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Empowering employees through Web Intelligence Reporting

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It wasn’t long ago that developing a report was like implementing a project. In this turbulent marketplace we are experiencing greater pressure for shorter lead times between requiring a report and furnishing it – so it is imperative that solutions should cater for flexible and adaptive reporting solutions. In order to achieve this, organisations have to weigh up the costs and benefits of different Business Intelligence(BI) solutions so that the right solution would keep them one step ahead of their competitors and excel in their performance.

To my alarm, research shows that this economic climate is fuelling organisations to seek out BI solutions so that they can retain their customers rather than seek new ones.  According to the Gartner survey of more than 1500 CIO’s, BI software tops the list of technology spending priorities for companies in 2009. That priority remains, even though IT budgets are expected to be essentially flat in 2009. Market researcher Forrester Research expects the BI market to generate more than $12 billion in revenue in 2014, vs. $8.5 billion in 2008.

BI report-writing application solutions out there are competing like a wild west shoot-out with their different features of performance -  the most obvious in the current marketplace is how quickly you can get a report done or how quickly you can “draw your gun”. This has given the perception that quick reports are the best, and this has caused the business community to be confused about the importance of the underlying purpose of report writing, which is quality BI. In a recent article from Sourcewire, a PR company promoted a product purely based on this “fast” feature. In my opinion, the days of “how quick” are done and dusted like the old west, and now it is a question of how to empower an ordinary business user to produce rich reports without having the technical know-how.

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This paradigm shift is more than just report writing, it’s about passing on the ability to write a customised report from an expert to any user with little or no technical knowledge. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but you can expect the old tricks to be transferred onto new platforms so that the learning is transference of application knowledge rather than acquiring a new skill. This is where SAP BusinessObjects come into play, especially SAP Business Objects Web Intelligence tool – Webi as is commonly known. This tool is like a giant MS Excel pivot table with more bells and whistles than a Xmas tree, and for a Business User it’s another MS Excel with rocket boosters attached to it.

SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence software includes features that:

  • enable powerful online and offline ad hoc queries and reporting
  • integrated and reliable analysis for all users
  • complete, trusted, and agile business intelligence (BI)
  • easy and secure deployment.

This is the perfect solution for empowerment in a workplace. Any manager having the ability to whip up a report in few minutes to analyse a simple task would be an immense benefit. Better reports enable better information, better information enables better management.

On a more traditional stream of thought, BI Solutions has been a capital investment decision for most management, but SAP BusinessObjects solution has a very high value for money proposition due to its suite of tools. The capital outlay is more economical then many well known solutions out there. Its key feature of being able to develop the most complicated reports with drill-down facility allows it to stand out in a crowd.

In order to demonstrate the functionality of how easy it is to access a Webi report and create an ad-hoc Webi report within a few minutes, please see the video below.

Now, standing as an ex-management accountant and taking up the Prudent Concept, I have to say that it’s not the fastest and the most expensive solution which gives the best results. It is rather a well thought-out and user-friendly economical solution which empowers a common user to create a comprehensive report to solve/manage a complicated management issue in the shortest possible time. This provides the best value for money, which in turn would keep the miserly Finance department and ex-accountants like me very happy :) . Business Objects XI is well ahead on all these fronts and still the best gunslinger in the Business Intelligence market.


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