The last decade has seen a major expansion in the number of SMEs implementing Enterprize Resource Planning (ERP) systems. These systems have typically enabled the streamlining of operational processes and increased efficiency. They have also generated vast amounts of higher quality operational information, and through increasingly sophisticated report writing tools and the ubiquitous spreadsheet, many SMEs have been able extract and make effective use of this data bounty.
Yet, there is also a growing recognition among companies that these conventional query and reporting tools are relatively limited in their capabilities. Standard reports can still take hours or even days to produce, and a complex report often means waiting in a queue for access to the company's skilled "report writer." Also, with the data parameters having to be specified well in advance of analysis to produce the report, the final output often either fails to provide all the data needed or else the reader is swamped in masses of paper. Finally, pages of data in static tabular form can prove awkward and time consuming to effectively analyse.
The fact is, with business environments becoming increasingly competitive, many managers are now realising they have a need to significantly improve their ability to rapidly unlock their database, and identify, classify, and intelligently analyse the available information. They need Business Intelligence.
Unlocking the ERP database
The concept of Business Intelligence is not new, but it has come a long way in a few years. It is no longer solely the realm of complex data warehousing systems that only a number of experts in large organizations use. A whole host of Business Intelligence solutions now exist that represent an opting-in platform for smaller businesses with limited IT capabilities. At a variety of levels, these software tools overcome all the timing, data swamping and difficult analysis drawbacks with existing report writing capabilities. They offer phenomenal speed and analytical horsepower in comparison.
For instance, Business Intelligence software allow users (not programmers or report writers) to access the financial and operational data residing in their ERP systems and very quickly (within minutes) extract just the elements they want for a particular analysis. Then with a few key strokes, users can undertake interactive analytics, slicing and dicing the data and mining down from top level findings to look at new comparisons, exceptions or problems. As an example, users can start off by looking at overall sales data, and then instantly investigate sales (or margins) per product group, per product, per sales area, per customer. Alternatively, they can assess operational job data, and analyse the variances (standard costs and times against actual) per job, by work centre, by time period, by people, by type of job, etc.
Essentially, Business Intelligence allows users to follow sudden brainwaves and see the analysis results immediately, or even carry out what-if scenarios and all without days of preparation and processing. Moreover, the software enables the user to create multi-dimensional graphical views and chart representations of the analysis. These make it far easier to determine patterns and underlying trends, gauge performance and discover new associations, with the end result that the output is far more effective as a decision support tool.
A potential hurdle
Business Intelligence can deliver huge advantages to a business and in many cases the business logic of adopting this analysis technology is undeniable, even for an SME. Furthermore, there are good analysis and viewing products on the market that require just basic IT skills, with users trained within hours, and for which small numbers of user licenses can be purchased quite inexpensively. But as to be expected there is a potential "but!"
The advantages offered by Business Intelligence may still be beyond smaller SMEs because of implementation issues. With Business Intelligence systems, all the data that is accessed for analysis by the "viewing and manipulating" systems needs to be first brought together within a model, often called a cube. Creating and maintaining robust and meaningful cubes and data warehouses (a collection of cubes) from scratch, often requires considerably more technical expertise, such as database and OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) knowledge), than many SMEs have in-house, and far more work than they can afford to undertake.
However, the evolution of Business Intelligence as a universal concept is also making some major strides in this area. To overcome this difficulty, there are now two alternative implementation methodologies on offer. A number of Business Intelligence and ERP software providers are now offering development tools that can significantly reduce the work and knowledge needed to build the necessary cubes. The problem with this approach is that these tools still assume that the company has a relatively high IT capability or at least some dedicated IT expert resource.
Yet, this is far from always the situation. Experience has shown that many companies have found that the ease of use and reliability of many business systems, such as ERP, and the levels of system support on offer, mean that IT has often become the responsibility of another function, such as Finance, and no full time IT resource exists. As a result, there is simply no one with the time, even if they had the skills, to develop these cubes.
Load and go?
The other solution now available for these and other companies (from ERP software suppliers such as K3) is for them to buy pre-developed cubes. In this respect, developing a mini data warehouse just becomes a matter of choosing the cubes required, off the shelf' (i.e. Finance, Sales, WIP, Inventory, etc), having them configured to work with the chosen viewer and then installed on the database server. Maintaining the cubes is just as easy, through the automatic refreshing of the data at regular intervals.
Essentially, the development of the latter implementation approach means that a realistic low level entry approach to Business Intelligence, and all the dramatic business benefits that it can deliver, now does exist as a simple load and go solution.
In conclusion though, it is important to note a warning. Despite the growing ease with which it is now possible to adopt a Business Intelligence solution, this does not mean that it is an approach that all SMEs should immediately follow. To take full advantage of the analytical power of these tools, companies still need to have effective information flow processes and management practices in place. For those companies that are at present failing to employ the potential of their existing report writing systems, an investment in Business Intelligence could prove a wasted opportunity.
