• What are my customer’s buying is a basic question, but moreover, what products do they buy together?
• Which products do they buy when times are tough?
• What did they buy during the last recovery?
• What aren’t they buying, and what should I recommend they buy?

All great questions, and clearly a value add of a strong BI platform.

eWeek – Using-Business-Intelligence-to-Find-Your-Economic-Recovery

Our first speaker of the day was Dr. David Holcomb. David really set the tone well with his presentation on Simplicity and Transparency. Do you think of data as an asset? If so, treat it like the rest of your assets:

1. Acquire it
2. Prepare it
3. Deploy it
4. Manage it

So many times, we skip (or underfund) the “manage” step or at worse, skip all 4 steps and keep the data hidden from the organization. 

David’s presentation can be found below.  Enjoy!

– Jodie

Economy challenges always seem to prompt new business models and productivity increases.  Remember 10 years ago and the dot.com bomb??  Prior to 1999, websites were being developed in great numbers but there was no revenue model to support it.  Those companies failed…others, that found a way to take a seemingly free service and get paid for it thrived.  Additionally, with the fall off in the economy, people had to find a way to deliver the same services their customers were used to but do it for less.  Voila!  Off-shore resources!!

In the last several years though, even off-shore resources are expensive.  Seasoned IT professionals (baby boomers) are retiring and taking valuable company info along with them.  Profit margins for most companies continue to erode as spending has slowed.  DASD has gotten significantly less expensive and bandwidth has quadrupled (or more?)!  Those “free” websites now charge fees, but they aren’t outrageous.  Given these changes, it makes sense that more and more applications are moving into the Cloud.

As you know, here at LUCRUM, “we do BI”.  Respoinding to our customers, we implemented Agile BI concepts long before it was fashionable.  We are able to get BI projects up and running in significantly less time than our “big 6″ competitors (and do it for less!).  As we continue to investigate ways to get data to our customers faster, we have become fascinated with the Cloud.  Certainly there has to be a way to take all of these company assets, secure them in the Cloud and give users better/faster access to their data.

We’ve investigated a few companies that are doing this today:  Good Data, OCO, BIRST, and PivotLink.  What’s interesting about each of these companies is that they’ve taken the common business problems –   Sales and Finance – and created models to support them.  I was fortunate to participate in a meeting with Good Data last week.  I’m excited to learn more about each of these companies and even more excited to see how LUCRUM can support BI in the Cloud!

Stay tuned!

 - Jodie

Join us on Thursday, May 6, 2010 at the NKU METS Center for a half-day symposium of collaborative learning, focused on business intelligence.  The Business Intelligence Symposium brings together regional business & IT executives to learn how their peers have been implementing data analytics, business intelligence solutions and Dashboarding.  The emphasis of the symposium is to share ideas, stories, experiences, and business cards. Case studies, along with live demonstrations will be presented. Breakfast and lunch will be provided in a collaborative environment that facilitates peer networking and BI discussions for an enhanced learning experience.

View the agenda below and register today for $49 at the following link: http://tinyurl.com/yef3khh

Agenda:
7:30am – 8:00am         Registration and Breakfast

8:00am – 9:00am        David Holcomb, PhD – Director, Data Management, Western Union Simplicity and Transparency – How to do Effective Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence (Presentation)

9:00am -9:45am          Mr. Steve Hangen – CIO, WinWholesale BI Roadmap – A Project, a Journey, a Culture (Presentation and Demo)

9:45am -10:00am        Coffee Break & Conversations

10:00am – 10:45am    Mr. John R. Ward – Director, Health Systems Integration, TriHealth The New Era of Healthcare Clinical Information Systems Unstructured Data – Internal/External

10:45am –11:30am      Mr. Jeff Shaffer – Vice President of Legal Operations, Unifund Visualization – Running a business with Dashboards and Scorecards (Presentation and live Demo)

11:30am – 1:00pm       Lunch /Panel Discussion led by Dr. David Holcomb and guest speakers

What I found most interesting was that while they gave credibility to the strength of one’s intuition, they cautioned not to be seduced by overconfidence.  They noted that most executives are promoted because of the confidence that they project which makes them more likely to be leaders in the first place.  This confidence can cause others to trust the intuition of an exec because the exec believes they they themself are right.  Hmmm…interesting point.

I think in my next BI engagement I’ll be adding a new dimension to the cube:  Exec Intuition.  We can plot that as a 1 (yes) or a 2 (no) and then analyze how often their intution is correct. 

