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Operational BI Benefits
Businesses that have deployed operational BI are seeing benefits.
Ryobi Technologies, a Hong Kong-based maker of power tools and outdoor power equipment with manufacturing facilities in China and engineers in China and United States, wanted to produce better products by improving collaboration between manufacturing and engineering.
The company faced challenges identifying market trends and communicating quality issues among its overseas entities in a timely manner. When a Ryobi product was returned, technicians in the U.S. would take apart the tool and determine if there was a problem. They entered information into a database manually-which raised concerns about data integrity-and mailed the information to manufacturing in China. The process was slow and inefficient, says Tom Adams, data quality engineer.
Ryobi wanted a more effective way to track and report on returned products and warranty expenditures to drive product improvement. "We needed a tool that would allow us all to see the same information at the same time as we discussed it in conference calls," Adams says. "We also wanted to be sure all reports were in the same format."
The company deployed Cognos 8 BI software, selecting the product largely because it could be easily integrated with multiple data sources such as mySAP and an SAP database, which housed much of the information on the company's products.
Using the Cognos technology, Ryobi raised the accuracy of product data, reduced the time it takes to generate reports, and improved the quality of its products by standardizing its reporting. The software enhanced visibility and collaboration across its engineering and quality departments, Adam says. Since implementing BI, the company has seen a significant reduction in customer returns.
Another company, Graniterock Co., a construction materials provider with 17 locations throughout Northern California, was one of the earlier adopters of operational BI, using the technology to ensure accurate and timely reporting of operational data to internal business users.
The Watsonville, Calif., company in 1998 deployed a reporting product called Crystal Reports from Business Objects, to deliver data from its enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications to key managers at the organization. "The operational reports in many cases are used to measure achievement of corporate initiatives and strategies," says Steve Snodgrass, CIO at Graniterock.
The software provides information on various aspects of Graniterock's business, such as employee safety, vehicle compliance, finance, maintenance and customer service, Snodgrass says. Business users of the Business Objects software include managers in finance, sales and other departments.
Among the major benefits of the BI software is that it can integrate data from different applications used by the various departments. The key business benefits include improved access to information in the field, improved safety report delivery times, and enhanced customer relations through more in-depth invoice summaries.
Stodder says any organizations looking to launch a BI initiative should make sure they understand user requirements.
"This seems like an obvious piece of advice, but we found that for operational BI, a major source of dissatisfaction with deployments was not getting the user requirements for reporting and data access [such as information presented in a desired format and within the desired timeframe] right the first time," he says. "The days of 'build it, and they will come' for BI and data warehousing are probably about over."
Organizations and their BI vendors should look at what needs to be done to speed up deployment and avoid delays, Stodder says. "It could be concern about whether they can support so many users and more frequent data updates," he says. "If so, those issues need to be addressed."
Business executive sponsors for BI are important. "We found that IT remains the most prominent sponsor of operational BI deployments," Stodder says. "It absolutely makes sense to have IT closely involved in implementations and establishing access to data sources. But it is also vital that IT work closely with appropriate business executives. This way, business objectives will be at the forefront when BI is implemented. Business executives can make sure that user requirements are well understood, and both sides can jointly manage expectations and plan for future upgrades."
Such technology and business alignment will be all the more important as organizations make operational BI a key part of their IT strategy.
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