its effective use provides some of the tools required to avoid repeating past mistakes.
In this paper we provide you with an opportunity to leverage, hopefully to your advantage, the experience of some industry exemplars to grasp the “Art of the Possible”.
To this end we are going to reflect on some recent corporate BI scenarios which we hope are instructive.
Our goal is to persuade you that BI is essential although it did occur to us that in today’s climate the term Business Intelligence could perhaps be seen by some of the general public as an oxymoron.
Our hope is that the Business Intelligence scenarios we review in this white paper might enhance your own opportunities for success by suggesting another set of possibilities. We are mindful that the best indicator of success is success itself, but failures can also be instructive so, first to some failures.
International Foods Supplier
A few years ago I met with a large food manufacturer at the behest of the finance folk as they wanted to automate their monthly Sales and Operating Plan (SOP) process. The spreadsheet they were using at the time was over 7.5 MB as they had used every column and were challenging the 65k Excel 2003 row limitations.
Conservatively based on the low end of commonly accepted per cell error rates of 1 in 10,000 we could be talking over 400 errors (on the high end 4,000). Obviously someone in planning had done their sums and hence the call.
While preparing to demonstration to them we spoke with one of the Management Accountants and asked curiously how responsive IT was to the Finance reporting needs. He said that he had had to wait up to 2 years to get reports that they wanted. This was clearly not “business intelligent”.
They were using a well-known ERP for inventory management and data wasn’t a problem so we were surprised he accepted those sorts of time horizons to get visibility into the business.
He was a slave to another department’s priorities which were clearly out of sync with Finance priorities.
Sadly the project was shelved as the IT Project Manager simply could not believe that it was possible to deliver the desired outcomes in the time frames that were our everyday experience – under 6 weeks. His experience of “the possible”, having worked for some large IT vendor was measured in months, not weeks.
To pick up on that it was recently stated that the CIO at Defence announced that he was establishing a new operating regime to deal with their vendors.
He was frustrated by long lead times and failure to deliver and would now only give repeat business to vendors that could deliver outcomes in less than 90 days. He called it the “90 day drop”.
While not entirely clear what qualifies as a deliverable in this context but the scenarios speak of BI outcomes most of which were delivered in under half that time. We now have access to DIY BI technologies like OLAP that allow us to partner with IT for the infrastructure support but then push ahead and deliver BI outcomes ourselves in timeframes of less than half the 90 days.
The challenge to us in the finance community is to specify what can be delivered in less than 90 days but typically in half that time. Let’s call it the “45 day drop”. Go for the quicker lower risk wins. We all know from experience the longer the project the higher the risk and much is achievable in 45 days with today’s DIY technologies.
The purpose of our scenarios is to give you some sense of what is achievable in the 45 days.
Firstly let us look at that fairly traditional use for BI in the monthly management accounts within a highly fractured geographically dispersed, poorly connected environment.
In this paper I profile typical BI scenarios focusing on the deployment challenges and outcomes and hopefully provoke providers to deliver BI solutions in under 45 days .
Introduction
The ongoing crisis in the financial world as we lurch from one bankruptcy to another leaves us with little room for joy and there seems, not surprisingly, like that old Chinese saying suggests, that we are living in “interesting” if not fraught times.
Certainly the events of the last few years affect us as Finance people. Quite apart from the financial challenges we know from Enron that the Government response to AIG, Freddie and Fanny Mae and other banking failures was to legislate even more disclosure.
For any of us who have worked in the US or for a US subsidiary we know the impact of Sarbanes Oxley. It took the US business community some time to comply and my guess is our next “must do” BI project will be disclosure driven.
Agile and now Lean are the words for our times as we need to be responsive more than ever. We need a BI environment that allows us to adapt to the whirlwinds of change or risk failure.
It was Brutus in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, who observed,
There is a tide in the affairs of men. Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat, and we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
With the financial news we receive every day you have got to think that we are on such a sea? The tide is going out and we had better get on board or risk getting stranded.
I understand that it was George Bernard Shaw who observed that “We learn from history that we learn nothing from history”?
