Interview With Information Builders' Jan Brown

by Jodi Keller

Leading organizations around the world use solutions from Information Builders to leverage their investment in SAP R/3, PeopleSoft, Baan, and J.D. Edwards. Information Builders News recently sat down with Jan Brown, vice president of the Integrated Solutions Division, to learn more about the powerful SNAPpack solutions and the value they add to today's most widely-used Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) packages.

IB News – Let's start with a brief history. How did SNAPpacks evolve?

Brown – Several years ago, when many of our customers began to implement Enterprise Resource Planning packages, we recognized an important need within the marketplace. The number of organizations using ERP applications was rapidly increasing, and there was a growing demand for tools that would simplify and enhance implementation and operation. Gerry Cohen assembled our Integrated Solutions Division to design and develop value-added solutions for SAP R/3, PeopleSoft and Baan. A tremendous amount of hard work and dedication, combined with more than 20 years of experience in Enterprise Data Access and reporting technologies, laid the foundation for the creation of SNAPpacks.

IB News – Looks like all that hard work has paid off.

Brown – Since their introduction just a few years ago, SNAPpacks have really taken off. I attribute most of this success to the fact that these solutions fulfill several very critical needs in the ERP arena. Users are looking to access more than just data...they need to access applications. They also want to reduce the time required to migrate data to ERP applications, and decrease the overall complexity of the migration process. SNAPpack Data Migrator was developed to address those issues. Additionally, there was, and still is, a tremendous need for enterprise-level reporting. SNAPpack Reporting Solutions are a powerful suite of tools designed to solve even the most complex reporting requirements.

IB News – Migrating data to and from an ERP package certainly can be a complex and labor-intensive process. How do SNAPpacks meet this challenge?

Brown – Many organizations underestimate the amount of work, time and resources required for the data migration process. In many cases, the unexpected scope of a migration effort can delay crucial "go live" deadlines, and prevent ERP users from realizing the benefits of their specific solution. SNAPpack Data Migrator can help these companies "go live" on time by simplifying the entire process. Users can rapidly migrate data from more than 70 sources into or from their ERP solutions. Time and labor costs are significantly reduced, and valuable programming resources are kept free for other important areas of implementation.

IB News – Many ERP packages include standard reports and query tools. Why the need for additional reporting capabilities?

Brown – The tools provided with most ERP packages are very effective for solving basic reporting requirements and generating simple queries. But today's global market-place is changing rapidly, and many organizations need to conduct high-level, complex analyses to make quality business decisions. Having more than two decades of decision support and business intelligence experience, we understand that you cannot predefine the requests business users will need to make. As business changes, business users' requests for information also change. These people need the flexibility to develop new requests for information on an ongoing basis. SNAPpacks are more than just tools – they offer complete solutions that seamlessly "snap" into a customer's present or planned environment. Unlike many other vendors, we offer a comprehensive package that includes software, installation, consulting, training, and support, to ensure our customers' success with SAP R/3 or BW, PeopleSoft, or Baan. SNAPpacks are endorsed by the industry's leading ERP consulting and integration partners. Today, there are over 100 customers in approximately 16 different countries using SNAPpacks, among them large companies like Volkswagen, Adaptec, Microsoft, Digital Equipment Corporation, Nissan, Hewlett-Packard, and Siemens.

SNAPpack Reporting Solutions are a suite of closely-related reporting tools including SNAPpack Power Reporter for three-tier Windows client/server reporting, SNAPpack Web Reporter for Web-enabled complex reporting, and SNAPpack Open Reporter to extend the reach of over 600 popular front-end query tools. With SNAPpack Reporting Solutions, users can easily access large quantities of data in SAP R/3 or BW, PeopleSoft, Baan, and over 70 other systems, and quickly transform it into complex, custom, and parameterized reports.

IB News – How, specifically, have customers benefited from using these products?

Brown – Let's take a customer who goes live with SAP R/3 – the cost-savings and productivity benefits of Data Migrator are easily measured. California-based Adaptec was already under a typical high-pressure deadline to implement SAP, and then their go-live date was actually moved up. They turned to Data Migrator to help them meet it. Very often we find ourselves involved with high-profile reporting applications where senior-level executives need information to operate their business and they turn to us to fill that need.

IB News – What's the most interesting application you've seen to date?

Brown – One of the most interesting aspects of our business is the diversity of applications. We have seen Data Migrator R/3 conversions completed in just one month. Other conversions required access to many complex legacy systems, with temporary interfaces used for some period of time. For example, our first international Data Migrator customer, ABP, is still using the product to keep their legacy and R/3 systems synchronized – two years after their go-live date! Other customers, like Siemens, have built permanent interfaces to non-R/3 systems. This gives new meaning to the term "value added" for customers who have invested in our technology.

IB News – How about the most difficult application you've had to deal with?

