IBM Aims for the Business Intelligence Endgame With Cognos
IBM will enter the business intelligence platform market through its planned $5 billion acquisition of Cognos. The buy would make IBM a serious contender in the BI and performance management markets.
Friday, November 16, 2007
IBM Aims for the Business Intelligence Endgame With Cognos
IBM Aims for the Business Intelligence Endgame With Cognos
IBM will enter the business intelligence platform market through its planned $5 billion acquisition of Cognos. The buy would make IBM a serious contender in the BI and performance management markets.
IBM will enter the business intelligence platform market through its planned $5 billion acquisition of Cognos. The buy would make IBM a serious contender in the BI and performance management markets.
IBM Aims for the Business Intelligence Endgame With Cognos
IBM Aims for the Business Intelligence Endgame With Cognos
IBM will enter the business intelligence platform market through its planned $5 billion acquisition of Cognos. The buy would make IBM a serious contender in the BI and performance management markets.
IBM will enter the business intelligence platform market through its planned $5 billion acquisition of Cognos. The buy would make IBM a serious contender in the BI and performance management markets.
Friday, October 19, 2007
FT.com / Technology - Spreadsheets meet the power of BI
FT.com / Technology - Spreadsheets meet the power of BI
Spreadsheets meet the power of BI
By Geoff Nairn
Published: October 15 2007 13:28 | Last updated: October 15 2007 13:28
If you can’t beat them, join them. After years of trying to wean businesses off spreadsheets and on to full-blown business intelligence software, Cognos has decided the spreadsheet is a pretty good tool – as long as you use it with a BI back-end.
Cognos 8 BI Analysis for Microsoft Excel 8.2 promises business and financial analysts the best of both worlds: the familiarity of spreadsheets with the power and functionality of BI.
Challenge to hackers
Hackers like a challenge and Dell has thrown them one by boasting it has the world’s most secure notebooks. Two models, the Latitude D630 and D680, now come fitted with encrypted hard drives and the Embassy Trust Suite of security software from Wave Systems. The complete solution includes a remote administration server so if a notebook gets lost, IT managers can check to see if the data were safely encrypted – or not.
Banking transactions
SAP has released an integration package to link its enterprise resource planning software into Swiftnet, the IP-based payments network.
The package lets companies manage banking transactions that originate from SAP ERP systems and then format them for transmission via Swiftnet. The aim is to replace the hotchpotch of leased lines and proprietary protocols that have been traditionally used for corporate-to-bank communications.
Managing ideas
IP.com of the US has launched InnovationQ version 3.0 to help businesses better manage their intellectual property. The software uses workflow techniques and a secure document repository to ensure ideas reach the right people in an organisation and protect potential trade secrets from being inadvertently revealed to outsiders. InnovationQ is available both as software-as-a-service (Saas) and as on-site software.
Website workspace
Office Live Workspace is Microsoft’s reply to the clutch of rival web-based productivity software offerings. Instead of sending PowerPoint decks or draft Word documents to colleagues by e-mail, Office Live Workspace lets them read or comment on the document in a password-protected website. Unlike Google Docs and similar online services, the files have to be prepared offline on a PC running Microsoft Office.
Windows XP reprieve
A short, largely symbolic, reprieve for traditionalists who prefer Windows XP: Microsoft has extended the cut-off date beyond which all new PCs will be sold with its successor operating system, Windows Vista, to June 2008, five months later than originally planned.
Vista has been criticised for being resource-hungry and containing bugs. Most off-the-shelf PCs now come factory-installed with Vista although Dell, for example, offers some models with XP.
A successor to Treo
Is there life after the Treo? Palm hopes so and it is called Centro, its first non-Treo smartphone.
Designed to be smaller and cheaper than the Treo, the Centro runs Palm OS rather than Windows and has a touch screen, full keyboard and 1.3-megapixel camera. It is so far only available in the US and costs just $99 if you take a two-year contract with Sprint, the only operator offering it at present.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Spreadsheets meet the power of BI
By Geoff Nairn
Published: October 15 2007 13:28 | Last updated: October 15 2007 13:28
If you can’t beat them, join them. After years of trying to wean businesses off spreadsheets and on to full-blown business intelligence software, Cognos has decided the spreadsheet is a pretty good tool – as long as you use it with a BI back-end.
Cognos 8 BI Analysis for Microsoft Excel 8.2 promises business and financial analysts the best of both worlds: the familiarity of spreadsheets with the power and functionality of BI.
Challenge to hackers
Hackers like a challenge and Dell has thrown them one by boasting it has the world’s most secure notebooks. Two models, the Latitude D630 and D680, now come fitted with encrypted hard drives and the Embassy Trust Suite of security software from Wave Systems. The complete solution includes a remote administration server so if a notebook gets lost, IT managers can check to see if the data were safely encrypted – or not.
Banking transactions
SAP has released an integration package to link its enterprise resource planning software into Swiftnet, the IP-based payments network.
The package lets companies manage banking transactions that originate from SAP ERP systems and then format them for transmission via Swiftnet. The aim is to replace the hotchpotch of leased lines and proprietary protocols that have been traditionally used for corporate-to-bank communications.
Managing ideas
IP.com of the US has launched InnovationQ version 3.0 to help businesses better manage their intellectual property. The software uses workflow techniques and a secure document repository to ensure ideas reach the right people in an organisation and protect potential trade secrets from being inadvertently revealed to outsiders. InnovationQ is available both as software-as-a-service (Saas) and as on-site software.
Website workspace
Office Live Workspace is Microsoft’s reply to the clutch of rival web-based productivity software offerings. Instead of sending PowerPoint decks or draft Word documents to colleagues by e-mail, Office Live Workspace lets them read or comment on the document in a password-protected website. Unlike Google Docs and similar online services, the files have to be prepared offline on a PC running Microsoft Office.
Windows XP reprieve
A short, largely symbolic, reprieve for traditionalists who prefer Windows XP: Microsoft has extended the cut-off date beyond which all new PCs will be sold with its successor operating system, Windows Vista, to June 2008, five months later than originally planned.
Vista has been criticised for being resource-hungry and containing bugs. Most off-the-shelf PCs now come factory-installed with Vista although Dell, for example, offers some models with XP.
A successor to Treo
Is there life after the Treo? Palm hopes so and it is called Centro, its first non-Treo smartphone.
Designed to be smaller and cheaper than the Treo, the Centro runs Palm OS rather than Windows and has a touch screen, full keyboard and 1.3-megapixel camera. It is so far only available in the US and costs just $99 if you take a two-year contract with Sprint, the only operator offering it at present.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
ERP/SCM: SAP's Planned Business Objects Buy Signals Strategic Shift
ERP/SCM: SAP's Planned Business Objects Buy Signals Strategic Shift
SAP's plan to buy Business Objects will put SAP into the lead for revenue from business intelligence platform products. However, many integration and execution challenges lie ahead.
Event
On 7 October 2007, SAP announced its intention to buy Business Objects for 4.9 billion euros. SAP expects to close the transaction in 1Q08. Business Objects will be run as an independent business unit under current CEO John Schwarz, who will have a seat on the SAP executive board.
Analysis
Following this announcement, SAP gave few indications of product strategy, but said it will release more details after the transaction completes. SAP did not announce product road maps and pricing changes; it said it would continue to support existing products.
With this planned acquisition, SAP will expand its presence into the "business user" market, which it defines as business roles involved in analytical and information-intensive activities. This acquisition will be larger than other SAP acquisitions and would fill a significant gap in its query and reporting tools.