Is that like saying “History repeats itself because no one was listening the first time”? This reasonably leads to the corollary “if we do not learn from the mistakes of history we are doomed to repeat them” which provides a useful segue to the topic of this white paper.
To us at Procuity, Business Intelligence gives visibility to our corporate history and we think that its effective use provides some of the tools required to avoid repeating past mistakes.
In this paper we provide you with an opportunity to leverage, hopefully to your advantage, the experience of some industry exemplars to grasp the “Art of the Possible”.
To this end we are going to reflect on some recent corporate BI scenarios which we hope are instructive.
Our goal is to persuade you that BI is essential although it did occur to us that in today’s climate the term Business Intelligence could perhaps be seen by some of the general public as an oxymoron.
Our hope is that the Business Intelligence scenarios we review in this white paper might enhance your own opportunities for success by suggesting another set of possibilities. We are mindful that the best indicator of success is success itself, but failures can also be instructive so, first to some failures.
International Foods Supplier
A few years ago I met with a large food manufacturer at the behest of the finance folk as they wanted to automate their monthly Sales and Operating Plan (SOP) process. The spreadsheet they were using at the time was over 7.5 MB as they had used every column and were challenging the 65k Excel 2003 row limitations.
Conservatively based on the low end of commonly accepted per cell error rates of 1 in 10,000 we could be talking over 400 errors (on the high end 4,000). Obviously someone in planning had done their sums and hence the call.
While preparing to demonstration to them we spoke with one of the Management Accountants and asked curiously how responsive IT was to the Finance reporting needs. He said that he had had to wait up to 2 years to get reports that they wanted. This was clearly not “business intelligent”.
They were using a well-known ERP for inventory management and data wasn’t a problem so we were surprised he accepted those sorts of time horizons to get visibility into the business.
He was a slave to another department’s priorities which were clearly out of sync with Finance priorities.
Sadly the project was shelved as the IT Project Manager simply could not believe that it was possible to deliver the desired outcomes in the time frames that were our everyday experience – under 6 weeks. His experience of “the possible”, having worked for some large IT vendor was measured in months, not weeks.
To pick up on that it was recently stated that the CIO at Defence announced that he was establishing a new operating regime to deal with their vendors.
He was frustrated by long lead times and failure to deliver and would now only give repeat business to vendors that could deliver outcomes in less than 90 days. He called it the “90 day drop”.
While not entirely clear what qualifies as a deliverable in this context but the scenarios speak of BI outcomes most of which were delivered in under half that time. We now have access to DIY BI technologies like OLAP that allow us to partner with IT for the infrastructure support but then push ahead and deliver BI outcomes ourselves in timeframes of less than half the 90 days.
The challenge to us in the finance community is to specify what can be delivered in less than 90 days but typically in half that time. Let’s call it the “45 day drop”. Go for the quicker lower risk wins. We all know from experience the longer the project the higher the risk and much is achievable in 45 days with today’s DIY technologies.
The purpose of our scenarios is to give you some sense of what is achievable in the 45 days.
Firstly let us look at that fairly traditional use for BI in the monthly management accounts within a highly fractured geographically dispersed, poorly connected environment.
APAC Medical Supplier – Better Meds
The finance function at a supplier of medical equipment and pharmaceuticals to the Asia Pacific region had the monthly challenge of producing a number of management report decks with over 100 pages of tables, commentary and charts with often multiple charts per page.
The effort was hugely “handraulic”, retyping ledger reports, emails and performance estimates into spreadsheets and took over 3 weeks of effort resulting in many late nights for finance and unacceptable error rates. The senior executives were unaware of the staff effort required, nor perhaps grasped the potential business risk.
Starting with the existing deck a data mart and related OLAP cubes were created that acted as a repository for all the reporting data. Some data was drawn from the key Ledgers and ERPs or from reports produced by these systems where we were unable or IT were unwilling for us to connect directly.
The cubes were enabled for “writeback” so performance commentary and data currently entered into the old Excel spreadsheets, now connected to the Cubes could be written back into a robust data store.
