Shorter BI Implementations
What You Need to Know
Shorter BI Implementations – What You Need to Know
INSIDE
1
The Promise of BI
2
Why Do I Care About
Implementation and
What Can I Do About It?
3
Three Business
Intelligence
Implementation Tips
4
The Jet Reports Method
The Footwear Story
5
Conclusions
What you should expect from BI
The Information Age has blessed the modern corporation with
volumes of data. Often, these facts and figures are scattered
across various locations in a software system, and stored across
different data sources altogether. Business Intelligence (BI)
provides an opportunity to bring this information together and
enable an organization with quick, easy and accurate decision
making. Rather than fighting it, forward-thinking companies are
using this influx of information as a competitive advantage by
extracting and leveraging the useful data to create, align and
reinforce key business strategies.
Organizations have a need for insight into all of the data that’s
amassed over time: sales performance and trending, inventory
turns and allocations, account standings and budgets. Employees
know everything they need is contained in their management
(ERP) systems, but for numerous reasons these key business
metrics are hard to extract. Maybe the sheer volume of
transactional data has outgrown the current reporting tools that
are in place. Maybe the data is distributed over a multiple systems
and needs to be combined, for example, sales revenue from the
primary ERP with sales commissions from the payroll system.
The main promise of a BI system is to make data analysis
easy. Simply put, BI should provide analytical tools to turn an
organization’s mass of data into information that can be used
for insight to run the business better. This most often means
consolidating accurate information from across an organization
into a single place, like a Data Warehouse, then further organizing
that into relevant subjects: Finance, Sales, Purchasing, and so on,
in Cube. This makes it straightforward and logical for business
users to access the data they need.
Copyright © 2012 - Jet Reports International, Inc.
A BI system
should make
data analysis
easy
BI is great when it is up and running, the data is trusted, and
user adoption is high. However, we’ve all heard the stories about
how challenging it can be to get to this point, and maybe your own
organization has been scared off by these tales in the past.
In this whitepaper we will explore some ways to get to the desired state: BI
up and running with the ‘right’ data. We will highlight some key strategies for
accelerating implementation time for BI projects and the ancillary benefits
these approaches bring to an organization.
A survey by IDC and DMReview pegged the average BI
implementation time at 17 months. This is way too long for almost
any company, no matter the size. Extended implementation times
have a number of drawbacks, including increased expenses
and a potential erosion of support for the project, not to mention
heavy resource drain. The result is a waste of time, money and
resources.
Copyright © 2012 - Jet Reports International, Inc.
Why Do I Care About Implementation and
What Can I Do About It?
Benefits of rapid BI deployments:
Simply stated, the faster you can put accurate, easy-to-use data in people’s
hands, the faster your company can start making profitable decisions. Nothing
can outweigh the advantages of making data-based decisions, and here are
some additional returns:
Creates quicker ‘Time
to Value’ on the BI
investment.
User adoption
increases when the
time between ‘promise’
and ‘delivery’ is short.
Decreases the load on
IT and other support
resources.
Users have more time
“behind the wheel”
of the software and
can supply informed
guidance about what
improvements they
need to accomplish
business goals.
Copyright © 2012 - Jet Reports International, Inc.
Three Business Intelligence
Implementation Tips
1. Identify the general business goals of the organization
A BI project
that is driven
by the business
succeeds faster.
Identifying the objectives of an organization ultimately gives the BI project a
“clear purpose.” At the top level, purpose means the organization’s strategy; at
the lower levels, purpose is defined by department goals and objectives. For
example, a department goal would be reducing supply costs by 15 percent.
If you do not know where you want to go, you cannot create the appropriate
metrics that tell you when you have arrived. Therefore, maintain a tight focus on
those concepts that make the most sense for your organization, and develop
meaningful long and short-term strategies for success.
Many in the field of Business Intelligence prefer that a BI project is driven by
the business unit that will receive the most immediate benefit from the project.
One scenario commonly originates in the sales department, around both
operational and financial metrics.
For example, a sales manager may need to see how many demonstrations of
the product their team is performing (operations), and how that translates into
revenue over time (finance). This combination of data in a BI system spins off
critical measurements that can be used to improve the efficiency of a sales
process:
•
•
•
•
How many prospect ‘touches’ does it take to get a demo?
How many touches / demos do the most successful salespeople do?
How many for the least successful?
How long is the sales cycle: number of demos, days?
Knowing these facts will quickly lead to a clear view of the sales forecast.
A sales manager can now surmise from the number of demos, how much
revenue will be produced in the future and how long that future really is.
Copyright © 2012 - Jet Reports International, Inc.
As the data gathering gets more sophisticated, this analysis can even be
extended to lead generation activities coming from the marketing team. If
you know:
Align Your Goals:
Walk around and
ask questions
of the business
users
►How many leads a given campaign has produced
►How many leads it takes to produce one demo
►The close rate on demos
Then you can track a number of critical marketing metrics:
►The effectiveness of a given campaign
►‘Time-to-revenue’ of marketing campaigns in general
►Even the general ROI of your marketing efforts – historically,
a very tough feat!
It also works in other departments. Purchasing will be interested in inventory
turns and inventory run rate by geography. Accounting will be interested in
‘days-to-pay’ for receivables, and other departments will have important
numbers that they are eager to track.
With clear goals coming from the business users, those implementing
the BI project will immediately gain organizational support for the chosen
solution. To accurately determine the goals of a given business unit, project
leaders should conduct an informal analysis about the specific information
managers and executives currently use to make decisions, and where it
comes from. Walk around and ask questions. With this in hand, BI project
leaders can score a big win in terms of user adoption, and success of the
project.
