Weidenhammer SAP BI Differentiator
Weidenhammer has defined a multi-phase process taking companies from the Initial Awareness Phase to Data Integration and On-Going BI Commerce solutions. Our experience has led to the development of the Weidenhammer Business Intelligence Enabling Methodology that leverages Business Objects Tools and integrates data from client legacy system databases.
Within the Planning Phase, our Business Intelligence Enabling Methodology ensures knowledge transfer, identification of all requirements, and specific detailed planning. Each step in the Planning Phase is iterative with the project team until the optimal path is defined.
Weidenhammer’s Business Intelligence Enabling Methodology includes:
- Identifying the data from client's legacy system
- Mapping the data to the end report requirements
- Utilization of native database services for generation and accumulation of data (Extract, Transform, Load), if required
- Utilization of BusinessObjects Universe Designer for building the dimensional data model and user-friendly object definitions
- Utilization of BusinessObjects Web Intelligence for building user reports that are browser based
- Utilization of BusinessObjects Xcelsius or Crystal Reports for greater for ad-hoc reporting
- Training clients in ad-hoc report building
- Implementing and deploying the data environment at the client site
Sales
- See the potential sales revenue in your existing pipeline
- Identify your revenue over time to create better forecasting ability
- Identify your top sales people by different metrics or indicators such as $ revenue, margins, # of units sold, etc.
- Evaluate your sales by territory/region by metric
- Identify your most valuable customer and see what they are buying that others may want
- Determine your most profitable sales channels/conduits
- Identify sales trends by your products or services
- See what inventory is being purchased
- Identify what inventory is moving and how fast
- Reduce overall carrying costs by making sure the right products are in the right store at the right time
- Find out how many separate shipments you received from a specific vendor, and when
- Identify which products have been recurring failures that necessitated vendor returns
- Track the performance of your suppliers over time
- Compare one supplier’s performance against another’s
- Develop price negotiations that are derived from a meaningful understanding of the supplier’s reliability and price by comparing those against their competitors
- Find out if inventory levels are sufficient to support current orders
- Determine the production capacity by product to support optimal utilization of machinery to support current orders
- Identify instances of high or low utilization in the manufacturing cycle at various work flow points
- Determine income statement trends and variances against forecasts
- Drill down into expense lines to see what is driving profit results
- Drill down into balance sheets by period and operating division
- Find key financial ratios such as ROA (Return On Assets) and ROI (Return On Investment) by period and operating division
- Analyze cash flow data by period and operating division
- Track accounting data by fiscal dates or calendar dates
- Determine customer behavior such as top 10 customers last year or those who spent more than $X last month
- Detect early warnings of customer dissatisfaction by metric
- Drill down into customer complaint data
- Understand the cost of service relationships in metrics such as inquiries per month, $ returns, or change orders as a percent of the total orders
- Determine core competencies and skills
- Analyze headcount growth by period
- Determine your profit impact based on investment in people
- Determine profitability based on channels
- Explore customer segments and their profitability
- Explore data based on clickstream activities
Otherwise tight-fisted CIO’s are spending money on BI software because its relatively low investment yields fast payback, says Larry Downes, strategy consultant and author of Unleashing the Killer App and The Strategy Machine. "[Unused data] is still a great source of untapped productivity and competitive advantage for most companies," he says. Just how much data is going unused? Downes guesses companies are extracting value from only about 20 percent of their data.
Companies are also using BI to justify or disprove the wisdom of what would otherwise be gut business decisions. "Too often, evaluations of opportunities for growth are based on gut feelings, estimations and assumptions because it would be too expensive and time-consuming to get hard data," says Nucleus’s Wettemann. "BI can let you run some quick numbers to justify that gut."
Business Intelligence Gets Smart(er), CIO Magazine