With Excel attached to the underlying data it safely became the report design tool leveraging existing competencies. A consistent “look and feel” was adopted across the deck rather than the lot looking like a ransom note. Critical data relationships such as Margins and Margin Percents, Actual to Budget and Actual to Forecast were codified into auditable rules and applied consistently across the data making reports consistent. Everything tied up and footed.
The team took every success they could get, a bit like chipping away at a prison wall. As early successes were achieved, more integration followed and finally the entire wall came down and the deck was automated.
The total project took nearly a year to finally tie up all the loose ends, with one success at a time, but the actual effort required was still less than 90 days. One of the larger single projects.
The finance function at a supplier of medical equipment and pharmaceuticals to the Asia Pacific region had the monthly challenge of producing a number of management report decks with over 100 pages of tables, commentary and charts with often multiple charts per page.
The effort was hugely “handraulic”, retyping ledger reports, emails and performance estimates into spreadsheets and took over 3 weeks of effort resulting in many late nights for finance and unacceptable error rates. The senior executives were unaware of the staff effort required, nor perhaps grasped the potential business risk.
Starting with the existing deck a data mart and related OLAP cubes were created that acted as a repository for all the reporting data. Some data was drawn from the key Ledgers and ERPs or from reports produced by these systems where we were unable or IT were unwilling for us to connect directly.
The cubes were enabled for “writeback” so performance commentary and data currently entered into the old Excel spreadsheets, now connected to the Cubes could be written back into a robust data store.
With Excel attached to the underlying data it safely became the report design tool leveraging existing competencies. A consistent “look and feel” was adopted across the deck rather than the lot looking like a ransom note. Critical data relationships such as Margins and Margin Percents, Actual to Budget and Actual to Forecast were codified into auditable rules and applied consistently across the data making reports consistent. Everything tied up and footed.
The team took every success they could get, a bit like chipping away at a prison wall. As early successes were achieved, more integration followed and finally the entire wall came down and the deck was automated.
The total project took nearly a year to finally tie up all the loose ends, with one success at a time, but the actual effort required was still less than 90 days. One of the larger single projects.
FGA – 360 Degree Performance & Industry Reporting
A few years ago I met with a divisional Director in Canberra of a Federal Government Agency and we got talking about Business Intelligence. He went silent for a moment as if he was having some sort of epiphany.
He then went on to describe a Business Intelligence project he was dreaming about but was sure wasn’t possible. No one to date had even offered a solution.
He was charged with collecting and disseminating industry intelligence around panel suppliers to the organisation. This involved among other things, reporting to the executive industry and a senate committee, regular 360o performance reviews with vendor actual and comparative performance period-on-period.
The post-review data was resident on an Access data base and with the application of over 70 different queries which applied complex weightings and CPI movements, manipulated data could be drawn into Excel so that multiple charts could be created ready for pasting into a Word document that would be PDF’ed and sent to the appropriate recipients.
This was a manual process with reports to go to over 100 industry recipients as well as 50 or so internal users of the consolidated and individual reports. It produced a print run of greater than 2,500 pages. Although having a similar look and feel each report was bespoke as every report had a different length as every supplier did different projects and it required page numbering and indexing.
The estimated time required to complete the task manually exceeded the 6 months sampling window. The agency had a difficult problem as they had published their reporting intention to the industry community and their executive.
Fortunately we did not know the problem was perceived to be impossible to solve and so the consultant’s BI solution was to design OLAP cubes with the appropriate dimensions and apply the required statistical and weighting rules to the data.
Mind you, we did a Proof of Concept to demonstrate to our client it was eminently doable which leads to another takeaway. If in doubt do a small Proof of Concept to prove the potential. Even $10k (unbelievable to those in the larger end of consulting town) can get you somewhere down the track to a production system and can greatly reduce the acquisition risk. Excel, connected to the underlying data using was again used for report creation because of its enormous flexibility and charting capabilities. The effort for the job was again under 45 days and a previously impossible process can now be completed in hours from data acquisition to report creation.
A few years ago I met with a divisional Director in Canberra of a Federal Government Agency and we got talking about Business Intelligence. He went silent for a moment as if he was having some sort of epiphany.