Gartner believes that the proposed acquisition creates some management challenges for SAP. SAP's NetWeaver Business Intelligence (BI) product overlaps with several Business Objects products, including data integration and corporate performance management (CPM) suites. Both companies have overlapping sales forces, support organizations, channel partners, independent software vendors and midmarket initiatives. These challenges won't be addressed by simply running Business Objects as an independent business unit.
Nevertheless, in the long term, the merger should make for a powerful combination, as Business Objects leverages SAP's vertical and industry expertise. The integration will exploit market demand for integrating BI closer into business processes and applications. SAP and Oracle will now place more focus on BI and CPM as competitive differentiators.
Recommendations
- SAP business applications customers that have invested in SAP BI and CPM products (for example, NetWeaver BI, Strategic Enterprise Management and OutlookSoft) or customers considering such investments: Until SAP clarifies its pricing and product road map, continue with tactical and incremental investments, but don't initiate any new strategic investments.
- Business Objects customers: Continue investments as planned, but document product capabilities and map them to the stated product road maps — when SAP announces them — for indications of shifts, substitutions and replacements within product lines.
- Companies in an OEM relationship with Business Objects: You face little short-term risk; however, OEMs that also compete with SAP should consider evaluating alternative BI platforms for BI application development.
Additional research contribution and review: Kurt Schlegel
SAP's plan to buy Business Objects will put SAP into the lead for revenue from business intelligence platform products. However, many integration and execution challenges lie ahead.
Event
On 7 October 2007, SAP announced its intention to buy Business Objects for 4.9 billion euros. SAP expects to close the transaction in 1Q08. Business Objects will be run as an independent business unit under current CEO John Schwarz, who will have a seat on the SAP executive board.
Analysis
Following this announcement, SAP gave few indications of product strategy, but said it will release more details after the transaction completes. SAP did not announce product road maps and pricing changes; it said it would continue to support existing products.
With this planned acquisition, SAP will expand its presence into the "business user" market, which it defines as business roles involved in analytical and information-intensive activities. This acquisition will be larger than other SAP acquisitions and would fill a significant gap in its query and reporting tools.
Gartner believes that the proposed acquisition creates some management challenges for SAP. SAP's NetWeaver Business Intelligence (BI) product overlaps with several Business Objects products, including data integration and corporate performance management (CPM) suites. Both companies have overlapping sales forces, support organizations, channel partners, independent software vendors and midmarket initiatives. These challenges won't be addressed by simply running Business Objects as an independent business unit.
Nevertheless, in the long term, the merger should make for a powerful combination, as Business Objects leverages SAP's vertical and industry expertise. The integration will exploit market demand for integrating BI closer into business processes and applications. SAP and Oracle will now place more focus on BI and CPM as competitive differentiators.
Recommendations
- SAP business applications customers that have invested in SAP BI and CPM products (for example, NetWeaver BI, Strategic Enterprise Management and OutlookSoft) or customers considering such investments: Until SAP clarifies its pricing and product road map, continue with tactical and incremental investments, but don't initiate any new strategic investments.
- Business Objects customers: Continue investments as planned, but document product capabilities and map them to the stated product road maps — when SAP announces them — for indications of shifts, substitutions and replacements within product lines.
- Companies in an OEM relationship with Business Objects: You face little short-term risk; however, OEMs that also compete with SAP should consider evaluating alternative BI platforms for BI application development.
Additional research contribution and review: Kurt Schlegel
Monday, October 08, 2007
FT.com / Companies / Europe - SAP signals hunger for deals
FT.com / Companies / Europe - SAP signals hunger for deals
SAP signals hunger for deals
By Gerrit Wiesmann in Frankfurt and Pan Kwan Yuk in Paris
Published: October 8 2007 20:20 | Last updated: October 8 2007 20:20
Germany’s SAP, the world’s largest maker of business software, Monday signalled it could look at further acquisitions even as its departure from an avowed strategy of organic growth sent investors running for cover.
Outlining an agreed takeover offer worth €4.8bn ($6.7bn) for Franco-American software house Business Objects, SAP chief executive Henning Kagermann said SAP was on its “way to proving we can make larger acquisitions”.
The company’s announcement late Sunday that it was buying the market leader in programmes to collect and sift corporate data knocked 4 per cent of SAP stock in trading Monday.
The shares closed at €39.95 in Frankfurt.
Investors were rattled because Mr Kagermann had for years underlined SAP’s superiority to US rival Oracle by pointing out the German company was focused on organic growth – not dealmaking.
To catch SAP, Oracle has spent billions on buying rival makers of central business programmes as well as end-user suppliers such as Hyperion, a Business Objects rival, it bought for $3.3bn (€2.3bn) this spring.
But at a press conference in Frankfurt, Mr Kagermann said the largest acquisition in SAP’s history was not a reaction to Oracle.
“We have not seen … that Oracle is gaining market share,” he stressed.
He said the move was consistent with SAP’s strategy outlined as far back as 2003. Having “done our homework” in its two core sectors, which would still grow organically, SAP now had time to look at end-users’ needs.
As demand for traditional manufacturing and supply-chain management slows, SAP said that sales of business analysis software were growing at around 10 per cent per year from current annual sales of about €10bn.
In buying Business Objects, SAP would be able to offer its clients more integrated features, Mr Kagermann said, stressing that demand for such end-user features would likely continue to rise over the next years.
“There are other areas in which such a move would make sense,” Mr Kagermann said, noting that ever more companies wanted integrated software. “But [the acquisition of Business Objects] is by far the most important.”
SAP has spent the past years reinventing its so-called business process platform, the nervous systems of companies’ IT systems, and making a foray into the market for mid-sized companies, which critics argue came late.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
SAP signals hunger for deals
By Gerrit Wiesmann in Frankfurt and Pan Kwan Yuk in Paris
Published: October 8 2007 20:20 | Last updated: October 8 2007 20:20
Germany’s SAP, the world’s largest maker of business software, Monday signalled it could look at further acquisitions even as its departure from an avowed strategy of organic growth sent investors running for cover.
Outlining an agreed takeover offer worth €4.8bn ($6.7bn) for Franco-American software house Business Objects, SAP chief executive Henning Kagermann said SAP was on its “way to proving we can make larger acquisitions”.
The company’s announcement late Sunday that it was buying the market leader in programmes to collect and sift corporate data knocked 4 per cent of SAP stock in trading Monday.
The shares closed at €39.95 in Frankfurt.
Investors were rattled because Mr Kagermann had for years underlined SAP’s superiority to US rival Oracle by pointing out the German company was focused on organic growth – not dealmaking.
To catch SAP, Oracle has spent billions on buying rival makers of central business programmes as well as end-user suppliers such as Hyperion, a Business Objects rival, it bought for $3.3bn (€2.3bn) this spring.
But at a press conference in Frankfurt, Mr Kagermann said the largest acquisition in SAP’s history was not a reaction to Oracle.
“We have not seen … that Oracle is gaining market share,” he stressed.
He said the move was consistent with SAP’s strategy outlined as far back as 2003. Having “done our homework” in its two core sectors, which would still grow organically, SAP now had time to look at end-users’ needs.
As demand for traditional manufacturing and supply-chain management slows, SAP said that sales of business analysis software were growing at around 10 per cent per year from current annual sales of about €10bn.
In buying Business Objects, SAP would be able to offer its clients more integrated features, Mr Kagermann said, stressing that demand for such end-user features would likely continue to rise over the next years.
