One of the unexpected bonuses of implementing a Business Intelligence or BPM system throughout an organization is that it forms a consistent reporting process that continues to drive strategic objectives even when they are lost in "day to day" business issues.
There are always multiple strategic objectives within an organization and they will change over time. By developing proper reporting which is pushed out to users, it reinforces to the recipients what is, was and what will be the key drivers of the business.
Our clients continue to mention how "day to day" issues often pull them away from the "big picture" and our system continues to remind them of what is important to measure and focus on.
A good reporting solution will automate the key metrics within a department or corporation but it should also be pushing those key indicators out to users to reinforce their importance as they get lost in daily issues.
It happened today... A client told me that the system we implemented was a key component in communicating corporate objectives and keeping this CFO on track with measures he had been instrumental in developing with us but was himself guilty of losing track of when other less important issues consumed him.
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Whether to buy tools for financial reporting and budgeting/forecasting from the incumbent vendor is a question increasingly raised by folks we work with. The real question should be -- "At what point do we buy the brand name that we have existing investments with?"
For us, the issue centers on the short/long term benefits and the costs of any selection. Certainly, a red flag should be raised when there is lack of functionality in key areas. However, functionality is sometimes centered in the pros/cons and always subject to personal opinion. At the same time, many companies ask their finance teams to "do more with less" in order to lessen perceived "total solution costs" and benefit from "future integration".
With any investment in business process, the vendor is a key question. We insist our clients ensure integration will occur. Buying software integrated only at the "brand name" can be a dangerous activity.
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We have received many requests lately from clients to please help them evaluate their Citrix environment. Many clients have struggled with poor performance and/or connectivity issues and are not sure how to fix the problem(s). There are several areas that we would evaluate for you to provide you with information on running an optimum environment for your Hyperion Enterprise application. Below is a list of some of the areas we review when doing a Citrix evaluation:
- What are the specifications of the server(s)? Are they robust enough for the current environment you are trying to operate?
- How many users are typically logged into the system? This number is a major factor in determining how your Citrix environment should be set up.
- How is your network installed? What is the location of your servers vs. the location of the users on the network? How many are connecting internationally vs. domestically?
- Is your farm load-balanced? Has it been testing? Does it work correctly?
- How are your Hyperion applications published? There are optimum ways to publish the application in order to provide the best connectivity.
- What are the configurations of the servers - both application and Citrix? There are certain configurations that should be set that will prevent your application from data corruption and optimize performance.
- How are your backups being done? Is that process interfering or effecting your environment in any way? Enterprise is not a 24x7 application, therefore, typical IT backup procedures cannot be used.
- Are you using Hyperion Retrieve, VBA Retrieve or Analyst? Which one should you be using? How should it be used properly? I can share with you the best practices when using these products.
- Lastly, have you possibly outgrown Hyperion Enterprise? There is a more robust product called Hyperion Financial Management (HFM) that is also available for financial consolidation. Both Enterprise and HFM are excellent products, however, they do have different benefits.
If you are currently struggling with any of these issues or you have asked yourself any of these questions, please don't hesitate to contact us. We would be very happy to assist you in making sure your environment is not only highly functional but also highly efficient. Having an efficient consolidation system is a competitive advantage.
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It seems hard to believe that less than 10 years ago we had to start every presentation to a potential client with "What is Business Intelligence?".
In those days, we were first educating our clients on why they needed to make investments in this area. Only if they "got it", would we step into understanding their business and the underlying requirements and eventually determine and justify the project based on an ROI.
This took a lot of work to do. Some clients quickly "got it", while others took a few more years before they eventually did.
Now, looking at the consolidated landscape of the BI/BPM industry, and the full acceptance of "BI" and "BPM/CPM/EPM", it isn't a question of whether to invest in BI, but rather with whom.
Yes, it is refreshing not to have to explain the benefits of a BI Platform anymore. It truly has allowed us to focus on getting the job done for our clients.
But what does this mean for firms looking to implement a Business Intelligence solution who have been approached by a traditional ERP VAR of either Oracle or SAP?
It means they shouldn't be fooled by a generalist attempting to sell into this new space. We have seen many failed attempts from firms looking to enter this space without a solid background in the functional and technical expertise required to make it work.
Yes, there is good and bad when it comes to market acceptance. BI is now a generally accepted "makes sense to invest in" technology. But the same issues that have driven the need for specialists in this space continue to exist. The need for consultants to understand not just the bits and bytes, but the the real practical business drivers behind the effort and the project management skills required to gain full acceptance.
BI Projects are very different than your typical top down IT project. For example, they need to be tuned to end user needs in an iterative approach. It takes many design modification cycles with the actual report to determine what will truly be best for the organization to use.
At first glance, any new report or analytic application looks great. But the reality is, the sizzle wears off and without the proper iterative design up front, these systems do not produce the measures and underlying support (detail) data to support change and quickly lose their luster.
This is a just one area of the design and rollout that requires persons very familiar with BI project development to be involved.
OK, I'll get off my soap box now.
