Why Bother? Identifying the True Value of SAP Investments by Looking At Real Australian Implementations Steve Bennett Co-founder Business Intelligence CORTEX

My Background Co-founder Business Intelligence Group CORTEX - an online Australian community of BI, PM, DWH, ETL and Analytic professionals Forums Research Jobs Local BI News & Events years building analytic capabilities Oz Analytics Blog analytics.typepad.com

What Well Cover Introduction Ownership Lessons Best Practices New Capabilities Conclusions

Introduction Lessons from over 100 BI projects Over 50% in environments with SAP 70% Australian, 30% Asian Mainly in Banking, Insurance and Leisure

10 Signs You Need Analytics 1.You have to wait to make/change a report 2.There are more than 100 requests pending 3.Multiple numbers for the same thing 4.The same words to mean different things 5.You can't get an instant understanding 6.The commentary is larger than the report 7.The report is handcrafted 8.It takes longer than 5 minutes to view 9.You can't access the report 10.You manually validate key numbers

Why Bother? Because … Organisations that have successful BI solutions: Have better and timelier access to information: Customer activities Operating costs Market trends Supply chain issues and many other pieces of performance that are not easily measured

This can give them a capability to … Better understand current performance (issues) Identify efficiency opportunities (insight) Reliably predict future performance Make better decisions because they are based on correct data and insight (trusted) Reduce risks (less surprises) Enhance agility (in handling new requirements) Promote a shared understanding (same language) Reduce internal conflicts (SSOT)

Business Objective Continuum Wide range of ambitions: leverage analytics for competitive advantage Performance Manage Decisions Automated Decisions Management Reporting Dashboards Scorecards Operational Reporting Analysis When you know the questionWhen you know the dataWhen you know the drivers Short Term Goals Long Term Goals DepartmentEnterprise Batch + PeriodicReal Time Alerts

Reality Check Developing a better analytic capability is difficult because: You have to consider non-financial measures (e.g. ¾ of the balanced scorecard) that are typically not in your transaction and financial systems Modelling of future performance (lead measures) is complex to do well You do not know the business better than everyone else

Ownership Lessons

Best Ownership Practices DQ champions in IT and BI Departments. Domain experts from across the enterprise Data owners of every data item and measure in the BI platform Empowered to make decisions: All business data and their definitions (including reference data) Enterprise performance measures and their calculation basis solutions (business processes and IT) Monthly meetings to solve DQ issues

Establishing Ownership Have a clear plan to realise benefits Sell the benefits Establish the governance group asap Define the data Prioritise and decide data issues. Provide feedback on Data Controls, Data Validation and Quality. Business work-arounds that deal with issues without requiring additional IT work.

Best Practise Data Control Principles Anyone can raise data issues If you raise the issue you own acceptance of a solution BIA Department owns the resolution process Data Council owns prioritisation Reconcile daily Measure data quality against agreed SLAs and KPIs Recognise the data lifecycle and manage it

16 PagePage What are the burning questions? What are the value drivers? Data Analysis What does the data support? Logical Model How do we think it should look? Business Need What does the business want? Listen to the business Talk to the business – and keep talking! Get buy in - partnership Agree definitions Understand the business processes Look at the source data Look at the data Look at history and recent data Work on data quality Validate business processes Argue for the Big Picture Understand the big picture Avoid silos Conform dimensions Challenge the business need Business Requirements:

Best Practices

Have C-level support Hes charged with expressing contempt for business intelligence.

Enterprise dashboard down to transactions We just want a dashboard

Enterprise DQ with a BI Platform focus Garbage In Garbage Out

Single (business driven) analytic community Trust us, we know what we are doing

Single (business driven) governance structure Arguments and confusion because meanings arent defined and agreed

BI linked to performance management Weve got enough rocks – what we need is better intelligence

Best Practices BI is a management process Daily performance tracking of: Products Portfolios Marketing Campaigns Performance predictions against targets Financial Cultural Competitors Mobile delivery Customer Satisfaction Data Quality etc. Strategic Objectives etc.

New Capabilities

When Developing New Capabilities … BI investments can spread over several years The actual solution(s) is usually only known when well into the BI project 30 – 50% of your investment in BI will be on meeting additional requirements The more successful you are the more new requirements you will have to meet within the same budget.

New Capabilities An example from the GFC: Delivering a BI platform for self-service reporting New need to securitise mortgages Existing BI investments could be repurposed to meet the new requirements. An example new Board requirement: Delivering a ABC capability New focus on profitability (fees-less-expenses) Existing ABC project expanded.

3 Key Points to Take Home Data is the lock Analytics is the key Attention to detail gets the key in the lock Everyone is struggling with similar issues and >80% of BI in Australia addresses the left of the continuum Success in the other is possible and Australian examples exist

3 Key Points to Take Home

Questions? Business Intelligence CORTEX A new online Australian community of DQ, DWH, ETL, BI, PM and Analytic professionals Forums Research Jobs Local BI News & Events