“There are other areas in which such a move would make sense,” Mr Kagermann said, noting that ever more companies wanted integrated software. “But [the acquisition of Business Objects] is by far the most important.”
SAP has spent the past years reinventing its so-called business process platform, the nervous systems of companies’ IT systems, and making a foray into the market for mid-sized companies, which critics argue came late.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
FT.com / Companies / IT - SAP buys Business Objects for €4.8bn
FT.com / Companies / IT - SAP buys Business Objects for €4.8bn
SAP buys Business Objects for €4.8bn
By Gerrit Wiesmann in Frankfurt and Lina Saigol in London
Published: October 7 2007 21:55 | Last updated: October 8 2007 00:07
Germany’s SAP on Sunday night launched a €4.8bn (£3.3bn) bid for Franco-American software maker Business Objects in what seems a departure from its long-term strategy to expand only organically and by smaller purchases.
The world’s largest maker of business software said it would offer €42 a share for the company, which specialises in business-analysis packages; a 20 per cent premium to Friday’s closing price in Paris.
The decision was seen as a response by SAP to a purchase by Oracle, its US archrival, which in March bought Hyperion, a smaller rival of Business Objects, for $3.3bn (£1.6bn).
SAP denied its agreed bid was a change of tack. Henning Kagermann, chief executive, said the company had bought interesting applications with “end-user appeal” before. SAP would continue to expand its core business organically.
In a conference call, he said that was consistent with SAP’s 2003 strategy statement. After changes to the main software platform, SAP was looking at individual applications.
Mr Kagermann said this opportunity to combine “market leaders in their respective domains” was “an opportunity unparalleled” in the German group’s history. He declined to give details of new products.
SAP said the move, financed by cash and debt, would go through if supported by 50.01 per cent of Business Objects’ shareholders. It hopes to close the transaction in the first quarter of next year.
The deal would mildly dilute earnings in the coming year, but boost profits in 2009 and beyond. “Financially and not just strategically, this is a good deal,” Mr Kagermann said.
It comes at a sensitive time for the German software maker. It is spending €400m to introduce software for small businesses, which will, for the first time, be hosted on the web by its own computer centres.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
SAP buys Business Objects for €4.8bn
By Gerrit Wiesmann in Frankfurt and Lina Saigol in London
Published: October 7 2007 21:55 | Last updated: October 8 2007 00:07
Germany’s SAP on Sunday night launched a €4.8bn (£3.3bn) bid for Franco-American software maker Business Objects in what seems a departure from its long-term strategy to expand only organically and by smaller purchases.
The world’s largest maker of business software said it would offer €42 a share for the company, which specialises in business-analysis packages; a 20 per cent premium to Friday’s closing price in Paris.
The decision was seen as a response by SAP to a purchase by Oracle, its US archrival, which in March bought Hyperion, a smaller rival of Business Objects, for $3.3bn (£1.6bn).
SAP denied its agreed bid was a change of tack. Henning Kagermann, chief executive, said the company had bought interesting applications with “end-user appeal” before. SAP would continue to expand its core business organically.
In a conference call, he said that was consistent with SAP’s 2003 strategy statement. After changes to the main software platform, SAP was looking at individual applications.
Mr Kagermann said this opportunity to combine “market leaders in their respective domains” was “an opportunity unparalleled” in the German group’s history. He declined to give details of new products.
SAP said the move, financed by cash and debt, would go through if supported by 50.01 per cent of Business Objects’ shareholders. It hopes to close the transaction in the first quarter of next year.
The deal would mildly dilute earnings in the coming year, but boost profits in 2009 and beyond. “Financially and not just strategically, this is a good deal,” Mr Kagermann said.
It comes at a sensitive time for the German software maker. It is spending €400m to introduce software for small businesses, which will, for the first time, be hosted on the web by its own computer centres.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Thursday, October 04, 2007
Longview Deal Continues CPM Market Consolidation
Longview Deal Continues CPM Market Consolidation
Exact Software's proposed acquisition of Longview will potentially benefit both companies. It is also evidence of the continuing consolidation in the corporate performance management space.
Exact Software's proposed acquisition of Longview will potentially benefit both companies. It is also evidence of the continuing consolidation in the corporate performance management space.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Friday, September 14, 2007
FT.com / Technology - Personal view: Gut instincts give business intelligence a new flavour
FT.com / Technology - Personal view: Gut instincts give business intelligence a new flavour
Personal view: Gut instincts give business intelligence a new flavour
By Royce Bell
Published: July 11 2007 09:41 | Last updated: July 11 2007 09:41
It is official: we cannot cope with information overload – apparently, we are not designed to analyse large amounts of data and draw irrefutable conclusions.
This is according to Malcolm Gladwell*, a researcher in the latest developments of neuroscience and psychology. If the insights he describes are correct then there are profound implications for business intelligence (BI) and information management projects.
Mr Gladwell illustrates how humans “thin slice” the world: how too much choice inhibits our choosing; how we can be externally primed to think in a certain way; and what we mean by intuition. He also illustrates the insidious origins of bias – how we are programmed to allow ourselves to be influenced by events – even just words from the people around us.
The insights to our pre- programmed mental mechanisms go far beyond the old comparison of rising capacity seen in Moore’s computer law with flatline development in humans – it goes to the heart of any claims we in the business intelligence market may make on how we might improve decision making.
Thin slicing describes our unconscious ability to detect and process key information in our environment that allows us to make snap judgments or decisions. In a business environment, such unconscious decision-making creates problems – of accountability, repeatability, and perhaps most importantly, believability.
If business intelligence is about decisions, are companies’ systems simply there to present data so that staff can support their instinctive choices? Or do systems aggregate data in the hope that wisdom springs from the data warehouse? Is it a case of laying infrastructure on which others will build, or have systems really been designed around an analysis of what is actually needed to improve decision-making?
There is the argument that simply making information available must be a good thing – just examine the studies on how much time management spends looking for information. Research from Accenture, the management consultancy, has shown that a quarter of a manager’s day can be occupied with such searching. But Mr Gladwell describes how our decision-making freezes when faced with too much information, so we must look carefully at how much information is made available.
I believe that classifying the uses of BI is a good place to start in looking at the value to be had from the use of BI investments.
For a start, today’s technology is already up to the challenge of monitoring events and providing notifications – or even automating a response in straightforward cases. What we should focus on are decisions requiring human thought – and the need to guide and inform our intuitions.
Assuming management systems are efficient at flagging a need for action, we are left with an information set that constitutes the real value of BI: what information is used in deciding what to do?
Here, Mr Gladwell’s insights are useful. What he has brought from the human sciences addresses both the conscious and unconscious processes that go on in the mind. Although his book has been criticised as anti-analysis – even anti-thought – the critical insight I think he brings is that unconscious, snap, intuitive decisions are actually based upon our ability to bypass the analytic process.
Underlying this idea is the fact that accumulated experience, as well as information assembled without direct attention, does inform these oft-derided instincts. We classify these decisions as intuitive because we cannot provide the supporting analysis.
So where does that leave us? I think BI professionals need to develop a framework within their organisation’s information strategy that reserves a place for intuition.
Technology is not anathema to intuition – in fact, it can augment it. Tools are becoming available that allow unstructured information captured in the form of transactions, interactions, e-mail, text and a panoply of other media to be analysed and brought to bear on a wide range of decisions – more decisions than human intuition alone can hope to address.
Researchers at Accenture Technology Labs have been developing tools that use such sources to build models of everything from shoppers and salespeople to buses and vineyards to industrialise informed decision-making in such diverse areas as supply chain, marketing, and healthcare.
