December 13, 2005
Thoughts on BI Standardization
It seems like everyone is talking about BI standardization the analysts, the vendors, and the companies deploying BI software. The projected benefits of standardizing on a single vendor seem logical, which makes the story attractive.
However, I seriously doubt a global 2000 company is really going to get to a single vendor anytime soon.
Does anyone really believe a company that has spent many man years and multiple millions of dollars building Business Objects Universes will rip it all out and replace it with Cognos or Hyperion?
What is more realistic is to see a company standardize on a smaller set of vendors. Business Objects for query and reporting, Hyperion for budgeting and planning, etc.
I still think some of the benefits of standardization like easier maintenance can be realized if the vendors work to implement open standards for data and metadata exchange. Some work has already been done to define standards like XML for Analysis and JOLAP, but vendor support for implementation needs work.
For example, you can't exchange or synchronize information across a Business Objects Universe, a Cognos Framework Manager Model, or a Microsoft Report Model.
I believe standardization on a single vendor might happen in small to medium sized businesses, but for large global organizations it will take a very long time and may never happen. Therefore if vendors really want to help their customers realize some of the benefits of standardization they should be making it easier for companies to manage implementations across different software packages.
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Posted by Dan Everett at 9:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
November 8, 2005
User Interfaces
Successful BI deployment requires careful consideration of users access needs, technical skill levels and role in the enterprise. All too often the one-size-fits-all approach to implementation results in failure because of high training and support costs and low adoption and usage. In fact, this cornerstone of BI planning is critical to delivering real business value across the enterprise.
Executives want to be able to quickly assess business conditions, so they can identify issues requiring corrective action and confidently report to regulators and external stakeholders.
Dashboard Benefits
Relieve the pain of searching through numbers in spreadsheets to find trends and variances.
Seamlessly navigate from summary data to the underlying detail that explains the cause for trends and variances.
Quickly assess risk and compliance exposure, and recommend corrective action.
Line of business owners need to be able to accurately forecast and easily model scenarios, so they can create strategic goals and plans that drive more profitable business outcomes.
Spreadsheet Benefits
Perform sophisticated analysis, modeling and planning without having to know spreadsheet functions, or macro programming.
Centralize data, metrics and business logic to prevent the use of spreadsheets as disconnected data marts and reporting engines.
Create a collaborative planning process across your organization to improve accountability for execution of strategy
Business analysts spend a lot of time mining vast detail and exploring the complex relationships between dimensions and metrics that drive business performance.
Visualization Benefits
Complete control over the selection, grouping and layout of information
Easy navigation of complex dimensions and analytical models
Explicit insight into the underlying detail driving trends and exceptions
Departmental workers want easy access to financial and operational information to help them execute corporate strategies and respond faster to changing business conditions.
Query and Reporting Benefits
Create and access reports without having to know SQL or some other query language
Deliver any conceivable report, in any output format through any communication channel
Easily personalize content and subscribe to scheduled content pushes
Posted by Dan Everett at 10:15 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