 – Jodie

The first and probably most important non-technical differentiated aspect of iStream is the concept of Alignment.  Many consulting organizations and internal IT organizations have some type of design or planning step often called “Envisioning” as an initial step in their development process.  This is for good reason:  understanding the customer’s end goal or picture of success is critical to the success of the project.  At the same time, this does not procedurally support the fact that many individuals are involved in determining the success of a project, and further, in most cases these individuals are not in detailed agreement in regards to what that success looks like, or how it is defined.  Alignment takes this into account, and is a prescribed process to ensure a common understanding of the success criteria by the key stakeholders involved in any enterprise project, including department heads and/or the Information Technology department.  This includes a focus on ensuring that a miscommunication cannot occur where language is not specific enough, for example in clarifying the accepted definition of the term “Sales” in a company.  To explore this a bit, is “Sales” the number of transactions? The dollar volume closed?  Over what timeframe? By what channel? (sales people, resellers, distributors, telesales, etc.) As simple as this concept may sound – misunderstandings or assumptions in areas as simple as this are generally a key reason for project failure.  In this area, LÛCRUM is unique and differentiated in its development approach.

Another key differentiation of LÛCRUM’s approach, particularly as it relates to Business Intelligence, is in the concept of the iteration of a project.  The iStream methodology allows for iteration in the development of the end result, particularly through the recognition that many pieces may make up the whole.  For example, related to Business Intelligence; we may begin by working with an individual decision maker, say the VP of Marketing.  In working with this person we may offer to them the YourView Instant Analytics solution, allowing them to rapidly see their information in a new way through the combination of several different reports or sources into a single view.  Per the YourView solution, this can take place in a matter of days; however by definition it follows the iStream process – however abbreviated – as it is focused on only a single user.  When that VP is prepared to create a complete solution for the Marketing department, the initial work now functions as a pilot/proof of concept rolling into the Alignment, Discover and Architect components of iStream for the larger YourView 360 (Data Mart) project.  In this fashion, we are “iterating” our development of the data mart through one or more “Instant Analytics” projects.  Both projects follow iStream; however the smaller engagements feed into the larger.  When that organization is prepared to roll out an Enterprise Data Warehouse – the same holds true, the work that had been completed at the Data Mart level for the Marketing department will now be employed in the Alignment, Discover and Architect phases of the Enterprise Data Warehouse project.  In this fashion the work that we accomplish at any level of the Business Intelligence Solution chain is applicable for the next, and all would be accomplished using iStream.

While the items above are not descriptive of the entirety of iStream, nor of the entire list of benefits of the LÛCRUM approach, they are absolutely two of the components of iStream which differentiate it from the plethora of SDLC approaches available in the market, and another aspect of what makes LÛCRUM a unique Business Intelligence Consultancy.

You might be thinking to yourself, “Yes, but it’s too difficult to get access to each system and pull the data together.” Or “Oh, I have to get our corporate IT department involved and I don’t have time to wrestle with the “process.”

You need to make critical business decisions fast and need an easier way?

YourView – The Vision
LUCRUM has a deep history working with data.  We had a vision to create a product that helps bring data together through an easy and intuitive application. As we started looking at the problem from a different angle, we found that the solution is less about data and more about combining data to help answer “top-of-mind” business questions. Imagine viewing on one report your forecasted sales data and customer purchase history. You can start answering question like: 

• What is my expected versus realized revenue gap?
• Are my sales reps properly aligned?
• In what industries are my biggest customers?
• What else could I be selling them?
• What are my realized margins per sales person?

 The answers to your questions maybe sitting right on your own computer. It could be in a report or in the various Excel spreadsheets you use everyday. If you can access the data, then YourView can help you gain a better understanding.

Solution
YourView allows data to be combined from multiple data sources using a very simple application like Microsoft Excel. Most line of business applications allow data to be sourced to Excel through a reporting or export feature. In addition, YourView allows you to source data directly from cloud services (salesforce.com). Once the data is inside YourView, each different source can be combined together into a single view utilizing a common business entity such as customer name. Combining the data is performed through YourView’s simple Business Entity Mapper feature. The data is then loaded into a relational data mart, which can be used to seek answer to the “top-of-mind” questions about your business.

 Specifications
YourView is a Microsoft Windows desktop application, which allows multiple data sources to be loaded, categorized and mapped, and then loaded into a Microsoft SQL Server database. Data is modeled using the Business Entity Mapper, which defines the business categories and measures. YourView will create a physical database and will load the data into the database. YourView utilizes LUCRUM’s dynamic data loader toolkit (DDLT) as the ELT (Extraction, Loading, and Transformation) engine.

 Features:

• Load data from Microsoft Excel 2003
• Connect directly to salesforce.com and pull data into YourView (requires an authorized SFDC account with API access)
• Edit the imported data directly inside YourView
• Classify data as business dimensions (categories) and facts (measures)
• Converts data into SQL Server Types: varchar, nvarchar, decimal, integer, and bit
• Performs data validation to help find and determine data integrity problems
• Creates a physical database and loads the data based on the model generated from the Business Entity Mapper

 Requirements:

• Microsoft Windows XP SP3/Vista/Windows 7
• Microsoft.NET 3.5 SP1
• Microsoft SQL Server 2005/2008 Standard Edition or Express Edition
• 1 GHz Processor or Higher
• 400 MB RAM
• 10MB of Hard Disk Space for product installation – additional disk space is required for the YourView deployed data mart

OLAP and Performance Feedback

Improvements to organizational effectiveness can also be realized by utilizing OLAP tools to provide performance feedback to individual employees.  Improved performance feedback will help employees achieve group and individual performance objectives.  Increased attainment of these individual and group performance objectives will, with proper alignment of these objectives and organizational objectives, improve organizational effectiveness.