For now, the critical question for such a framework is how to apply tools and methods to tease out what is really used in decision-making – to extract the process from the mystery.
But if the BI professional begins with the notion that intuition is simply another evolutionary step in fact-based decision-making, rather than outlawing it, we may start to see the next level of return on investment and an advance in management’s use of BI.
Beyond Mr Gladwell’s world are vistas of neuroscience research into consciousness, memory, attention – all of which provide insights into how we work. In particular, this research can guide us on the social aspects of decision-making and how humans respond to an ever-changing world in real time – and this must also produce insights into how a business can respond to a chaotic world.
The dream of artificial intelligence foreseen by many sci-fi writers may be unattainable, but I think we can start to see the basis for real knowledge-based systems. It will be a world in which business intelligence drives and informs action in a work environment; less about spreadsheets and more about allowing humans to work in the way that 300m years of evolution have prepared them for.
*Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, by Malcolm Gladwell, is published by Penguin
Royce Bell is chief executive officer at Accenture Information Management Services
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Personal view: Gut instincts give business intelligence a new flavour
By Royce Bell
Published: July 11 2007 09:41 | Last updated: July 11 2007 09:41
It is official: we cannot cope with information overload – apparently, we are not designed to analyse large amounts of data and draw irrefutable conclusions.
This is according to Malcolm Gladwell*, a researcher in the latest developments of neuroscience and psychology. If the insights he describes are correct then there are profound implications for business intelligence (BI) and information management projects.
Mr Gladwell illustrates how humans “thin slice” the world: how too much choice inhibits our choosing; how we can be externally primed to think in a certain way; and what we mean by intuition. He also illustrates the insidious origins of bias – how we are programmed to allow ourselves to be influenced by events – even just words from the people around us.
The insights to our pre- programmed mental mechanisms go far beyond the old comparison of rising capacity seen in Moore’s computer law with flatline development in humans – it goes to the heart of any claims we in the business intelligence market may make on how we might improve decision making.
Thin slicing describes our unconscious ability to detect and process key information in our environment that allows us to make snap judgments or decisions. In a business environment, such unconscious decision-making creates problems – of accountability, repeatability, and perhaps most importantly, believability.
If business intelligence is about decisions, are companies’ systems simply there to present data so that staff can support their instinctive choices? Or do systems aggregate data in the hope that wisdom springs from the data warehouse? Is it a case of laying infrastructure on which others will build, or have systems really been designed around an analysis of what is actually needed to improve decision-making?
There is the argument that simply making information available must be a good thing – just examine the studies on how much time management spends looking for information. Research from Accenture, the management consultancy, has shown that a quarter of a manager’s day can be occupied with such searching. But Mr Gladwell describes how our decision-making freezes when faced with too much information, so we must look carefully at how much information is made available.
I believe that classifying the uses of BI is a good place to start in looking at the value to be had from the use of BI investments.
For a start, today’s technology is already up to the challenge of monitoring events and providing notifications – or even automating a response in straightforward cases. What we should focus on are decisions requiring human thought – and the need to guide and inform our intuitions.
Assuming management systems are efficient at flagging a need for action, we are left with an information set that constitutes the real value of BI: what information is used in deciding what to do?
Here, Mr Gladwell’s insights are useful. What he has brought from the human sciences addresses both the conscious and unconscious processes that go on in the mind. Although his book has been criticised as anti-analysis – even anti-thought – the critical insight I think he brings is that unconscious, snap, intuitive decisions are actually based upon our ability to bypass the analytic process.
Underlying this idea is the fact that accumulated experience, as well as information assembled without direct attention, does inform these oft-derided instincts. We classify these decisions as intuitive because we cannot provide the supporting analysis.
So where does that leave us? I think BI professionals need to develop a framework within their organisation’s information strategy that reserves a place for intuition.
Technology is not anathema to intuition – in fact, it can augment it. Tools are becoming available that allow unstructured information captured in the form of transactions, interactions, e-mail, text and a panoply of other media to be analysed and brought to bear on a wide range of decisions – more decisions than human intuition alone can hope to address.
Researchers at Accenture Technology Labs have been developing tools that use such sources to build models of everything from shoppers and salespeople to buses and vineyards to industrialise informed decision-making in such diverse areas as supply chain, marketing, and healthcare.
For now, the critical question for such a framework is how to apply tools and methods to tease out what is really used in decision-making – to extract the process from the mystery.
But if the BI professional begins with the notion that intuition is simply another evolutionary step in fact-based decision-making, rather than outlawing it, we may start to see the next level of return on investment and an advance in management’s use of BI.
Beyond Mr Gladwell’s world are vistas of neuroscience research into consciousness, memory, attention – all of which provide insights into how we work. In particular, this research can guide us on the social aspects of decision-making and how humans respond to an ever-changing world in real time – and this must also produce insights into how a business can respond to a chaotic world.
The dream of artificial intelligence foreseen by many sci-fi writers may be unattainable, but I think we can start to see the basis for real knowledge-based systems. It will be a world in which business intelligence drives and informs action in a work environment; less about spreadsheets and more about allowing humans to work in the way that 300m years of evolution have prepared them for.
*Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, by Malcolm Gladwell, is published by Penguin
Royce Bell is chief executive officer at Accenture Information Management Services
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Cognos to Acquire Applix to Bolster CPM Suite and BI
Cognos to Acquire Applix to Bolster CPM Suite and BI
Cognos would gain technology to improve its corporate performance management and business intelligence suites with the proposed acquisition of Applix. But this deal creates short-term uncertainty about product strategy.
Cognos would gain technology to improve its corporate performance management and business intelligence suites with the proposed acquisition of Applix. But this deal creates short-term uncertainty about product strategy.
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Friday, August 10, 2007
Oco Takes on BI; DemandTec’s IPO | AMR Research
Oco Takes on BI; DemandTec’s IPO | AMR Research
While we often get complaints that we “only write about Oracle or SAP,” a review of our content shows a different story. And to help further spread the coverage, this week, I met with several small software companies eager to become the next supernova. Over the next few weeks and months, you will learn their stories. Here’s the first.
Oco, Inc. aims to accelerate BI evolution
I last wrote about Oco nearly a year ago—“Oco Out to Map the Business Genome.” Oco founder George O’Conor had developed a clever scheme for mapping and extracting all of the critical data in an enterprise regardless of which system it had resided in. Unlike traditional business intelligence (BI) systems, he promised to provide the business genome mapping in six weeks or less at a fraction of the cost of traditional offerings. He was so sure of his company’s abilities that he promised a money back guarantee.
It sounded too good to be true so we interviewed three of Oco’s largest and most prominent customers, the past few months. (Note: In exchange for their frank views, we agreed to not use their company names.)
Too good to be true? Talk to the customers
The first customer interviewed brought Oco in for reporting, to overcome the deficiencies of a legacy package. It started as a management reporting tool, but is now viewed as providing “360-degree visibility” across the organization. Since the first project, Oco has been involved in three follow on engagements, including one for the customer’s client. That client had a two month window in which it had to have Oco’s software installed and operating—Oco did it in four weeks.
The customer is using Oco as part of its new information architecture. Oco helps manage budgeting, planning, and forecasting for the multichannel operations for a diverse set of brands. To date, the customer said that Oco provided a “4:1 improvement on total cost of ownership.” The initial project required Oco to be on site one day a week for six weeks. This has been reduced to a four-week process for the follow on projects.
