BUILT-IN BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE - abm-website-assets.s3

15 Pages·2014·0.27 MB·English

BUILT-IN BUSINESS
INTELLIGENCE
A study conducted by IFS North America
JULY 2014
© 2013 IFS
CURRENT STATE OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE
BASED ON A SURVEY OF 174 EXECUTIVES
METHODOLOGY
IFS North America and Advantage Business Media conducted an online study
among executives at manufacturing companies to determine to what extent
middle-market-to-large organizations have adopted a Business Intelligence (BI)
strategy and to understand how they are currently using BI with their ERP
solution.
The 174 survey respondents had some involvement with enterprise software
selection and were from companies with more than $50 million in revenue.
BUILT-IN BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE
© 2013 IFS
BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE INTEREST GROWING
THE BIG DATA LANDSCAPE
The ongoing explosion of Big Data has created a growing interest for companies
to analyze volumes of information from their enterprise and extract business
intelligence (BI) from it to provide a snapshot of how the business is doing at a
certain period in time. This intelligence becomes the basis for developing and
measuring key performance indicators (KPIs) to help the company become more
efficient and competitive moving forward.
Most of the industrial companies that IFS surveyed indicated they either already
have a BI program in place or are in the process of implementing it. Executives
see tremendous value in using BI from an historical perspective as a way to
affect changes in operational processes so that that their company can be more
profitable and competitive moving forward. They are most interested in analytics
for traditional areas, such as sales and operations.
BUILT-IN BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE
© 2013 IFS
BI ANALYSIS IS EXTERNAL TO PROCESSES
WHAT BUSINESSES ARE DOING
The vast majority of companies surveyed indicated they are using either a data
warehouse or their ERP solution to pull data into an external BI tool for analysis.
They are creating their BI analytics from spreadsheets and reports using one
application to process transactions and another disconnected BI application for
additional information. This scenario, however, can be problematic because
accessing the intelligence and getting it to where you need to apply it becomes a
cumbersome process.
Users must log into one (or more) applications to retrieve data, then log into their
BI tool to perform analysis and reporting. Then they must log into another
application for where they want to apply the new-found intelligence to impact a
decision they need to make.
When the information that users need is too disconnected from where they need
to use it, or it is too frustrating to obtain, most won't bother with the process, and
then businesses miss the payback opportunity to use BI to support real-
time, bottom-line decisions.
BUILT-IN BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE
© 2013 IFS
BI USE IS REACTIVE VS. PROACTIVE
WHAT BUSINESS ARE DOING
The results of the survey also found that companies are still predominantly using
their BI reactively to determine what occurred in the past and why. This insight is
certainly valuable for making improvements or adjustments to processes after
the fact, but it isn’t an agile business approach for today’s fast
moving, competitive landscape. It is a rear-view mirror approach to running a
business. Applying BI insight proactively, at the point when decisions are being
made, is when it is most useful and can lead to improved results.
Today, the real benefit of BI, especially for manufacturing businesses that are
increasingly using Engineer-to-Order and Design-Build-Facilitate processes, is
having analytic capabilities readily available and built-in to one enterprise tool.
This way, users can quickly access timely intelligence that is in-context with their
immediate needs so they can make better bottom-line decisions.
BUILT-IN BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE
© 2013 IFS
THE TAKE-AWAY:
Combining historical warehouse data with real-time operational data offers the
ability to gather analytics that are in-context with the decisions you need to
make, at the time you need to make them. When this capability is easily
accessible to users on an as-needed basis, it is much more useful to the bottom
line. IFS suggests that this process is most accessible to the user when the BI
tool is built-in to a single-sign-on ERP application.
The IFS survey found:
Most manufacturers (76 percent) are either not set up for, or are not
using, in-context analytics.
Only a minority (24 percent) of respondents have their BI functionality built-in
to their ERP system.
BUILT-IN BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE
© 2013 IFS
KEY SURVEY FINDINGS
In the IFS study, more than half (64 percent) of respondents stated that they
either already have a BI strategy in place or are currently in the planning or
implementation stage.
More than one-third (36 percent) of the study respondents reported that they
do not have a BI program. The top reasons cited were because it was too
expensive and too complicated.
Those companies that have implemented a BI program (57 percent)
unanimously said that it has significantly improved their business operations.
Very large companies ($2.5B or more) were most likely to have a built-in BI
program already in place.
BUILT-IN BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE
© 2013 IFS
MOST COMPANIES HAVE A BI SOLUTION
Have you already implemented a Business Intelligence
strategy and program?
7.0%
Yes
No
36.0%
57.0%
In progress
BUILT-IN BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE
© 2013 IFS
VERY LARGE CO’S LEAD WITH BUILT-IN BI
35%
33%
30%
25%
$2.5 B or more
$1B - $2.49B
20%
$500M - $999.9M
$250M - $499.9M
15% 14% 14% 14%
$150M - $249.9M
$100M - $149.9M
10% 10%
10%
$50 M - $99.9M
5%
5%
0%
Business Intelligence functionality built into your ERP system
BUILT-IN BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE
© 2013 IFS
KEY SURVEY FINDINGS
Among the survey’s current BI adopters:
• Almost half (42 percent) are using a data warehouse to pull data from their
ERP solution for BI purposes with analytic tools not integrated with their ERP
solution. This suggests that the full value of real-time BI insight may not be
fully achieved.
• More than one-third (34 percent) are using their ERP solution to pull data
into an external BI tool for analysis. This may provide the most up-to-date
information to the BI tool, but not necessarily in-context with the ERP
solution.
• Only one-fourth (24 percent) have their BI functionality built-in to their ERP
solution, providing in-context BI with operational processes.
• Most companies (74 percent) are using Excel and operational reports for
data. This can create problems with data security and synchronization.
BUILT-IN BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE
© 2013 IFS