News & Views

December 2009 from CAmagazine and written by Michael Burns – “Welcome to this year’s survey on business intelligence and corporate performance management. We received 12 responses from BI/CPM vendors, up from 10 last year…”

November 2009 from Newcomp Solutions – “Business intelligence (BI) is a tech-based tool that allows decision makers process information to gain insights that drive enterprise performance. However, the path from information to knowledge is not always linear. Typically, a series of steps, including collection, organization, evaluation, and transformation precede the data analysis and reporting that provide insight.

Issues relating to data access – the so-called ETL components – have significant implications for practically every phase of a BI project. ETL stands for extraction, transformation, and loading of data. The implementation of ETL depends on factors such the type of data, number of data sources, data volume, and the preferred mode of data transportation. This article highlights ETL in the context of a BI project…”

180 View – Newcomp makes good points about BI that are often overlooked when considering a BI solution. For example, “The data extraction method may be full or incremental. The full extraction method means that all currently available data are pulled completely from the source systems… The incremental method involves the extraction of only the portion of data that has changed since a marked historical period of event.” We have seen users avoid using BI when they only have the full method as it takes too long to process.

September 14, 2009 from InternetNews – “There’s a big gulf between what’s often barely better than consumer grade software offered to small businesses and the massive packages, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars or even several million, offered to large enterprises.

Into that gap, IBM is pitching Cognos Express, a streamlined version of its business analytics software designed to be easier to use, easier to deploy, and the right price for companies with between 100 and 1,000 employees…”

180 View – I (Michael Burns) recently heard a business intelligence (BI) representative from Microsoft say that the company aims to provide BI to the masses. I recently also heard something similar from a new start-up called Indicee that looks interesting. Most companies struggle with turning all their data into information useful to make decisions (what we call business intelligence). It remains to be seen whether the new crop of tools will solve the problem, but it does seem like the vendors are making progress.

September 2009 from CAmagazine and written by Mark Canes – “…Michael Burns, a CA and CAmagazine columnist, writes frequently about BI. He states that some mid-range ERP systems are adding dashboards that are configurable, with drill downs, frequently at little or no additional cost. Burns says he is seeing more affordable on-line query and browser-based tools emerging.

But is this being effectively communicated? If the perception among those in the IT industry is that the cost of technology is no longer a barrier to BI for the SME, that view is not necessarily shared by end users. Beth Crawford, CMA, controller for Toppits Foods Ltd. in Vaughan, Ont., has been working on a project to implement a comprehensive BI solution for some time. “It’s hard to find a cost-effective platform that is affordable now, but that you can grow with,” she says…”

180 View – Mark is a good writer as well as extremely knowledgeable about IT. He is also president of Blue Link, a developer of ERP solutions for SMEs. Mark writes about Business Intelligence with no bias for any product including his own software. Mark is someone that I respect for his knowledge and integrity.

September 2009 from CAmagazine – “…Many companies fail to include critical evaluation functionality that takes into consideration key business process requirements (for Corporate Performance Management systems:

• the ability to produce real-time reporting at select points in a business process while scaling the solution to a broad user base; this applies to operational reporting, management reporting and the budgeting process;
• the ability to handle large data volumes or data models in a cost-effective manner that meets both end user and IT needs;
• the ability to meet a planner’s real-time modelling cycle time (from input of drivers to output of key performance indicators and metrics);
• the ability to meet the data access security requirements of your organization’s end users in a cost-effective manner; and
• the ability to produce high-quality financial and management information through built-in preventive and detective data integrity controls…”

180 View – Business Intelligence must be a hot topic. There were two good articles about it in CAmagazine this month. This article agrees with Mark Cane’s article (“Business intelligence for the SME”) in that it’s a “struggle for companies to turn the huge amounts of data they produce into the sort of information that is useful at the right time.” This article also includes discussion of Corporate Performance Management (CPM) systems and the quote above adds some good points to consider in the selection of a CPM system that are often not considered.

August 20, 2009 from InfoWorld – “IBM’s recently announced plans to buy SPSS, maker of specialized analytics software, will result in a wave of further consolidation in the space, according to a new Forrester Research report. “IBM’s acquisition of SPSS marks an industry tipping point. In the advanced analytics segment, the deal is having the same impact that IBM’s Cognos buy had on the BI market,” Forrester said.

Advanced analytics software goes beyond the reports and dashboard capabilities of traditional BI (business intelligence) tools, helping users answer questions about future events and explore “what-if” scenarios, as well as pull together and analyze unstructured information from a variety of sources, the report said.