The second customer is in the apparel retail business. Our contact had been working with Oco since 2003. At the time, the company was in the process of replacing the Ecometry platform which he described as providing “poor reporting and complex ad hoc reporting.” While beginning to look at alternatives like Business Objects and Cognos, the customer met Mr. O’Conor who said, “Give me your data.” Within six weeks, Oco had given the customer the reports needed and had also, as the customer explained, “extended the life of our dysfunctional platform.”
Today, whenever the company has a data management project, the motto is “That’s a job for George.” Yet, at the same time, the customer said that “we are always looking for alternatives. Can we do better? The answer now is ‘no.’”
The third customer is in the quick serve restaurant business. It discovered Oco when finishing its first governance processes. At the time, the company was using Microsoft Access and Excel to manage this. One part of the business was implementing Oracle ERP. This customer’s division was expected to trail the parent company’s ERP schedule by 12-to-18 months. The lack of governance and systems led to complaints about lost data, lost leads (buyers inquiring about franchise opportunities), and frustration over data collection.
Our contact told us that he had once spent a day with the franchising manager and was appalled at the person’s lack of tools. He began to assemble a list of requirements for improving that position: software with a fast implementation, more intuitive user interface, and available on demand software rather than on premise. Fortunately for Oco, his Oco contact previously had been his Oracle sales rep. The project was completed in five weeks. One of the new abilities allows franchisees to see how well they are doing selling the company’s new products relative to their peers. The Oco software also allows franchisees to track their own key performance indicators.
Ironically, the only common complaint the three customers had was Oco’s fixation on six-week implementations. They viewed that as more of an Oco marketing message than a necessity; they can’t move as fast as the small software vendor. When we asked Oco executives about that, they said the primary reason for the six-week plan was to prevent scope creep—the bane of every software project.
Two of the three customers mentioned that they would continue to look at the offerings of other vendors, be it ERP or BI. At the same time, though, they have expanded use of the Oco system by adding seats, applications, and reports. One also added another business division to it.
Changes after Bill Copacino named president and CEO
Oco has made three major improvements so far this year. The first was the hiring of Bill Copacino as president and CEO in January. We first met Mr. Copacino in 2000 or 2001 when he was running Accenture’s supply chain practice. He later became group chief executive for global business consulting with practices spanning financial performance management, business intelligence, CRM, supply chain, human capital development, and business strategy. After Accenture, he joined C&S Wholesale Grocery, a $20B food distribution company.
The second was the infusion of capital. Shortly after Mr. Copacino joined, the company raised $10M in funding from Highfields Capital Management as part of its $14.5M Series C round. The money is being invested in four areas: product development (increased focus on usability, integration with Cognos 8, and the automation of some of the data extraction/data management processes); sales and marketing; additional headcount, especially in development and delivery; and the build out of an alliances program. As you might imagine, Mr. Copacino understands the value of relationships with the consulting firms and integrators. So far, Oco has been working with several firms including IBM Global Services, Tatum, and Lenser.
The company has also been contacting the private equity firms swarming around retail buyouts. This could be a major growth area for Oco. Fast implementations plus a wide range of reports are natural complements to the investors’ plans.
The third boost has been around the messaging. When we met with Mr. O’Conor last summer, the messaging was around “On-Demand Data Integration” and “On-Demand Analytics.” This time it’s more industry specific. Since most of its 13 subscription customers are retailers, the company now offers the Oco Retail Intelligence Solution. This is aimed at different roles/groups inside an enterprise, including the executive team, merchandise and inventory management, direct marketing, store operations, and operations (such as track and analyze performance in the warehouse and call centers).
The new messaging is working. The company has recently begun pilots with two well-known New England firms in retail and consumer goods, respectively.
Buy Google AdWords or new name?
If I could offer one bit of unsolicited advice to the Oco executive team, it would be to do something about the name. Google “Oco Software” and the first mention is “OCO Software, a division of OCO Consulting, specializes in the design and development of software for investment promotion and trade development.” Wrong company!
If you type in “Oco,” you’ll find the right company right after the Occupational Outlook Handbook and just in front of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory. You have to know to go to www.oco-inc.com. The need for a hyphen is not intuitive.
The solution is to buy up the Google AdWords for Oco, Oco software, Oco BI, Oco Retail, etc., or change the company name. It’s probably cheaper to buy the AdWords.
DemandTec goes public
Over the last month or so, I’ve written about the IPO plans of NetSuite and SuccessFactors, and specifically cited the rapid growth rates of the two software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers in the “Clear the Track, Tech is Back” piece. When Deltek filed in May, I also wrote about that, too. So, it was understandable when one of our researchers got an angry e-mail from DemandTec asking why they weren’t included in my coverage or analysis.
On Friday April 20, I had lunch with Dan Fishback, DemandTec’s president and CEO. While we spent most of the time talking about the SaaS offerings his company has built for its 105 consumer goods customers and 29 retail anchor tenants, he also told me about his intention to go public this year.
On May 24, DemandTec announced it had filed to go public. Shares of “DMAN” began trading August 9. The stock opened at $10.05 and closed at $9.34. The timing was somewhat unfortunate given that the Dow dropped more than 387 points that day spooking a lot of global exchanges. As The Wall Street Journal noted (August 10), this was “the second-heaviest one-day plunge since 2003.”
While we often get complaints that we “only write about Oracle or SAP,” a review of our content shows a different story. And to help further spread the coverage, this week, I met with several small software companies eager to become the next supernova. Over the next few weeks and months, you will learn their stories. Here’s the first.
Oco, Inc. aims to accelerate BI evolution
I last wrote about Oco nearly a year ago—“Oco Out to Map the Business Genome.” Oco founder George O’Conor had developed a clever scheme for mapping and extracting all of the critical data in an enterprise regardless of which system it had resided in. Unlike traditional business intelligence (BI) systems, he promised to provide the business genome mapping in six weeks or less at a fraction of the cost of traditional offerings. He was so sure of his company’s abilities that he promised a money back guarantee.
It sounded too good to be true so we interviewed three of Oco’s largest and most prominent customers, the past few months. (Note: In exchange for their frank views, we agreed to not use their company names.)
Too good to be true? Talk to the customers
The first customer interviewed brought Oco in for reporting, to overcome the deficiencies of a legacy package. It started as a management reporting tool, but is now viewed as providing “360-degree visibility” across the organization. Since the first project, Oco has been involved in three follow on engagements, including one for the customer’s client. That client had a two month window in which it had to have Oco’s software installed and operating—Oco did it in four weeks.
The customer is using Oco as part of its new information architecture. Oco helps manage budgeting, planning, and forecasting for the multichannel operations for a diverse set of brands. To date, the customer said that Oco provided a “4:1 improvement on total cost of ownership.” The initial project required Oco to be on site one day a week for six weeks. This has been reduced to a four-week process for the follow on projects.
The second customer is in the apparel retail business. Our contact had been working with Oco since 2003. At the time, the company was in the process of replacing the Ecometry platform which he described as providing “poor reporting and complex ad hoc reporting.” While beginning to look at alternatives like Business Objects and Cognos, the customer met Mr. O’Conor who said, “Give me your data.” Within six weeks, Oco had given the customer the reports needed and had also, as the customer explained, “extended the life of our dysfunctional platform.”
Today, whenever the company has a data management project, the motto is “That’s a job for George.” Yet, at the same time, the customer said that “we are always looking for alternatives. Can we do better? The answer now is ‘no.’”
