A Vision for ERP-Based Business Intelligence

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WebFOCUS i-vision Gives HR Professionals an Intelligent Way to Quickly Turn HR Data Into Valuable Business Information

Y2K and ERP – the biggest buzzwords of the 90s. But now that the millennium mark has passed, what's happening with ERP? According to Kevin Mergruen, vice president of Information Builders' ERP Solutions Division, ERP customers are now looking to leverage their systems with enterprise-level decision support. "They want to see a return on investment in terms of business intelligence," Mergruen reports.

For Mergruen, true business intelligence gives end users the ability to get quick, accurate answers to crucial job-related questions. And a true business intelligence strategy begins with a solution that provides flexible information access and delivery in the form of pre-defined key performance indicators (KPIs); distribution via e-mail or mobile devices such as PDAs; or report generation on a scheduled or on-demand basis. In other words, comprehensive business intelligence eliminates the need for employees to rely on other sources for critical information.

Intelligent Solutions for ERP Users

According to Mergruen, "ERP customers are looking for Business Intelligence deployment strategies that address enterprise-wide decision support requirements." The complete solution Mergruen envisions will empower ERP customers to embrace all of their corporate data regardless of its source or location, using industry-standard Web reporting and analytical tools.

The growing need for enhanced Business Intelligence among ERP users is the result of the changing positioning of ERP packages. SAP, Mergruen notes, has clearly shifted its direction. Until recently, the decision to adopt an SAP solution was made by IT management and the CIO. However, SAP's new e-business strategy, mySAP.com, clearly focuses on end users – purchasing managers, credit analysis managers, or regional sales managers, for example. By providing relevant content for specific business responsibilities, and delivering information in the form of queries and KPIs, Business Intelligence becomes more suited to the user's needs.

SAP in Business Intelligence Territory

With the introduction of mySAP.com, SAP is venturing into BI territory. Mergruen reports that for organizations to be truly successful in deploying Business Intelligence across their enterprises, they must be able to embrace all data across various ERP and legacy systems, while embracing best of breed tools to address end user information requirements. To make R/3 information accessible to all employees, SAP must also leverage complementary technologies, such as data migration, Web reporting and analytical applications, provided by its certified partners.

Content-Based Business Intelligence for HR Analysis

The first i-vision offering is an analytical application for the SAP Human Resources module. WebFOCUS i-vision for HR Analysis is a completely Web-enabled solution that combines sophisticated reporting capabilities with HR-specific business content, KPIs for a high-level overview of HR operations, and a portfolio of over 75 pre-developed, customizable reports for critical areas such as payroll, personnel administration, personnel time management, organizational structure, and training and event management.

Additionally, i-vision allows users to easily conduct root-cause analysis, to find the underlying problems behind critical situations. Using the i-vision OLAP panel, HR professionals can add detail and granularity to existing reports with sorts, filters, rankings and pivots.

Designed with input from both HR experts and ERP specialists to address the specific needs of HR professionals, i-vision provides the flexibility required for effective and accurate HR reporting, and allows users to rapidly turn HR data into valuable business information.

"Today's organizations view Human Resources as both a strategic partner and a competitive asset," Mergruen adds. "HR departments now play an increasingly important role within overall corporate strategies, resulting in a critical need for efficient and reliable HR analysis. Now, with i-vision, all levels of Human Resources professionals can have an intelligent way to view and monitor their operations, and to assess the effectiveness of their policies and practices."

Future i-vision releases will also support the SAP financial, sales and distribution, materials management, and production planning modules, as well as PeopleSoft applications.

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While other solutions tend to be data-centric, i-vision takes a customer-centric approach. "Most solutions copy data from the transaction system and move it into a data warehouse, where end users can go to retrieve the information they want. But few users understand the available data well enough for this approach to make a significant change in the way they work. Very often this strategy is not readily adopted throughout the organization because it's confusing," Mergruen concludes.

An Open Solution

Information Builders offers an open solution rather than a vendor-specific one. For example, SAP's primary Business Intelligence solution, the Business Information Warehouse (BW), serves up business content from R/3. But SAP and the other ERP vendors don't directly provide the data migration technology needed to incorporate other types of data, including that of other ERP systems, into their intelligence strategies.

But, as Mergruen points out, "Our strategy leverages existing investments in data warehouses or back-end data sources," bringing together all enterprise information seamlessly and cost-effectively at the desktop. "This allows an IT manager to effectively deploy Business Intelligence throughout the enterprise."

Business Content Center of ERP Strategy

The i-vision solution came about by integrating the WebFOCUS ad hoc reporting capabilities with ERP applications, resulting in certified Business Intelligence tools for ERP customers. From there, it advanced to complete content-based analytical applications.

By incorporating business content into its offering, Mergruen says, Information Builders gives its customers a completely new value-add proposition. Analytical applications designed for specific business areas provide complete, out-of-the-box reporting solutions that allow end users to satisfy their own intelligence requirements. To achieve this, i-vision developers speak to subject-area experts - executives, managers, and line of business employees - to understand what type of information is most important to them.

In addition, Information Builders provides a full range of integration services to efficiently implement this solution in the customer's environment, as well as developing and customizing additional reports.

With i-vision, Information Builders combines leading-edge reporting technology with industry-validated business content to put the real BI tools, the real applications, directly in end users' hands – much faster than if they were buying tools without analytical content.

Paul Berk is a freelance writer based in New York City.