He then went on to describe a Business Intelligence project he was dreaming about but was sure wasn’t possible. No one to date had even offered a solution.
He was charged with collecting and disseminating industry intelligence around panel suppliers to the organisation. This involved among other things, reporting to the executive industry and a senate committee, regular 360o performance reviews with vendor actual and comparative performance period-on-period.
The post-review data was resident on an Access data base and with the application of over 70 different queries which applied complex weightings and CPI movements, manipulated data could be drawn into Excel so that multiple charts could be created ready for pasting into a Word document that would be PDF’ed and sent to the appropriate recipients.
This was a manual process with reports to go to over 100 industry recipients as well as 50 or so internal users of the consolidated and individual reports. It produced a print run of greater than 2,500 pages. Although having a similar look and feel each report was bespoke as every report had a different length as every supplier did different projects and it required page numbering and indexing.
The estimated time required to complete the task manually exceeded the 6 months sampling window. The agency had a difficult problem as they had published their reporting intention to the industry community and their executive.
Fortunately we did not know the problem was perceived to be impossible to solve and so the consultant’s BI solution was to design OLAP cubes with the appropriate dimensions and apply the required statistical and weighting rules to the data.
Mind you, we did a Proof of Concept to demonstrate to our client it was eminently doable which leads to another takeaway. If in doubt do a small Proof of Concept to prove the potential. Even $10k (unbelievable to those in the larger end of consulting town) can get you somewhere down the track to a production system and can greatly reduce the acquisition risk. Excel, connected to the underlying data using was again used for report creation because of its enormous flexibility and charting capabilities. The effort for the job was again under 45 days and a previously impossible process can now be completed in hours from data acquisition to report creation.
Technical and Further Education Provider - Student Reporting
We had an opportunity to become involved with a TAFE that was keen to get real business insight into its students, the courses they took and the employers that sponsored apprentices into these courses.
“Money is too tight to mention” in the education sector as we know and success is predicated on how well you can match courses and students. This requires an understanding of student and employer demographics and to make it all work, automate the compliance reporting to ensure funding is secured.
Again an OLAP ETL was used to dynamically feed the key data from the Student Management System and Ledger to the cubes from which Excel again was used to create the required reporting and the dashboard that you see.
Excel as we know is a great slave but a poor master but used as a window on a robust multi-dimensional data store its capacity as a report design tool, accessible by end users, is without peer.
Weighted contact hours and targets for government reporting, highly granular student demographics analysis, historical snapshots, and employer reporting are now easily available.
The project was owned by the user, the Student Administrator took 30 days and replaced stand alone Excel and Crystal Student Reporting. We think that this is a great story and feel privileged to be part of it.
We had an opportunity to become involved with a TAFE that was keen to get real business insight into its students, the courses they took and the employers that sponsored apprentices into these courses.
“Money is too tight to mention” in the education sector as we know and success is predicated on how well you can match courses and students. This requires an understanding of student and employer demographics and to make it all work, automate the compliance reporting to ensure funding is secured.
Again an OLAP ETL was used to dynamically feed the key data from the Student Management System and Ledger to the cubes from which Excel again was used to create the required reporting and the dashboard that you see.
Excel as we know is a great slave but a poor master but used as a window on a robust multi-dimensional data store its capacity as a report design tool, accessible by end users, is without peer.
Weighted contact hours and targets for government reporting, highly granular student demographics analysis, historical snapshots, and employer reporting are now easily available.
The project was owned by the user, the Student Administrator took 30 days and replaced stand alone Excel and Crystal Student Reporting. We think that this is a great story and feel privileged to be part of it.
A National Hardware Supplier
A large national hardware distributor was wrestling with doing the budgets for its stores. The challenge was how do you present the requirements of the business to people working on the shop floor simply and yet have the sort of controls you need to wrap around the process.
The solution again lay with cube technology because they not only wanted to capture the data but they wished to analyse the line and consolidated data “on the fly”.
This requirement introduces the notion of real-time consolidation. Ensure when you deploy multi-dimensional technologies they cannot only “write-back” which is essential for budgeting and forecasting but they aggregate the data “on the fly”.