While Oracle, SAP, and other platform companies already have some of these capabilities in their portfolios, IBM’s SPSS bid has competitors scrambling for a response, according to Forrester…”

180 View – This article is interesting as it distinguished between business intelligence and analytics. If you are confused by all these terms, you’re not alone. Many vendors might call analytics as described above to be found in a forecasting tool. Others would include it in Business Intelligence and others in Corporate Performance Management. We define Business Intelligence as the transformation of data into information useful to make decisions so we would not distinguish between them. Marketing people are always coming up with new terms to take existing technology and rebranding it to make it sound like they have got something new.

Analyzing unstructured information is mentioned as part of analytics. We think that organizations have enough trouble making sense of structured data and have trouble imagining much business intelligence in unstructured data other than being easily able to find data based on keywords.

Finally we wonder how IBM will be able to incorporate SPSS into their product line. They already have 4 different (but integrated) products. It will be a challenge for IBM to pitch their 5 systems against one unified solution.

June 12, 2009 from InformationWeek – “Worldwide sales of business intelligence software grew a hearty 22% in 2008, according to Gartner, proving that many companies see BI as a good investment during tough economic times. Total revenue for the market came in at $8.8 billion, with six vendors — SAP/Business Objects, SAS Institute, Oracle, IBM/Cognos, Microsoft, and MicroStrategy — owning 75% of the market.

SAP/Business Objects led the pack with 24% of the market, or $2.1 billion in sales last year. SAS Institute and Oracle tied for second place, each with 14.6% of the market, followed by IBM/Cognos, with 11.3%. Microsoft came in with 7.7%, and MicroStrategy, 3.2%…”

180 View – The article’s claim that the 22% growth proves BI is a good investment during tough economic times is a stretch. The economy tanked at the end of 2008 and for all we know, sales dried up when that happened. Nevertheless, there is some merit in the idea that BI is a good investment in tough times. BI is all about turning data into information useful to make decisions and we all know how important that is these days.

2008 by Board International and written by Nigel Pendse – “The BI Survey provides a detailed quantitative analysis of why customers buy BI tools, what they use them for, how successful they are and why they eventually abandon them. It is based on the analysis of the real-world experience of over 2600 respondents (1894 users, 256 consultants and 472 vendors) from around the world. This year’s Survey also includes more analyses of how vendor, user and consultant perceptions vary. As such, it is the largest, most thorough fact-based analysis of the growing BI market. The BI Survey 8 benefits both from the experience of the seven previous editions and the ability to analyze trends based on up to eight years of data…

In descending order, 23 products or groups of products had enough usage to be analyzed individually throughout this Survey: MicroStrategy, Infor PM OLAP, QlikTech QlikView, BOARD, Microsoft Analysis Services, Cognos Reporting, BusinessObjects, SAP BI/BW, WebFOCUS, Cubeware Cockpit, Cognos TM1 Server, arcplan, Microsoft Reporting Services, Panorama NovaView, Bissantz, Hyperion Essbase, Crystal Reports, Cognos Analysis, Targit, Oracle BIEE/BISEO, Actuate Platform, Microsoft Excel PivotTables and MIK. LogiXML is also included in some analyses, even though its sample size was just below the threshold…

Just as was found in previous years, product functionality has a relatively low correlation with project success, being the second lowest ranked product-related factor. This was the most frequently cited reason for choosing products, not only in this edition of the Survey, but in every one of the previous editions — and yet it ranked only eighth in the BBI-driven rankings. This again confirms that organizations spend too much time assessing product features — even though most mature products are likely to have all necessary features, and minor gaps can be worked around — and too little time evaluating query performance, despite the fact that poor query performance cannot be disguised and always antagonizes users…”

180 View – This report is a summary report prepared by Board – one of the Business Intelligence vendors. Naturally, they have been selective in what they have summarized, but there is enough interesting material to check it out. However, we suggest caution in the acceptance of the conclusions of the report that found some of the better known products to provide less benefits. The better known products may have been implemented in much more challenging environments.

2009 from SAP – “Typical uses of a BI solution for a midsize company are to:

• Determine the inventory level of a product or part
• Identify its best-selling products and see if this holds true in all of its distribution channels
• Identify customers that are cutting back on their purchases so that special inducements can be offered to retain them
• Implement dashboards and scorecards so that executives and supervisors can quickly recognize operational exceptions or key performance indicators (KPIs) that fall outside of accepted ranges
• Establish and monitor performance metrics and take corrective actions if they are in danger of not being met
• Compare departmental turnover to identify potential morale problems
• Compare year-to-date sales for this year with last year and forecast what sales are likely to be for the entire year
• Track customer orders and desired ship dates against finished-goods inventory and adjust the manufacturing production cycle and supply chain logistics to reduce inventory carrying costs
• Integrate operational, spreadsheet, and historic data for analysis purposes – while helping to stamp out “spreadsheet chaos” – to provide consistency and “a single version of the truth” for the organization
• Provide business users with the ability to perform their own ad hoc analyses without having to involve scarce IT resources
• Align daily operations with strategic objectives and quickly recognize when they are not in agreement…”

180 View – We thought the BI examples above would be useful. There is also other useful information in the article including “Business intelligence is not just about tools and their applications; it’s also concerned with distribution and control. Reports should be able to be published to the Web and delivered to a user’s preferred mobile device. However, not every employee should have access to every report or analysis – and administration, monitoring, security, and control are also part of the BI environment.”

