Within Reach

A suite of seamlessly integrated analytic applications by Kurt Kaliebe

Hindsight is always 20/20 – a trite saying, but unfortunately one that sums up the way so many organizations are run today. Executives are forced to make strategic, forward-looking decisions based on historical data or even just gut instinct. But the good news is, with the right mix of technology and a solid business strategy, that no longer needs to be the case.

To address increasing competitive pressures and the growing demands of anxious shareholders, organizations are required to be more cutting-edge than ever before. This means that historical views of the business aren't enough. Executives need to be able to draw information from across the enterprise and analyze it so they can see not only where they've been but, more importantly, where they're headed.

For decades, companies have used traditional business intelligence (BI) tools to uncover and report on historical operational data that resides in back-end systems. But these tools lack the analytic capabilities that organizations need to make the forward-looking decisions that will ensure future success. As a result, organizations have discovered that bolstering their BI tools with analytic applications substantially increases the overall value of enterprise information by giving management the foresight needed to act wisely and to correct problems before they occur. And to position the company strategically to capitalize on the future when it arrives.

In fact, a report issued last fall by industry analyst firm IDC states that organizations that have successfully implemented and used analytic applications have realized returns ranging from 17 percent to more than 2,000 percent, with a median ROI of 122 percent. (Source: "The Financial Impact of Business Analytics," IDC, October 2002.)

Analytic applications exist for a vast array of business processes – supply chain management, customer relationship management, human capital management, financial management, and the list goes on. But organizations don't need to completely overhaul every business practice at once to experience positive gains from analytic solutions. On the contrary, the most successful analytic application implementations have been those that focused on a company's most pressing business issue.

As immediate pains are resolved and ROI realized, companies can then expand their use of analytic applications to address additional business pains. When adopted systematically and deliberately, organizations can, one day, have a complete suite of seamlessly integrated analytical applications covering all aspects of their enterprises.

Imagine having fingertip access to information from across the enterprise. For companies with integrated solutions, this is becoming a reality. Executives are gaining a clearer view of what's happening throughout their organizations so that decisions can be made in context instead of in isolation.

For example, financial intelligence integrated with marketing initiatives enables marketing campaigns to target the right customers with the right product via the right channels while understanding the underlying profitability models. This not only results in campaigns that achieve better response rates but ensures that company profitability is enhanced, not eroded. With analytic applications, organizations are gaining the power to make forward-looking, coordinated and reliable decisions that they can act on with certainty. This ability is crucial to an organization's success in today's competitive business environment.