Dell Services Optimized Business Intelligence

Building an Effective Business Intelligence Solution for your Organization.

Written by:
Dan Blankenship
Business Intelligence Practice Leader
Dell  Consulting Group

At A Glance 
Organizations recognize that to stay competitive, they need relevant, timely information that can turn data into knowledge to drive the correct decisions. In today’s marketplace, executives throughout the organization need to have access to knowledge management information and the best quantitative tools to deliver reliable information faster. Critical factors include a balance of financial and operational information that is readily available so decision makers can develop and execute actionable performance improvement plans — even during changing market conditions.

This paper presents an organized, disciplined approach to Business Intelligence that can extend across the enterprise to meet information access and data analytic goals

Organization Challenges 
As regulatory and compliance mandates intensify, business demands have escalated steadily over the years, forcing greater accountability onto Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) and Chief Information Officers (CIOs) to provide transparency and data consistency. To meet these challenges, organizations are now investing in more sophisticated Business Intelligence (BI) frameworks. Ironically, most of the money is invested in building the infrastructure to acquire and manage data, while very little is spent on effectively using the information delivered, which is the true reason for developing a BI solution. In addition, because previous solutions have fallen far short of expectations for information and analytics, many companies have delayed sweeping data warehousing projects or abandoned more extensive BI projects altogether.

While there are still acute needs to acquire, manage, and analyze data to support broad-based decision making and performance management processes, many times BI data is isolated within individual departments or exists only as single-point solutions. In many cases, the result leads to multiple versions of the truth, duplication of efforts, inconsistent or incomplete data, and most importantly, an overall inability to integrate key financial and operational information across the entire enterprise. As internal and external pressures increase to boost corporate performance, the demand for greater accessibility to an integrated corporate dataset increases — that is, the need for comprehensive Enterprise Business Intelligence.

Enterprise Business Intelligence
Business Intelligence is a holistic approach to BI that integrates information from multiple sources to provide management with more comprehensive reporting on financial and operational performance. This integrated BI approach across the enterprise provides broad-based insight into overall corporate efficiency with deep-dive analytics that enhance perspective and improve decision making to standardize processes and drive profitability. For Enterprise Business Intelligence to truly be successful, both technology and business processes must work through an aligned strategy toward a common goal. To help bring all the pieces together for an effective Enterprise Business Intelligence program, organizations need an experienced team with a collaborative approach.

Dell Services Optimized Business Intelligence Program
The Dell Services Optimized Business Intelligence program is an accelerated Enterprise Business Intelligence process that blends technology and business processes together using Oracle’s BI framework as an accelerator to consolidate and deliver financial, human capital, supply chain, and other operational performance measures to help business leaders optimize corporate data.

The Dell Optimized Business Intelligence program is designed to take full advantage of Oracle’s BI Applications to extract and consolidate data from Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems in a single process framework, allowing for enterprise-wide organizational intelligence. Oracle’s business intelligence applications can provide: 

• Pre-delivered analytics to help jump start your BI program
• A single version of the truth
• One integrated architectural framework for business intelligence

To optimize Enterprise Business Intelligence efficiency, information storage and retrieval can be implemented across the organization by leveraging existing ERP and/or data warehousing solutions. Consolidating and streamlining data points yields better, more informed decision making throughout the organization. The Dell Optimized Business Intelligence program can help you build a roadmap that is not only practical, but can also produce results quickly. Our approach helps turn information into knowledge using many of the pre delivered solutions delivered with the Oracle BI suite of tools.

The Enterprise Business Intelligence model can also improve business processes. Through Oracle’s Common Enterprise Information Model, the Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE) application can eliminate the need for complex spreadsheets, which improves overall BI accuracy. (Research shows that 20% to 40% of spreadsheets contain data errors or other inaccuracies.) By reducing these individual spreadsheets, the chance for mistakes decreases, which lowers the business risks for the organization. Ultimately, comprehensive Enterprise Business Intelligence solutions demand integration based on a single version of the truth that encompasses a wide array of processes used to collect, analyze, and disseminate relevant data to make better, more informed decisions.