February 3, 2009 from ComputerWorld Canada – “Microsoft Corp. announced recently that it was giving its relatively new business intelligence product PerformancePoint Server the axe, a casualty of a tough BI market, the worsening economy, and the strength of its enterprise portal product SharePoint Server…”

180 View – It’s hard to believe that Microsoft would walk away from a product because of a tough market or economy. Microsoft typically takes a long-term view of its R&D. The article goes on to say “We wanted to have BI for the masses,” said Kristina Kerr, a lead project manager with Microsoft headquarters. “But we weren’t that different from the other mega-vendors in the space.” That’s also not what you expect to hear from Microsoft who have successfully competed with mega vendors before. Can anyone out there can shed some light? Thanks

January 16, 2009 from InfoWorld – “Through 2012 more than 35 percent of the largest 5,000 companies will regularly fail to make insightful decisions about significant changes in their business and markets, according to analyst house Gartner…

Gartner’s second prediction is that by 2012 business units, rather than IT, will control at least 40 percent of the total budget for BI. The problem here, Gartner wrote, is that “business users have lost confidence in the ability of [IT] to deliver the information they need to make decisions.”…

180 View – We don’t know how Gartner arrived at the 1st prediction about companies not making insightful decisions, but it is a huge concern for the decision-makers in any organization. Imagine making decisions while driving your car without a dashboard, poor visibility and running on empty. We think the 2nd prediction has already happened. Initially BI was adopted by IT as a new and powerful technology. Today, financial and operational management are not satisfied with lack of information to make decisions, and recognize BI as the solution. Business is now driving the implementation of BI in both large and mid-sized companies

December 2008 from Scobleizer.com – “…So, why did this catch my eye? First, they are taking something very expensive, Business Intelligence charting and dashboarding, and making it free. That alone is pretty disruptive. When Microsoft is charging $a few hundred a seat (and Microsoft is disrupting lots of other players in the market who charge a lot more than that) you know there’s disruption when some new player comes along and under prices everyone.

But don’t focus on that disruption.

Instead, look at the bigger picture. Here they are using Google spreadsheets to bring you live, collaborative, business intelligence. Watch the second video to see how different this is from most of the “old-school” approaches that haven’t yet built on a platform designed for the web from the start.

See that’s the real disruption: there’s a new platform being built. Right now it’s ugly and incomplete. But every year it gets better and better. Will 2009 be the year when lots of you try out a web-based collaboration suite like the ones from Zoho or Google?…”

180 View – It’s still early days for free BI over the internet. Once the kinks are ironed out, Google/Panorama need to overcome the resistance of many companies to let their data reside on someone else’s server (in the clouds). Second, the majority of business analysts will be reluctant to drop their beloved Excel.

December 1, 2008 from CIO Today – “Business intelligence (BI) is all about improving decision-making — as is the role of the management accountant. Yet most people who attend BI conferences are IT specialists. So far, there have been few converts from finance. Even if a chief information officer can persuade a firm to invest in BI, the benefits it offers cannot be delivered without engaging the organization to use it. BI could release many management accountants from the budgeting and reporting cycle and allow them to support decision-making more effectively. They have important roles to play in helping to realize BI’s potential…

Most large organizations already have an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system and database. These are the core, and usually the most costly, building blocks of the BI stack. BI reporting and analysis tools could give nontechnical business users access to the data already captured. An investment in BI could be seen as an incremental cost to release the potential in this data…”

180 View – The article offers insights into the business case and implementation of BI. In our opinion, ERP investment should include Business Intelligence.

December 2008 from CAmagazine and written by Michael Burns– “…According to research and advisory firm Gartner, “Megavendors are beginning to dominate the business intelligence market — in less than one year, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP and IBM will have gone from accounting for a quarter of the market to owning over two-thirds of it.”

The acquisitions represent a growing trend toward providing end-to-end solutions. Initially ERP was a back-office application (financials, distribution, etc.). Then it came to include the front office (CRM, eCommerce). Now it encompasses BI and corporate performance management. ERP systems contain a ton of data that needs to be turned into information. That is BI’s job. CPM includes BI as well as budgeting, forecasting and consolidation…”