Solutions Spotlight
This month: Business intelligence applications
Staff -- Manufacturing Business Technology, 8/1/2004 12:00:00 AM
OLAP capabilities highlight analysis software
Cognos PowerPlay 7.3, part of the company's Enterprise Business Intelligence Series, allows users to navigate large amounts of data from any data source—including third-party online analytical processing (OLAP) solutions—by creating subsets of categories by rule and pick list. Users can focus their analysis on a subset of categories rather than having to view the entire dimension. The system's cubes can contain more than a billion rows of data and two million categories, allowing users to see how a value changes over time, how it compares across geography, and how it changes against other business dimensions. The system supports scenario-based planning for analyzing financial data. Instead of calculating just one set of figures, users can calculate several sets of figures or scenarios. PowerPlay is integrated with the Cognos Enterprise Business Intelligence Series, including Cognos ReportNet and Cognos Metrics Manager.
SAP and Hyperion partner for data integration
Hyperion, a business performance management supplier, announces SAP-certified integration for mySAP Business Suite; and SAP Business Information Warehouse, a component of SAP NetWeaver. The integration allows joint customers to view data from multiple performance data sources in Hyperion's personalized dashboards, including financial and operational measures. The Hyperion Performance Suite, comprised of Hyperion Intelligence and Hyperion SQR, together with Hyperion Essbase, provides the business intelligence foundation for Hyperion's Business Performance Management solutions.
Financial app examines cash flow, cost structures
BusinessObjects' Finance Intelligence is an analytic application containing six modules for analyzing financial activities, including compliance management, cash-flow analysis, cost structures, and financial statement metrics and ratios. Users may perform in-depth analyses of business problems to identify their origins and determine the best solution. For example, using Finance Intelligence, managers can gain insight to net cash flow by analyzing outstanding accounts receivable, bad debt and risk assessments, and customer payment history.
Module manages planning tasks in Excel, or via Web
TM1 Planning Manager from Applix manages a company's planning process—including tasks and review structures—either directly in Microsoft Excel or over the Web. The system, which runs on top of customers' existing planning applications, offers automatic control of the planning process and generates e-mail alerts for task status changes. Planning templates allow developing different budgets and out-of-the-box reports on plan status. Users receive a combination of control, cell-level, and role-based security; and automation of tasks and alerts for analysts, planners, managers, and executives. The software also automatically audits all changes to data, to assist with regulatory compliance, including Sarbanes-Oxley and Basel II.
Partnership links intelligence data to enterprise systems
Vanguard Solutions Group formed an OEM partnership agreement withLilly Software Associates, integrating Vanguard's Graphical Performance Series (GPS) business intelligence solution into Lilly's Visual Enterprise solution and marketed to users as Visual Business Intelligence. GPS directly accesses data stored in enterprise systems, without requiring businesses to move or stage data, or invest in complex data warehousing technology.
Predictive modeling, simulation among system refinements
The SAS 9 business intelligence system offers a new platform, enhanced analytics, and refined user interfaces connecting all SAS applications that communicate with other data sources and programs. Enhanced analytics include predictive and descriptive modeling, forecasting, simulation, optimization, and design of experiments. With new Java interfaces, flexible data mining software, and text mining software, the system allows users to analyze both structured data and unstructured text. The SAS Intelligence Platform, which features business reporting and predictive analytics capabilities, also includes a range of access engines, integrated metadata management, data cleansing, and a graphical interface.
System consolidates data across sites
IndX Software's XHQ 3.5 operations intelligence solution features enhanced scalability and security capabilities as it aggregates, relates, and presents operational and business data from various sources in real time. The most powerful application of XHQ occurs when the platform is installed across multiple sites within the enterprise. XHQ users can then survey, from their browsers, consolidated content driven by multiple systems located across plants—all in support of optimizing real-time process management. The system serves very large numbers of concurrent users with real-time information, while protecting the back-end operational sources from excessive query loading. It also provides administrators with component-based security mechanisms that simplify solution management in multi-site environments.
System plans, analyzes, monitors inventory safety stock
Silvon Software's Stratum Enterprise Performance Management Version 4.0 features a new module to aid business planning, analyze, and optimize inventory performance with more than 30 pre-built planning and analytical templates, and rules-based exception management functionality. In addition, Stratum can trigger automated actions into internal operational systems or external supplier systems in response to these alerts. The system's inventory planning and optimization feature allows planning, analyzing, and monitoring inventory safety stock, reorder points, order-up levels, economic order quantities, and carrying costs. Users also can compare and identify trends in inventory values and inventory turns over time, predict potential cash-flow problems through inventory-to-sales ratios, and determine which areas of inventory require improvement.
Analysis app targets commerce channels, e-business initiatives
Business intelligence, an analytical component of the Global eXchange Services Suite, reports operational performance, financial performance, customer behavior, both Web site and marketing effectiveness, and business integration activities. The solution can measure and optimize marketing, sales, and service efforts; and allows users to measure the technical or business performance of e-business initiatives, compare trends in traditional sales channels, research the profitability or buying patterns of key customers or groups of customers, and identify opportunities to refine strategies. The system also extracts, transforms, and loads data into decision-support databases to build custom reports or modify pre-built reports in a graphical environment.
www.globalexchangeservices.com
Visual displays highlight numeric, textual data
Antarctica Systems' Visual Net 4.2 includes map-based displays showing multiple dimensions of both macro and micro data without accessing multiple reports, screens, and graphics to collect the information. The system visualizes three types of information—numeric, textual, and geographic—either individually or in combination. Once a problem is identified, users can drill down to investigate and gather more details without knowing how to construct complex queries or generate reports. The system allows manipulating and filtering data to customize the information on the maps.
