29 December 2006

Operational Intelligence vs. Operations Intelligence vs. Operational BI vs. ... ?

In my previous post Operational Intelligence augments Business Intelligence, I referenced to an article by AMR Research on the topic of what they call Operations Intelligence instead of the Operational Intelligence I find better suited. Apparently one of their readers agreed and sent in a letter regarding this.

The Intelligententerprise.com prefers to call it Operational BI in their 7th annual BI Megatrends report. A term I like allot too I must admit, but more because of the commercial value then because of it's descriptive essence.

Also IT analyst IDC uses the term Operational BI frequently. Ventana Research uses the same Operational Intelligence I personally also prefer and our company uses in all MarComms and on our website. This term is also defined on Wikipedia, even though I think their definition could be improved upon.

So which term do you prefer? What words do you use when searching the web for related information or explaining the technology to a colleague?

20 December 2006

Think Different

Here's a small test for you:

First, see Apple's commercial on innovation on YouTube.

Secondly, ask yourself a few questions: Are you a true innovator? Do you lead or follow? Do you think out of the box? Are you a crazy one?

Thirdly, act now! That is if you answered positivily above and are lacking insight into your companies operational performance. Challenge yourself and challenge your OI or BI supplier.

Think different! That is, if you're up to it...

19 December 2006

Operational Intelligence augments Business Intelligence

Below are some excerpts from an article by AMR Research (Operations Intelligence Augments Business Intelligence):

Business Intelligence leverages the data captured in ERP systems

When asked, business users will grudgingly concede that they have realized some value from their enterprise resource planning (ERP) investments. They have done so by standardizing global processes such as order-to-cash and procure-to-pay, and facilitating cost reductions through arduous business re-engineering efforts and major reorganization around shared services. However, these same business users get much more animated about the ability to analyze their business performance globally. In fact, the ability to analyze is always at or near the top priority of virtually every spending survey AMR Research conducts. Being able to quickly show how they can "slice and dice" all the data captured in their ERP systems leads to a much better understanding of myriad metrics such as which products are selling in each part of the world, average selling price, best- performing salespeople, contribution of each product to profitability, and other sales and financial performance measures.

Most Business Intelligence Looks In The Rearview Mirror

Running today's global manufacturing enterprise on ERP and traditionally implemented BI is like driving down the New Jersey Turnpike in reverse at 65 mph using only the rearview mirror. ERP architectures are optimized for transactional efficiencies rather than real-time reporting. In many cases, BI platforms must go through a time-consuming "extract, transform, load" process to turn ERP data into intelligence that can readily generate standard reports and facilitate the slicing and dicing that allows business users to analyze performance rather than spend 70% to 80% of their time collecting data, as they used to before ERP and BI. If you are always looking in the rearview mirror, you miss what is going on around you right now. That is a recipe for disaster in today's highly dynamic business environment. By the time you detect an operational problem in BI, you have already made poor-quality products and missed orders.

Checklist: How to decide if you need a business intelligence/operations intelligence solution
  • Are critical business and operational data available to all rather than a select few?
  • Do you know with certainty which customers/products/channels are most profitable?
  • Do you know which suppliers have the best on-time delivery performance?
  • Does your firm have complete visibility of manufacturing key performance indicators across the full enterprise?
  • Can you effectively sense and respond to dynamic changes in demand and/or supply?
  • Is there a definitive source of business and operational data that everyone uses?
  • Can you use information today to predict performance tomorrow?
  • Is the right data available at the right place at the right time?
  • Are your real-time data needs being met today?
If you answered "no" to any of these, then it would make sense for you to evaluate a business intelligence/operations intelligence solution.

The business value of Operational Intelligence?

A month or so ago I started looking for additional background info on the business value of Operational Intelligence. I wanted to know for instance how much time the average 'knowledge worker' looses each day, when using inefficient ways of looking for information. In October 2006, Butler Group published a report on exactly this subject: Enterprise Search and Retrieval

Apparently organizations waste 10% of the salary bill when searching for information! So there's an immediate savings opportunity... However, my gut feel tells me that the biggest impact is not in efficiency but in improved quality and speed of decisions. However I'm still looking for metrics to support this. Please leave a comment if you know of any related research.

First post

This blog is intended as a way to communicate my thoughts, ideas and knowledge in the field of Operational Intelligence. I work for a Dutch company called AGP Solutions. We are specialists in the field of Operational BI and have developed our own software framework Xenopsis to build innovative information portals.

I am a Dutch Native, but will post in (US) English. So please bare with me if you would stumble upon some slight spelling errors ;-)