Brown – Siemens was both our most difficult and most rewarding implementation. They were our first U.S. customer, they had both conversion and interface development needs, and, like most of our customers, they were under the gun to meet an aggressive deadline. Siemens is now live with their R/3 implementation, and the interfaces are now a key part of their integrated manufacturing environment.

IB News – What do you feel is the single greatest advantage for customers using our reporting facilities against SAP?

Brown – There are actually a few. Access to all R/3 data – including cluster and pooled tables – is certainly one. Then there's the fact that we can offer a customer a combination of browser-based access via the Web and client/server. We are the only vendor that generates ABAP code for data access, which allows the SAP R/3 administration team in an account to control their environment. We are also the only vendor that has an intelligent pre-emptive query governing tool to help control resource utilization. And of course our MRE environment allows customers to have parameterized reporting with drill-down to lower levels of detail data.

IB News – What would you point to as the Division's biggest success?

Brown – The rate of growth the Division has experienced. The Integrated Solutions Division was formed in 1996 and we were successful early on with our solution. We are now installed at well over 100 customer sites in 15 countries – customers have come to depend on us to meet their go-live or reporting deadlines. And we've worked quite a bit with customers who were new to Information Builders and later benefited from additional Information Builders solutions that addressed some of their other data access and integration demands.

IB News – Earlier you mentioned Web reporting capabilities – can you tell us more about those?

Brown – The Web promises a simplified, wider range of deployment – what we're aiming to do is deliver on that promise with our Web reporting options. Many ERP customers are looking to reduce costs and administrative effort by allowing reports to be run and viewed through standard Web browsers. SNAPpack Reporting Solutions expand access to ERP packages and other data sources to provide full-function, dynamic Web-based reporting. Any report created in Windows client/server mode can be quickly deployed to the Internet or corporate intranets, resulting in lower training costs and increased reporting efficiency. In addition, expanding global Web deployment eliminates the need for physical installation of software in remote locations.

IB News – There seems to be a lot of interest in push technology. Do SNAPpack Reporting Solutions offer this functionality?

Brown – Absolutely. SNAPpack Reporting Solutions can provide exception-based reports to users in many formats, including HTML, RTF, Excel, and others. These reports can be scheduled for execution at specified intervals and bursted to the appropriate people via e-mail or the Web. This allows management to concentrate on important areas of their business that require immediate attention.

Again, this is where technologies need to integrate...there is a wonderful opportunity here to integrate standard corporate technology – for instance, desktop tools and e-mail – with your critical corporate systems. So a VP of Sales, for example, could ensure that his or her regional managers automatically receive notification as to the status of their performance – above or below quota, let's say – or an inventory manager could automatically be made aware of any critical problems or backlogs that need to be resolved. Such information could be distributed to the right people on an automated basis if there were a guaranteed delivery vehicle, like common e-mail technology. This would allow you to use your existing infrastructure, and would enable you to push information locked away in the new ERP systems that is now automatically made meaningful to these managers.

IB News – A new product, SNAPpack Enterprise, was recently introduced at SAPPHIRE, the North American SAP Users' Conference. What prompted its creation?

Brown – The idea came to us when SAP announced that they would begin development on a new data warehousing solution. This new offering, the Business Information Warehouse (BW), provides R/3 customers with a "ready-to-go" data warehouse that tightly integrates tools and business content with R/3. Many SAP customers, including those who currently use SNAPpacks, are considering BW as their enterprise data warehousing solution. As a SAP Complementary Software Partner, we have significant experience in working with R/3. In fact, SNAPpack Data Migrator has just been BAPI Certified (Data Migration Interface) by SAP, the second SAP certification for Data Migrator – the first was ALE/IDoc certification in 1997. We recognized the opportunity to increase the value of BW and improve customer satisfaction...this set the stage for the creation of SNAPpack Enterprise.

IB News – Can you tell us a little bit about this new product and its capabilities?

Brown – SNAPpack Enterprise is a powerful suite of tools designed to strengthen and enhance BW. It adds significant value to BW with a variety of complementary functions including the ability to load over 70 sources of external data to BW, complex and Web reporting with integrated security, drill-through to detail data, and sophisticated query governing.

IB News – Why is drill-through to detail data so important?

Brown – As companies implement data warehouses, it is impossible to predict exactly what information users might need. Even if it were possible, it is simply not practical to move all the data that might be required for analysis. With drill-through, you can access warehoused data, and reach down into the operational data stores for additional information when necessary. This provides a huge advantage for companies trying to reach zero tolerance for decision-making.

IB News – With the value its advanced features provide, it's no wonder SNAPpack business is booming. What does the future hold for the SNAPpack product line?

Brown – The future looks very bright for SNAPpacks. The ERP vendor community is becoming very influential in the technology decisions of Corporate America, and more and more organizations are turning to ERP applications to meet their IT and business needs. Therefore, we expect that the demand for our solutions will continue to grow as well. We will also continue to further develop our relationship with SAP, PeopleSoft, Baan, and other vendors, to address the needs of our customers.