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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