2. Identify key processes necessary to achieve the business goals
Once the goals are established, the next step is to identify the key processes
that drive them. One roadblock managers face is not understanding these
processes, and how they might be improved through the use of a Business
Intelligence solution.
For instance, another common goal for a sales department is to increase the
profitability of existing customers. In light of this initiative, the company may
determine a positive correlation between follow-up sales calls to existing
customers, and revenue.
Copyright © 2012 - Jet Reports International, Inc.
Jet Enterprise
can be
implemented
in hours
Since follow-up calls support the sales department’s goals and revenue,
the metrics around that process could be a candidate for inclusion in a BI
solution. Sometimes this type of cause-and-effect relationship can get lost
in the chaos of daily operations. The mere act of thinking about the ways to
implement the BI system can help crystallize strategic thinking.
3. Identify quantitative, measurable key performance indicators that
illustrate the company’s progression toward achieving these goals
A key performance indicator (KPI) is the measure of something that is
important to a business’s objectives. In the case of the sales department
looking for increased revenue, the company found that follow-up sales calls
to existing customers had a measurable effect. One KPI for this would be
the number of outgoing calls to existing customers, and could be included
into a report or dashboard in the way that best matches the workflow of that
department and its managers.
KPIs, like key processes, are typically prioritized by: 1. Alignment with short
and long-term business goals, and 2. The relationship between these KPIs
and revenue production. Some organizations will create a simple matrix to
rank these KPIs, and may include additional ranking criteria depending on
the industry.
Implementing Business Intelligence –
­­ Speed is your friend
A BI system will let you produce these KPI’s easily and then give you the ability to slice the
data in meaningful ways, e.g., by client type, geography, time of year, or any dimension the
organization has determined is meaningful to them. By tying these KPIs back to processes and
goals, the BI implementation becomes a more complete and relevant solution.
If the solution is implemented in days, rather than weeks or months, the direct relationship to
revenue-producing (or revenue-saving, or time-saving) activities is more easily seen. This will
provide the foundation for a positive return on investment.
Copyright © 2012 - Jet Reports International, Inc.
Here is a story from a
Jet Reports client in the
footwear industry as told
by its CIO:
“We were using the reporting tools
from Jet to produce daily sales
reports, AR aging reports, tax
reporting, and the like. We quickly
began to have a need for a deeper
look into the business to do things like
smooth out inventory gluts and sales
seasonality. That’s when we began to
look at BI solutions.
Our short-list was comprised of 5
separate solutions. My evaluation
sheet was 500 lines long and
compared all solutions on ROI,
TCO, and all of our specific business
requirements. We chose Jet
Enterprise for multiple reasons, but the
biggest factor was that their complete
solution could be implemented so
quickly. We installed the software
immediately and it was customized to
my requirements in two days. This is
at least five times faster than anyone
else could even promise.
Now I have everything from intricate
dashboards that are updated
automatically, to ad-hoc reporting my
end users can build any time they
want. Maybe the best use so far is that
we are providing our top 50 retailers
with the data they need to sell more
of our product: seasonal run rates,
current stock levels, even sizing and
color information.”
The Jet Reports Method
Selecting the Right Platform for
Rapid Implementation
Being able to realize a workable solution in an accelerated
time frame will be heavily influenced by the set of Business
Intelligence tools you choose. It may be that one solution
fully supports the project requirements, yet the proposed
implementation time from the vendor is too long. The
key is selecting a BI platform that fits the current project
requirements, and at Jet Reports, our contention is that
a quick implementation should be a project requirement.
Business and technology are moving too fast to tolerate
implementation timelines that span into months, or even
weeks.
Jet Enterprise from Jet Reports can be implemented in
just hours, so you gain valuable insight into your business
immediately. The intuitive, drag-and-drop data manager easily
adds tables or fields to your Data Warehouse and Cubes,
making it simple to manipulate your source data to get the
information you want into dashboards and reports.
There is no need for expensive technical resources to
maintain or modify your BI tool, and there is no load on
your ERP system. With Jet Enterprise, you get Business
Intelligence and Reporting in one solution that can quickly
meet your business information needs. Do strategic or adhoc analyses quickly. Build KPI’s and Metrics without having
to write code. Build and distribute dashboards that track
your critical business processes. Even connect to other data
sources and combine information between systems.
Copyright © 2012 - Jet Reports International, Inc.
...Conclusions
Technology
should make
business easier –
not harder
Business Intelligence implementations require thoughtful planning
and consideration from the organization. Gathering and aligning
departmental goals with a corporate strategy can be arduous in and
of itself. The technology you choose for your BI solution should help
this process, not make it harder. This means that the software you
choose becomes a critical component to your plan, because getting
your BI system up and running needs to be done fast, and more
importantly, done right.
At Jet Reports, our goal is to make the technology portion of your
BI implementation an afterthought. Standard implementations of
Jet Enterprise can be completed in about an hour, customizations
shortly after that, allowing business users to put the valuable data
contained in your enterprise systems to work immediately.
For more information about how Jet Enterprise works with Microsoft
Dynamics and other systems...
Or contact one of our representatives.
Prodware UK Limited
Prodware House, Waterfold Business Park, Bury,
Lancashire, BL9 7BR
[email protected] +44 (0) 161 705 6000
Copyright © 2012 - Jet Reports International, Inc.