Having to run a process that takes time to report the results is a total waste of finance time and sub-optimal.
Avoid these technologies like the plague.
The input forms were initially designed in Excel by the finance folk and then using the CALUMO web publish functionality were published to the web where one of our consultants added some additional herbs and spices, the “Do not try this at home” sort of stuff.
Of course you would not deliver Excel-based input templates to the stores as it is not the right tool.
The store guys are expert with questions about compost, paint and a kilogram of 25mm galvanised flathead nails but Excel is well out of their comfort zone and besides if they are a bit determined they can break it.
Another take-away, Web is definitely the delivery mechanism to the non-finance user.
Regional managers were now able to set budgets for each of their stores using the web and the cube write-back functionality which became immediately available to store managers. These are the guys that half an hour before were probably giving you advice on the latest cordless ½” hammer drill.
The managers could either agree the target or modify it to their expectation by major stock group. Once completed the Regional managers could approve or return it and the users were alerted by the system for the next step.
This project, which has been an enormous success, was delivered again in under 90 days but also included over 36 bespoke web-based reports and a bunch of other stuff supporting the process.
A large national hardware distributor was wrestling with doing the budgets for its stores. The challenge was how do you present the requirements of the business to people working on the shop floor simply and yet have the sort of controls you need to wrap around the process.
The solution again lay with cube technology because they not only wanted to capture the data but they wished to analyse the line and consolidated data “on the fly”.
This requirement introduces the notion of real-time consolidation. Ensure when you deploy multi-dimensional technologies they cannot only “write-back” which is essential for budgeting and forecasting but they aggregate the data “on the fly”.
Having to run a process that takes time to report the results is a total waste of finance time and sub-optimal.
Avoid these technologies like the plague.
The input forms were initially designed in Excel by the finance folk and then using the CALUMO web publish functionality were published to the web where one of our consultants added some additional herbs and spices, the “Do not try this at home” sort of stuff.
Of course you would not deliver Excel-based input templates to the stores as it is not the right tool.
The store guys are expert with questions about compost, paint and a kilogram of 25mm galvanised flathead nails but Excel is well out of their comfort zone and besides if they are a bit determined they can break it.
Another take-away, Web is definitely the delivery mechanism to the non-finance user.
Regional managers were now able to set budgets for each of their stores using the web and the cube write-back functionality which became immediately available to store managers. These are the guys that half an hour before were probably giving you advice on the latest cordless ½” hammer drill.
The managers could either agree the target or modify it to their expectation by major stock group. Once completed the Regional managers could approve or return it and the users were alerted by the system for the next step.
This project, which has been an enormous success, was delivered again in under 90 days but also included over 36 bespoke web-based reports and a bunch of other stuff supporting the process.
A State Rail Operator – Divisional and Corporate Reporting, Budgeting
This our penultimate story delivers a lot of hope for us finance people.
We responded to an RFT from a large rail operator and despite the resolute efforts of the IT Department to address their own needs we were selected by finance. This was one of those gratifying cases where Finance stayed resolute about addressing their problems and sense prevailed.
The initial project was to deliver detailed cost centre and consolidated reporting across the organisation, a process that hitherto was largely manual using a combination of ledger reports, Excel and Word. This organisation, mind you, was not trivial having over 5,000 staff and 5 operating divisions.
Because of the contractual delay we were left with 3 weeks to deliver the project. 1.5 consultants were deployed. They connected to SAP BW and delivered the reports on time and budget. 4.5 weeks of effort.
Once IT had provided finance with the OLAP foundation which allowed them to produce the monthly reports deck within days of month end instead of weeks, they found that the business divisions weren’t using these reports but rather using a combination of Excel and Word to produce Business Line based reports.
It is a truism that access to BI increases the demand for BI and so with a “good job lads” we now set about turning these reports on their side. This resulted in another 3 week engagement which saw the consultants map thousands of line items to an alternate hierarchy to produce Business Line reports saving man weeks of effort every month and importantly that balanced to the centre P&L’s. Same numbers, two views.