The third customer is in the quick serve restaurant business. It discovered Oco when finishing its first governance processes. At the time, the company was using Microsoft Access and Excel to manage this. One part of the business was implementing Oracle ERP. This customer’s division was expected to trail the parent company’s ERP schedule by 12-to-18 months. The lack of governance and systems led to complaints about lost data, lost leads (buyers inquiring about franchise opportunities), and frustration over data collection.
Our contact told us that he had once spent a day with the franchising manager and was appalled at the person’s lack of tools. He began to assemble a list of requirements for improving that position: software with a fast implementation, more intuitive user interface, and available on demand software rather than on premise. Fortunately for Oco, his Oco contact previously had been his Oracle sales rep. The project was completed in five weeks. One of the new abilities allows franchisees to see how well they are doing selling the company’s new products relative to their peers. The Oco software also allows franchisees to track their own key performance indicators.
Ironically, the only common complaint the three customers had was Oco’s fixation on six-week implementations. They viewed that as more of an Oco marketing message than a necessity; they can’t move as fast as the small software vendor. When we asked Oco executives about that, they said the primary reason for the six-week plan was to prevent scope creep—the bane of every software project.
Two of the three customers mentioned that they would continue to look at the offerings of other vendors, be it ERP or BI. At the same time, though, they have expanded use of the Oco system by adding seats, applications, and reports. One also added another business division to it.
Changes after Bill Copacino named president and CEO
Oco has made three major improvements so far this year. The first was the hiring of Bill Copacino as president and CEO in January. We first met Mr. Copacino in 2000 or 2001 when he was running Accenture’s supply chain practice. He later became group chief executive for global business consulting with practices spanning financial performance management, business intelligence, CRM, supply chain, human capital development, and business strategy. After Accenture, he joined C&S Wholesale Grocery, a $20B food distribution company.
The second was the infusion of capital. Shortly after Mr. Copacino joined, the company raised $10M in funding from Highfields Capital Management as part of its $14.5M Series C round. The money is being invested in four areas: product development (increased focus on usability, integration with Cognos 8, and the automation of some of the data extraction/data management processes); sales and marketing; additional headcount, especially in development and delivery; and the build out of an alliances program. As you might imagine, Mr. Copacino understands the value of relationships with the consulting firms and integrators. So far, Oco has been working with several firms including IBM Global Services, Tatum, and Lenser.
The company has also been contacting the private equity firms swarming around retail buyouts. This could be a major growth area for Oco. Fast implementations plus a wide range of reports are natural complements to the investors’ plans.
The third boost has been around the messaging. When we met with Mr. O’Conor last summer, the messaging was around “On-Demand Data Integration” and “On-Demand Analytics.” This time it’s more industry specific. Since most of its 13 subscription customers are retailers, the company now offers the Oco Retail Intelligence Solution. This is aimed at different roles/groups inside an enterprise, including the executive team, merchandise and inventory management, direct marketing, store operations, and operations (such as track and analyze performance in the warehouse and call centers).
The new messaging is working. The company has recently begun pilots with two well-known New England firms in retail and consumer goods, respectively.
Buy Google AdWords or new name?
If I could offer one bit of unsolicited advice to the Oco executive team, it would be to do something about the name. Google “Oco Software” and the first mention is “OCO Software, a division of OCO Consulting, specializes in the design and development of software for investment promotion and trade development.” Wrong company!
If you type in “Oco,” you’ll find the right company right after the Occupational Outlook Handbook and just in front of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory. You have to know to go to www.oco-inc.com. The need for a hyphen is not intuitive.
The solution is to buy up the Google AdWords for Oco, Oco software, Oco BI, Oco Retail, etc., or change the company name. It’s probably cheaper to buy the AdWords.
DemandTec goes public
Over the last month or so, I’ve written about the IPO plans of NetSuite and SuccessFactors, and specifically cited the rapid growth rates of the two software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers in the “Clear the Track, Tech is Back” piece. When Deltek filed in May, I also wrote about that, too. So, it was understandable when one of our researchers got an angry e-mail from DemandTec asking why they weren’t included in my coverage or analysis.
On Friday April 20, I had lunch with Dan Fishback, DemandTec’s president and CEO. While we spent most of the time talking about the SaaS offerings his company has built for its 105 consumer goods customers and 29 retail anchor tenants, he also told me about his intention to go public this year.
On May 24, DemandTec announced it had filed to go public. Shares of “DMAN” began trading August 9. The stock opened at $10.05 and closed at $9.34. The timing was somewhat unfortunate given that the Dow dropped more than 387 points that day spooking a lot of global exchanges. As The Wall Street Journal noted (August 10), this was “the second-heaviest one-day plunge since 2003.”
Monday, August 06, 2007
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Microsoft Acquires Stratature to Kick-Start MDM Strategy
Microsoft Acquires Stratature to Kick-Start MDM Strategy
This acquisition complements Microsoft's business intelligence and performance management strategy. But it faces challenges in leveraging Stratature for operational master data management.
This acquisition complements Microsoft's business intelligence and performance management strategy. But it faces challenges in leveraging Stratature for operational master data management.
Monday, June 11, 2007
FT.com / Home UK / UK - Financial Management
FT.com / Home UK / UK - Financial Management
Financial Management
By Rod Newing
Published: June 11 2007 17:41 | Last updated: June 11 2007 17:41
The finance function is no longer full of “bean counters” keeping the score by producing historical accounts three weeks after the end of each month. The department now works in partnership with the business to set strategy and objectives and then help to make sure they are met.
“The world of the chief financial officer (CFO) in leading organisations has changed dramatically,” says Steven Culp, European lead for the finance consulting practice at Accenture, the professional services firm. “They have changed from being a back-office keeper and provider of numbers and analyst, to having their feet under the table with the chief executive and chief marketing offers to actually take business decisions.”
Accurate recording of transactions is still essential and is part of the accounting system, which for most companies is a module of the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. These use industry best practice templates to bring efficiency to the back office financial processes. Full integration with other modules supports competitive advantage by enabling innovative cross-enterprise business processes.
Paul White, however, director of the Dynamics product group at Microsoft, points out that most accounting systems were implemented between five and seven years ago. And while the business has moved on, but the system has stood still.
“Companies do all sorts of weird work-arounds to fill the gap,” he says. “They use spreadsheets, databases and small applications to record transactions entering and exiting a new business process. Over time, these represent a significant drag on the business because they cost time and money to use, maintain and support. It is an invisible cost, because they are not formal adopted business systems and it is all done by users ‘under the radar.’”
The accounting software may have been upgraded to a much more powerful and flexible version. If so, the processes must also be changed to take account of new functionality and to replace these add-ons.
Accounting systems have never been good at reporting past financial performance, let alone monitoring the leading operational indicators that drive profit. This task has traditionally been addressed by a succession of software approaches, such as decision support systems, spreadsheets, executive information systems, online analytical processing (OLAP), business intelligence and now performance management. This latter software covers a range of financial management processes, including reporting, querying, modelling, planning, budgeting, forecasting and financial consolidation.
But a recent survey by Parson Consulting and the Conference Board, a research organisation, shows that only about 50 per cent of companies consider their performance management processes to be successful or very successful. Almost 80 per cent are not able to overcome problems before they impact the business.
Part of the problem has been that organisations have become too dependent on spreadsheets. “It is ludicrous that large organisations run key financial processes based on spreadsheets,” says Ian Charlesworth, principle analyst at Ovum, the consultancy. “They are insecure and lack data quality and data integrity disciplines.”