There are several advantages to providing performance feedback with an OLAP tool.  If the situation is right, feedback can be provided:

• At an individual level
• On a larger sample of employee activity
• Quickly
• In a meaningful manner.

Common Problems with Performance Feedback

Organizations often make attempts to improve the provision of feedback to employees.  Newsletters with departmental performance numbers, posters in gathering places displaying performance charts, and managerial reports with quantitative measures of performance are all attempts to improve the distribution of feedback to employees throughout the organization.  One problem with such efforts is that they are usually not provided at an individual level.  Feedback on departmental, team, or group performance is certainly helpful but depending on the size of the group, its effect will be limited.  Individual performance feedback has its own problem in that it is often time prohibitive to provide extensive individual performance feedback.  The result is often weekly or monthly group performance feedback with individual feedback coming only during annual or quarterly reviews.

Individual performance reviews often suffer from another problem: small sample sizes for review.  If an insurance company is reviewing the performance of claims adjusters using manually prepared data, it may be impossible to review more than a small sample of the adjuster’s work over what is typically a long review period.  Small samples may, of course, result in a flawed appraisal of an employee’s overall performance.

The elapsed time between events reviewed and performance appraisals is also a problem with traditional feedback provision.  Consider the timing of typical reviews: an employee makes a mistake in handling a situation in January, the incident turns up in a sample taken in May, and a review is finally conducted in June.  If a review had been conducted immediately following the incident, the chance of the employee repeating the mistake will obviously be lower.

Traditional feedback provision often suffers from poor presentation of the message.  An interview conducted by a busy manager attempting to perform a number of appraisals in addition to other work may not be optimally effective.

Performance Feedback Improvements with OLAP

Utilizing an OLAP tool may remedy some of the traditional problems with employee feedback.  Imagine again the situation of an insurance company reviewing the performance of claims adjusters.  As a solution to the problems listed above, an OLAP cube could be developed and made available to adjusters on a daily basis.  Adjusters could be presented with individual performance feedback delivered via the web.  They could see at a glance how their activity the previous day compared to group averages and organizational objectives.  Exceptions could be noted immediately by the individual employee, rather than organizational objectives.  Exceptions could be noted immediately by the individual employee, rather than a manager, and quickly corrected.  Feedback could be provided on all activity from the previous day or week rather than on a small, dated sample.  Finally, feedback could be presented in easy to understand charts which, in addition, roll-up to display departmental and organizational performance as well.

Improved performance feedback gives employees the ability to monitor their own performance and to take corrective action quickly.  By improving the ability of individual employees to meet their performance objectives, the ability of the organization to meet its objectives and fulfill its mission is improved as well.

Conclusion

OLAP technology can improve organizational effectiveness by:

• Improving management’s knowledge of progress on objectives
• Improving employee coordination on efforts to achieve these objectives
• Communicating the link between employee effort and performance
• Communicating the link between employee performance and reward
• Improving employee performance feedback.

Although OLAP tools can provide assistance in these areas, their impact is obviously limited by factors specific to each organization.  An OLAP tool cannot compensate for poor development of objectives, poor performance reward systems, or any of the other organizational factors discussed.  Utilizing an OLAP tool as I’ve described in this series with no attention given to the underlying systems it is trying to address will, at best, have no effect.

In an organization that has clearly defined its objectives and has implemented well-designed reward systems, utilizing an OLAP tool as we’ve discussed can offer a tremendous payoff.  The ability to provide employees with improved performance feedback and to demonstrate the link between individual performance and organizational performance is extremely valuable.  By helping an organization align individual goals with corporate goals, an OLAP tool can help an organization become more effective.

To get at the data that most executives feel they need to make accurate decisions, many turn to the manual modification of existing reports, or the creation of their own “Pet” spreadsheet they use almost daily, or certainly many times a week. 

 In an update to a report cited last spring on this site, a September, 2009 Dartmouth University study suggests that the error rates in formulas on spreadsheets in their study were only .087% of all formulas they audited.  HOWEVER, these were in cases where the formula produced the WRONG RESULT, and actually resulted in 87% OF THE SPREADSHEETS REVIEWED having errors in which the spreadsheet then produced the wrong result. 

How good is good enough?  What if you could reproduce the “Pet” spreadsheet in a true Business Intelligence solution which would ensure that the data and results in the sheet were as solid as the data in your transactional systems in the first place?  How much does the wrong data or the wrong decision cost you, or your company?  I would argue that “good enough” might just be good enough, if you could ensure that the data was accurate, and mitigated the possibility of error, while increasing the timeliness of the information to the decision maker.  We have deployed such systems in a couple weeks’ time leveraging tools like SharePoint, Excel, and other software products that our customers already owned, and quickly delivered a system to our customer where we dramatically increased the accuracy of their information.  These solutions form the basis of our iterative approach to Business Intelligence.