With this under the belt the next pain point was the time based Cross Charge mechanism. Within a further 3 weeks the existing process which took six days each month was automated to 1 hour and balanced “to the cent”.
Then came a request for multi-currency treasury reporting, of which the dashboard was an important element for the Treasurer and following that automating the annual budgets.
With the budgets a further requirement was for users to be able to plan at the node or consolidated level but then prorate the budgeted number down to the centre account month detail based on prior year actuals as a basis for the monthly management reporting comparatives.
This was 5 large projects in less than 5 months confirmed the art of the possible with today’s OLAP technologies.
This our penultimate story delivers a lot of hope for us finance people.
We responded to an RFT from a large rail operator and despite the resolute efforts of the IT Department to address their own needs we were selected by finance. This was one of those gratifying cases where Finance stayed resolute about addressing their problems and sense prevailed.
The initial project was to deliver detailed cost centre and consolidated reporting across the organisation, a process that hitherto was largely manual using a combination of ledger reports, Excel and Word. This organisation, mind you, was not trivial having over 5,000 staff and 5 operating divisions.
Because of the contractual delay we were left with 3 weeks to deliver the project. 1.5 consultants were deployed. They connected to SAP BW and delivered the reports on time and budget. 4.5 weeks of effort.
Once IT had provided finance with the OLAP foundation which allowed them to produce the monthly reports deck within days of month end instead of weeks, they found that the business divisions weren’t using these reports but rather using a combination of Excel and Word to produce Business Line based reports.
It is a truism that access to BI increases the demand for BI and so with a “good job lads” we now set about turning these reports on their side. This resulted in another 3 week engagement which saw the consultants map thousands of line items to an alternate hierarchy to produce Business Line reports saving man weeks of effort every month and importantly that balanced to the centre P&L’s. Same numbers, two views.
With this under the belt the next pain point was the time based Cross Charge mechanism. Within a further 3 weeks the existing process which took six days each month was automated to 1 hour and balanced “to the cent”.
Then came a request for multi-currency treasury reporting, of which the dashboard was an important element for the Treasurer and following that automating the annual budgets.
With the budgets a further requirement was for users to be able to plan at the node or consolidated level but then prorate the budgeted number down to the centre account month detail based on prior year actuals as a basis for the monthly management reporting comparatives.
This was 5 large projects in less than 5 months confirmed the art of the possible with today’s OLAP technologies.
Sustainability Reporting
Our last BI scenario is very topical.
We have all noticed what seems like unusual changes to our weather patterns and have no doubt read or heard about this INCONVENIENT TRUTH called Climate Change.
It is in this context that we have been following what we see is the next big BI need, Sustainability Reporting. According to the Emissions Green Paper our clients began collecting data for comparative sustainability reporting by July 2009.
This is a compelling event as there are financial consequences for failing to comply. To that end we are working with a number of our clients developing a sustainability reporting platform, using OLAP Cubes, Excel and the Web.
We have produced necessarily an application that is very nimble allowing us to rapidly respond to the changes that will inevitably emerge. This solution was delivered in well under 6 weeks.
A number of our clients see this as providing them a prototype environment in the event they are able one day to capture this data in their ERP.
At the moment it is too costly to create additional fields in the ERP while the standards are still in a state of flux.
Our last BI scenario is very topical.
We have all noticed what seems like unusual changes to our weather patterns and have no doubt read or heard about this INCONVENIENT TRUTH called Climate Change.
It is in this context that we have been following what we see is the next big BI need, Sustainability Reporting. According to the Emissions Green Paper our clients began collecting data for comparative sustainability reporting by July 2009.
This is a compelling event as there are financial consequences for failing to comply. To that end we are working with a number of our clients developing a sustainability reporting platform, using OLAP Cubes, Excel and the Web.
We have produced necessarily an application that is very nimble allowing us to rapidly respond to the changes that will inevitably emerge. This solution was delivered in well under 6 weeks.
A number of our clients see this as providing them a prototype environment in the event they are able one day to capture this data in their ERP.
At the moment it is too costly to create additional fields in the ERP while the standards are still in a state of flux.
