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Tags: hyperion, oracle, IBM, SAP, Cognos, TM1, Planning, Applix, OutlookSoft, Analyst, Contributor, Controller
We recently attended a Cognos demonstration at a client. At their request, the future of the Cognos technology stack in the financial area was addressed. Because we have previously posted in this area, I thought an update was in order.
According to the IBM employee making the presentation, they are excited to have TM1 in their arsenal and plan to make it a central database of their suite. This covers not only the budgeting/forecasting area (Cognos Planning), but also the consoldiation area (Cognos Controller).
An interesting, but not totally unexpected, development considering the pros/cons of the options available.
We feel this is the right approach, although it does validate the long-held belief of firms such as Hyperion and OutlookSoft that a central data model is critical to success in this area.
While folks can look forward to seeing this vision achieved, announcements of major product changes at the architecture level can be tricky. We continue to watch this development and will update folks when we have more of interest not already in the public arena...
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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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