Although many performance management systems have their own interface, most of them will allow users to access the database dynamically from within a spreadsheet. “The humble spreadsheet has been a valuable tool and we are not going to get people in finance departments to move,” says Mr Charlesworth. “They are too cosy and understand them too well. Spreadsheet proliferation needs some control behind it and performance management system users can still work in their favourite spreadsheet environment, but the organisation can apply more discipline, structure and security.”
Organisations will inevitably be faced with more financial compliance demands, but accounting and performance management software vendors work hard to ensure that their systems help their customers to comply with a wide range of legislation and regulations. Dennis Keeling, chief executive of the Business Application Software Developer’s Association, advises organisations not to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to understand how legislation will affect their systems. It is far easier to update them, which will automatically implement all the legislative and regulation changes. The cost of upgrading is usually covered by the annual maintenance agreement.
“Remaining on the same version or system may become increasingly less sensible or possible,” he says. “Modern financial management software is flexible, adaptable and easy to upgrade. Future changes will be accommodated in business software, so this will future proof the systems. Just as most organisations update their payroll systems each year, they will do the same with their financial systems.”
Performance management software is a major part of the business intelligence software industry, which uses the same technology to support marketing processes, such as campaign management and data mining. This industry has been consolidating over the last few years, led by pure-play “super-vendors” Business Objects, Cognos and Hyperion and application vendors like Infor, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP. The recent agreement for Oracle to purchase Hyperion must now cast doubt on the future of the business intelligence industry.
“The domino effect now has an unstoppable momentum,” says Mr Charlesworth at Ovum. “What has been a very strange market will rightfully be integrated within applications and systems. The functionality does not exist in its own right, but as part of a management or business process. Business intelligence and performance management will become an invisible component of application suites.”
Even these large application suites face new challenges, as more efficient ways of managing them emerge. Many organisations are already outsourcing them. All the main vendors are in the process of adapting their software to be delivered and rented over the internet, and NetSuite was designed from the outset to deliver its functionality this way.
CFOs are now working with operations to ensure that business processes are efficient and bring competitive advantage. Most of all, they are helping to set the right financial objectives and then ensuring that operational performance is optimised to deliver the required financial performance. They are also ensuring that better decisions are made, costs are minimised and that a company complies with a wide range of regulations.
“Financial systems are bringing greater levels of control, automation and auditability to financial processes,” says Mr Charlesworth. “This brings the same discipline and rigour that you would expect from any other process in the organisation.”
Accenture’s Mr Culp sums up the supporting role of the software. “Although each vendor has strengths and weaknesses,” he says, “the business processes and the decisions you make around them are more important.”
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Financial Management
By Rod Newing
Published: June 11 2007 17:41 | Last updated: June 11 2007 17:41
The finance function is no longer full of “bean counters” keeping the score by producing historical accounts three weeks after the end of each month. The department now works in partnership with the business to set strategy and objectives and then help to make sure they are met.
“The world of the chief financial officer (CFO) in leading organisations has changed dramatically,” says Steven Culp, European lead for the finance consulting practice at Accenture, the professional services firm. “They have changed from being a back-office keeper and provider of numbers and analyst, to having their feet under the table with the chief executive and chief marketing offers to actually take business decisions.”
Accurate recording of transactions is still essential and is part of the accounting system, which for most companies is a module of the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. These use industry best practice templates to bring efficiency to the back office financial processes. Full integration with other modules supports competitive advantage by enabling innovative cross-enterprise business processes.
Paul White, however, director of the Dynamics product group at Microsoft, points out that most accounting systems were implemented between five and seven years ago. And while the business has moved on, but the system has stood still.
“Companies do all sorts of weird work-arounds to fill the gap,” he says. “They use spreadsheets, databases and small applications to record transactions entering and exiting a new business process. Over time, these represent a significant drag on the business because they cost time and money to use, maintain and support. It is an invisible cost, because they are not formal adopted business systems and it is all done by users ‘under the radar.’”
The accounting software may have been upgraded to a much more powerful and flexible version. If so, the processes must also be changed to take account of new functionality and to replace these add-ons.
Accounting systems have never been good at reporting past financial performance, let alone monitoring the leading operational indicators that drive profit. This task has traditionally been addressed by a succession of software approaches, such as decision support systems, spreadsheets, executive information systems, online analytical processing (OLAP), business intelligence and now performance management. This latter software covers a range of financial management processes, including reporting, querying, modelling, planning, budgeting, forecasting and financial consolidation.
But a recent survey by Parson Consulting and the Conference Board, a research organisation, shows that only about 50 per cent of companies consider their performance management processes to be successful or very successful. Almost 80 per cent are not able to overcome problems before they impact the business.
Part of the problem has been that organisations have become too dependent on spreadsheets. “It is ludicrous that large organisations run key financial processes based on spreadsheets,” says Ian Charlesworth, principle analyst at Ovum, the consultancy. “They are insecure and lack data quality and data integrity disciplines.”
Although many performance management systems have their own interface, most of them will allow users to access the database dynamically from within a spreadsheet. “The humble spreadsheet has been a valuable tool and we are not going to get people in finance departments to move,” says Mr Charlesworth. “They are too cosy and understand them too well. Spreadsheet proliferation needs some control behind it and performance management system users can still work in their favourite spreadsheet environment, but the organisation can apply more discipline, structure and security.”
Organisations will inevitably be faced with more financial compliance demands, but accounting and performance management software vendors work hard to ensure that their systems help their customers to comply with a wide range of legislation and regulations. Dennis Keeling, chief executive of the Business Application Software Developer’s Association, advises organisations not to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to understand how legislation will affect their systems. It is far easier to update them, which will automatically implement all the legislative and regulation changes. The cost of upgrading is usually covered by the annual maintenance agreement.
“Remaining on the same version or system may become increasingly less sensible or possible,” he says. “Modern financial management software is flexible, adaptable and easy to upgrade. Future changes will be accommodated in business software, so this will future proof the systems. Just as most organisations update their payroll systems each year, they will do the same with their financial systems.”
Performance management software is a major part of the business intelligence software industry, which uses the same technology to support marketing processes, such as campaign management and data mining. This industry has been consolidating over the last few years, led by pure-play “super-vendors” Business Objects, Cognos and Hyperion and application vendors like Infor, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP. The recent agreement for Oracle to purchase Hyperion must now cast doubt on the future of the business intelligence industry.
“The domino effect now has an unstoppable momentum,” says Mr Charlesworth at Ovum. “What has been a very strange market will rightfully be integrated within applications and systems. The functionality does not exist in its own right, but as part of a management or business process. Business intelligence and performance management will become an invisible component of application suites.”
Even these large application suites face new challenges, as more efficient ways of managing them emerge. Many organisations are already outsourcing them. All the main vendors are in the process of adapting their software to be delivered and rented over the internet, and NetSuite was designed from the outset to deliver its functionality this way.
CFOs are now working with operations to ensure that business processes are efficient and bring competitive advantage. Most of all, they are helping to set the right financial objectives and then ensuring that operational performance is optimised to deliver the required financial performance. They are also ensuring that better decisions are made, costs are minimised and that a company complies with a wide range of regulations.
“Financial systems are bringing greater levels of control, automation and auditability to financial processes,” says Mr Charlesworth. “This brings the same discipline and rigour that you would expect from any other process in the organisation.”
Accenture’s Mr Culp sums up the supporting role of the software. “Although each vendor has strengths and weaknesses,” he says, “the business processes and the decisions you make around them are more important.”