Conclusion
To finish up, a few reflections on what things you should be looking for and what perhaps you should avoid.
Firstly
Importantly, look for Quick Wins ie; around 45 days but not longer than 90 days ie; our scenarios demonstrate positive business outcomes from typically between $60k and $150k in services. Remember the longer the project the greater the risk of failure or budget blow out. If in doubt try a “Proof of Concept”.
Secondly
The size of your business is a variable but not as significant as you may think. Computers can handle sales in billions as easily as millions particularly if you only pull monthly or weekly balance data for your first foray in to BI, ie; do not be persuaded that the time and cost should be significantly different as it will probably come down to the preparedness of IT and/or the systems vendor to let you connect to your ERP.
Thirdly
Do not get seduced into the thought that BI equals data warehouse. We hear it over and over again. “No we aren’t ready for BI as IT is building the data warehouse”, but you cannot just mothball the business till the IT guys are done, ie; this is not always a show stopper.
You do not have to have a big data warehouse to get into BI as in our experience data warehouses are usually created by IT folk who with the best intention in the world create a big store full of all sorts of stuff that you may never need or are not mature enough as an organisation to use. This leads to high cost, long time frames and high risk with a corresponding failure to deliver.
A better approach and in line with a lower risk, fast delivery, low cost strategy is to use information specific data marts ie; do a GL cube and get that BI sorted then move on to an HR cube or a Sales cube. Get your wins along the way. Gather in the benefits of the increased business visibility that BI gives early.
I think of it as being BI Agile. Recognise that you may need to iterate and this approach supports you changing your mind or the business responding to the market and you rapidly incrementing till you get a successful outcome.
Fourthly
Ensure the technology you adopt for BI has a multi-dimensional/OLAP capability, supports write-back, calculates on the fly, is fast, does immediate consolidations, integrates with Excel as an end user design tool and provides web publish functionality and seamlessly management of tablets and smart phones.
Go for as much DIY as you can as no one is as interested in your priorities as you.
So no excuses for failure, STORM the GATES – because in this financial climate your job may be on the line.
To finish up, a few reflections on what things you should be looking for and what perhaps you should avoid.
Firstly
Importantly, look for Quick Wins ie; around 45 days but not longer than 90 days ie; our scenarios demonstrate positive business outcomes from typically between $60k and $150k in services. Remember the longer the project the greater the risk of failure or budget blow out. If in doubt try a “Proof of Concept”.
Secondly
The size of your business is a variable but not as significant as you may think. Computers can handle sales in billions as easily as millions particularly if you only pull monthly or weekly balance data for your first foray in to BI, ie; do not be persuaded that the time and cost should be significantly different as it will probably come down to the preparedness of IT and/or the systems vendor to let you connect to your ERP.
Thirdly
Do not get seduced into the thought that BI equals data warehouse. We hear it over and over again. “No we aren’t ready for BI as IT is building the data warehouse”, but you cannot just mothball the business till the IT guys are done, ie; this is not always a show stopper.
You do not have to have a big data warehouse to get into BI as in our experience data warehouses are usually created by IT folk who with the best intention in the world create a big store full of all sorts of stuff that you may never need or are not mature enough as an organisation to use. This leads to high cost, long time frames and high risk with a corresponding failure to deliver.
A better approach and in line with a lower risk, fast delivery, low cost strategy is to use information specific data marts ie; do a GL cube and get that BI sorted then move on to an HR cube or a Sales cube. Get your wins along the way. Gather in the benefits of the increased business visibility that BI gives early.
I think of it as being BI Agile. Recognise that you may need to iterate and this approach supports you changing your mind or the business responding to the market and you rapidly incrementing till you get a successful outcome.
Fourthly
Ensure the technology you adopt for BI has a multi-dimensional/OLAP capability, supports write-back, calculates on the fly, is fast, does immediate consolidations, integrates with Excel as an end user design tool and provides web publish functionality and seamlessly management of tablets and smart phones.
Go for as much DIY as you can as no one is as interested in your priorities as you.
So no excuses for failure, STORM the GATES – because in this financial climate your job may be on the line.
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