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With recent consolidation in the BI and BPM space, one sees how Finance drove the final stages of the BI revolution.
On the customer side, BI evolved into BPM as as the need for consolidated financial data in reporting/analytics grew. At the same time, "Tomorrow's news ... Today" (also know as the forecasting or planning process) became critical to most organizations. Why report on tomorrow, when you can get a glimpse of the future?
On the vendor side, the bigger software players (Oracle, SAP, etc.) were able to flex their market capitalization muscles and acquire significant product lines to complement their software suites.
In the end, while customer choices have narrowed for most folks (and prices will increase), the benefits of an integrated solution will provide significant long-term benefit to many.
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IBM acquires Cognos
Potentially signalling the end of consolidation in the BI or BPM space, IBM announced plans to acquire Cognos.
This ends speculation that had run rampant, including the possibility of companies such as EMC or HP entering the space. With only marginal independent players remaining, those interested in investing with a leading BI or BPM player will have to spend a bit more time judging "fit" with their existing ERP or general ledger systems.
Suffice to say that each vendor (Oracle & Hyperion, SAP & OutlookSoft or SAP & Business Objects, as well as IBM & Cognos & Applix) will walk the fine line of promising additional functionality for their installed base "without" sacrificing their ability to drive net new clients that might not share their technology stack. Time will tell...
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When measuring the true value of a BPM (Business Performance Management) system, most companies tend to look at several factors. How well does the system integrate with our current system(s)? How flexible is the reporting tool? How scalable is the underlying platform? How difficult is it to maintain? What is the cost to capture the information? What’s the return on that information?
How long does it take your competitors to report their numbers (public or not)? What’s the cost for your organization to produce your numbers? Who’s involved? What adjustments are required? What factors impact the delivery of data from underlying data owners? Does the sales system delivery data on the 5th day after close but the cost data isn’t delivered until the 15th day? Are your data owners enabled to make changes to improve the process? What roadblocks remain? The answers to these questions are enough to keep you up for many nights.
This concept of speed is key to any BPM system. Take a look at how many organizations compile and manage their data ownership. The following chart shows the relationships between types of data/owners and cross utilization.
Chart Owner across type Types of Data/relationship(s) and their consumers
A/P CFO vendor, payments, invoicing cycle, discounts received/earned
A/R CFO customer, payments received, typically payment time, discounts given, interest charged/paid
G/L CFO financials, key metrics, regulatory
Payroll CFO employees, salary, length of employment, function, value to the organization
Sales CFO customer, business given, repeat business, add-on sales
Email CIO communication
Files CIO source of data
Servers CIO source of data
If you’re a small organization, you may wear the ownership hat for all of these! And, when you’re looking at BPM systems, you need to have the vendor explain what integration points the system has. Next, you need to understand the standard business practices and functionality delivered. How do clients typically use the product? Can you use the BPM solution to eliminate roadblocks and increase speed to market? Can I use the produce for planning as well as reporting? If not, then you’re probably just buying another data entry package that has to be owned by someone. And, if you’re not looking to increase the speed by which you can respond and drive market conditions, you’re going to be left to managing by reaction and not by leadership.
This is where Strafford Technology, Inc. adds value. We help streamline this process. We help you ask the right questions, find the right answers, drive the assessment and increase your ‘response-ability’. We help clients make those assessments everyday. We know the value of your time and your information and can help deliver it faster and with greater value to a larger number of consumers.
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The ability to act quickly is key to competitive advantage — and nothing gives an organization a greater ability to act than cash.
That’s why CFOs are under so much pressure. Like most other departments, finance is expected to do more and do it faster with less. Lowering headcount; getting better deals on technology; finding a better return on financial investments; doing the close faster — all these priorities are intended to either put more cash in the treasury or tell management where cash is when they need it.
But finance doing finance better is not a new priority. What is capturing more CFOs’ attention is the call to help the rest of the organization perform better.
How’s that? By giving unit managers and top executives alike visibility into the daily decisions that impact financial position while the cash is being earned or spent. Every hour, people across the organization are taking action that affects the availability of resources in the organization. Over a period of time the collective impact of these individual events rises to the surface in the form of consolidated financial reports.
The problem is that by then it may be too late. The initiative is already lost. Even worse, it’s often difficult to know — strictly by looking at consoli¬dated reports — where the money came from or went. That makes it tough to manage many specific areas of the business well.
In many companies, what managers lack are not the detail artifacts or the high-level rollups. What they need is to be able to make explicit correlations between the two in a clear and timely way. They need to break through the barriers between the day-to-day decisions that impact financial performance and the financial reports that simply aggregate them. Then they can determine the best approach and take action toward improving the real results that determine company success.
This is not an easy task as the barriers are centered in technology and process. Not surprisingly, most financial systems are designed to help the finance department — but what CFOs need now is a bridge to operations from finance.
That calls for the careful selection and tailoring of a new technology approach and for adopting new business processes — all of which inevitably involve at least some risk. It also calls for people on both sides of the bridge to be willing to cross it — in other words, to share the data, the risks, and the rewards of performance-based finance.
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