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Friday, June 08, 2007
Business Objects Embraces Text Analytics as Core Part of Its BI Universe | AMR Research
Business Objects Embraces Text Analytics as Core Part of Its BI Universe | AMR Research
Virtually all information can be categorized in a two-by-two matrix: internal versus external and structured versus unstructured. In BI, it has become abundantly clear that virtually all the BI action (and almost all the money) is in only one of the quadrants: internal structured data. But Business Objects, a leading business intelligence/performance management (BI/PM) vendor, has made a strategic bet that the walls of these quadrants will come down sooner rather than later by acquiring text analytics vendor Inxight Software, a company that originally spun out from Xerox PARC in 1997. With more than 400 customers and a healthy OEM business, Inxight is well established in this emerging market.
The intriguing things about this acquisition come from some of the capabilities of the Inxight platform that don’t get as much play: unstructured information access, federated search, and some data visualization. Couple these with Business Objects’ existing data integration business and you get a richer information integration suite that can extract and transform a wide array of data types. There is definite demand for Inxight’s broad set of abilities, but not a lot of expertise available (see “Search Redefined (Again): Looking for Business Intelligence”).
The discipline BI/PM vendors bring to the information access and analysis space should accelerate text analytics’ use across a broader range of businesses. In our opinion, Business Objects has taken a definitive step to expand what BI means. Owning this asset gives them a lot more latitude in how they shape the convergence issue going forward.
How will others respond and is more convergence on the way? What’s the future of text analytics in the greater BI/PM world? For answers, see “Business Objects Embraces Text Analytics as Core Part of its BI Universe.”
Virtually all information can be categorized in a two-by-two matrix: internal versus external and structured versus unstructured. In BI, it has become abundantly clear that virtually all the BI action (and almost all the money) is in only one of the quadrants: internal structured data. But Business Objects, a leading business intelligence/performance management (BI/PM) vendor, has made a strategic bet that the walls of these quadrants will come down sooner rather than later by acquiring text analytics vendor Inxight Software, a company that originally spun out from Xerox PARC in 1997. With more than 400 customers and a healthy OEM business, Inxight is well established in this emerging market.
The intriguing things about this acquisition come from some of the capabilities of the Inxight platform that don’t get as much play: unstructured information access, federated search, and some data visualization. Couple these with Business Objects’ existing data integration business and you get a richer information integration suite that can extract and transform a wide array of data types. There is definite demand for Inxight’s broad set of abilities, but not a lot of expertise available (see “Search Redefined (Again): Looking for Business Intelligence”).
The discipline BI/PM vendors bring to the information access and analysis space should accelerate text analytics’ use across a broader range of businesses. In our opinion, Business Objects has taken a definitive step to expand what BI means. Owning this asset gives them a lot more latitude in how they shape the convergence issue going forward.
How will others respond and is more convergence on the way? What’s the future of text analytics in the greater BI/PM world? For answers, see “Business Objects Embraces Text Analytics as Core Part of its BI Universe.”
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Microsoft Makes a Long-Anticipated Move Into MDM | AMR Research
Microsoft Makes a Long-Anticipated Move Into MDM | AMR Research
Microsoft’s Office Business Platform Group led the acquisition, and initial plans call for integration within Microsoft’s BI and PM product areas—Stratature’s definite sweet spot. The company is not yet ready to disclose when the new acquisition will be rebranded as part of the Microsoft architecture. Dimensional MDM is the province of a few market participants. Hyperion acquired Razza two years ago for dimension management within its environment, and Kalido offers a product as part of its data management suite. For more on the acquisition, see “Microsoft Makes a Long-Anticipated Move Into MDM.”
Microsoft’s Office Business Platform Group led the acquisition, and initial plans call for integration within Microsoft’s BI and PM product areas—Stratature’s definite sweet spot. The company is not yet ready to disclose when the new acquisition will be rebranded as part of the Microsoft architecture. Dimensional MDM is the province of a few market participants. Hyperion acquired Razza two years ago for dimension management within its environment, and Kalido offers a product as part of its data management suite. For more on the acquisition, see “Microsoft Makes a Long-Anticipated Move Into MDM.”
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Factors Inhibiting the Widespread Adoption of Business Performance Management
Factors Inhibiting the Widespread Adoption of Business Performance Management
Although business performance management (BPM) offers outstanding benefits, such as helping organizations align their performances to their business processes and their overall organizational strategies, widespread adoption has been slow at best. BPM vendors need to ask themselves why this has been the case, and what they can do to increase their market penetration. A step in the right direction would be to identify BPM’s competitors within the overall business intelligence (BI) market, analyze the market penetration that BI solutions have sustained, and determine how BPM can reposition itself to increase its competitive edge.
Although business performance management (BPM) offers outstanding benefits, such as helping organizations align their performances to their business processes and their overall organizational strategies, widespread adoption has been slow at best. BPM vendors need to ask themselves why this has been the case, and what they can do to increase their market penetration. A step in the right direction would be to identify BPM’s competitors within the overall business intelligence (BI) market, analyze the market penetration that BI solutions have sustained, and determine how BPM can reposition itself to increase its competitive edge.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Monday, March 05, 2007
Hyperion Buy Will Add to Oracle BI and CPM Portfolio
Hyperion Buy Will Add to Oracle BI and CPM Portfolio
Oracle's pact to buy Hyperion, a vendor of business intelligence and corporate performance management software, won't lead to major short-term product changes. But customers should ask for a road map once the deal closes.
Oracle's pact to buy Hyperion, a vendor of business intelligence and corporate performance management software, won't lead to major short-term product changes. But customers should ask for a road map once the deal closes.
Hyperion Buy Will Add to Oracle BI and CPM Portfolio
Hyperion Buy Will Add to Oracle BI and CPM Portfolio
Oracle's pact to buy Hyperion, a vendor of business intelligence and corporate performance management software, won't lead to major short-term product changes. But customers should ask for a road map once the deal closes.
Oracle's pact to buy Hyperion, a vendor of business intelligence and corporate performance management software, won't lead to major short-term product changes. But customers should ask for a road map once the deal closes.
Friday, March 02, 2007
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Monday, January 29, 2007
Oracle Positioned in Leader's Quadrant in Latest Business Intelligence Platform Magic Quadrant
Oracle Positioned in Leader's Quadrant in Latest Business Intelligence Platform Magic Quadrant
Oracle Positioned in Leader's Quadrant in Latest Business Intelligence Platform Magic Quadrant
REDWOOD SHORES, Calif. 29-JAN-2007 11:00 AM Oracle today announced that it has been positioned in the Leaders Quadrant of Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platform report(1). Gartner defines leaders as performing well today, having a clear vision of market direction and actively building competencies to sustain their leadership position in the market.
Oracle Positioned in Leader's Quadrant in Latest Business Intelligence Platform Magic Quadrant
REDWOOD SHORES, Calif. 29-JAN-2007 11:00 AM Oracle today announced that it has been positioned in the Leaders Quadrant of Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platform report(1). Gartner defines leaders as performing well today, having a clear vision of market direction and actively building competencies to sustain their leadership position in the market.
Friday, January 26, 2007
Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms, 1Q07
Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms, 1Q07
The business intelligence platform market is dominated by traditional pure-play BI vendors, but several large application and software infrastructure vendors became much stronger BI competitors in 2006.
The business intelligence platform market is dominated by traditional pure-play BI vendors, but several large application and software infrastructure vendors became much stronger BI competitors in 2006.
Friday, January 19, 2007
Friday, January 12, 2007
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