The The Dell Optimized Business Intelligence Strategy
Developing an umbrella BI strategy is key to deploying a successful Enterprise BI program. Business leaders have the right to expect results from their Business Intelligence solutions. There are several key strategic questions to consider when planning, implementing, and evaluating your BI program:

• How are you going to meet demands? 
• Do your plans align with the organization’s overall strategy?
• Will information be available and consolidated for all key decision-makers to help them meet their goals?
• Are accountability measures in-place to help drive the right behaviors towards a common strategy? 

Without a strategy, there can be no implementation plan roadmap.  Our Dell Optimized Business Intelligence program provides a foundation that not only addresses processes, tools, and technologies, but also addresses corporate strategies and tactics that help ensure that data is turned into information and knowledge that drive profitable business activities.  Simply put, we help organizations build BI roadmaps that align to corporate strategy.

Our approach is to design and implement integrated processes that provide rapid feedback so that adjustments can easily be adapted to changes in market conditions and management needs.  An important part of the BI strategy to facilitate the iterative practice is the governance process needed for oversight, standards, compliance, and direction.  World-class organizations benefit from establishing a governance process early in the delivery cycle to oversee the many facets of a Business Intelligence program.

Our approach starts with assessing the business needs and establishing a foundation to govern BI principles such as data management, integration, architecture, and information management across the enterprise.  These are critical components needed to instill Dell Optimized Business Intelligence into the organization’s financial and operational data.  We deliver the right data, to the right people, and in a format where actions can be implemented in a timely manner.

Assists Decision Making Throughout the Enterprise
We recognize that no two organizations are alike, so our program can be adapted to accommodate both “top-down” and “bottom-up” management approaches. Rolebased methodologies are used to access enterprise data throughout the enterprise, whether from the bottom-up, from the top-down, or a blend of the two decision making methodologies.

Ultimately, aligning approaches within the organization to a common vision allows for greater synergy into business performance, as illustrated here.

Turning Data into Information and Knowledge
World-class organizations have recognized the need for BI programs, and they continue to refine their needs, data capture, and the knowledge and insight gained from mining, reporting, and using analytics. However, when data is pulled or summarized out-of context it may be meaningless or provide an inaccurate view of organizational performance. In short, too little data is not relevant and too much data is time-consuming and unproductive. Are you ready to build a foundation that delivers better overall analytics capabilities for your organization? The Dell Services Optimized Business Intelligence program is designed to determine what data needs to be collected and managed and in what context. We serve our customers with business-technology collaboration that facilitates intelligence collection and analysis in a timely fashion.

What you can expect from the Dell Services Optimized Business Intelligence Program
During an up-front 8-to-10 week analysis and implementation initiative, you can expect:

• A rapid deployment of the OBIEE platform — installed, configured, and set up
• Pre-defined key financial and performance metrics — mapped and reported using dashboard presentations
• Strategy roadmap and vision – based on your priorities
• Foundation for a governance process – using proven world-class methodologies
• Recommendations for improvements – suggested process enhancements and opportunities to consider

What Makes Dell Services Different?
Our ABCs--Attitude, Business Knowledge, and Commitment to delivering solutions that meet and exceed client expectations. It takes the right people and processes to implement a successful BI program that provides performance measures along with the information needed for actionable results. We have the capabilities and proven expertise to deliver:

• Blended onshore/off shore service models to best meet your needs
• Highly knowledgeable industry professionals with large project experience
• World-class practices to set the foundation for a successful long-term BI program
• Business accelerators to quickly jump-start BI initiatives to meet and exceed short-term and long-term expectations
• Collaboration teams of technology and business experts who understand BI and can quickly make a difference

Do you want to give your organization a competitive edge? Do your current business performance metrics tell you what you need to know? If not, give us a call and we will be glad to discuss the Dell Services Optimized Business Intelligence program. Our solution is more than just a collection of tools. We can help you jump-start your entire Enterprise Business Intelligence strategy and help you develop your roadmap to success.

For more information about any of our service offerings, please contact your Dell representative or visit dell.com/services .