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AUDIENCE:

This paper is intended or the IT

manager who oversees a budget

and is responsible or making IT

implementation decisions in his/herorganization.

Business Objects. Business Intelligence White Paper

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The goal o this white paper is to explain why business intelligence (BI) is asound investment or any IT manager to make, especially during an economicdownturn. With budgets becoming tighter and demands rom executives to

see immediate results rom IT implementations increasing, this paper outlinesthe benefts an organization can expect to see rom a BI solution and itsimpact on a company.

The primary benefts a business will experience rom a BI deployment are:

Animmediateimpactonyourbottomline,asusersgaininstantaccesstoinormation, which in turn generates a ast payback

Theleveragingofexistinginvestmentsinpackagedapplications(i.e.enter-prise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM),etc.) by extracting value rom the data they hold within

Bettervisibilityoftheorganizationforbothexecutivesandbusinessmanagers

Abetterunderstandingofyourcustomers,andthereforeagreaterabilitytoretain them

AsstatisticsrevealthatITmanagersbudgetshaveattenedoutduringthepast ew months, there is a demand to continue to choose investments thatwillhelpstreamlineacompanysoperations,leadtogreaterprotabilityinthe short term, and dierentiate that company rom its competitors. By givingusers instant access to the inormation necessary to make better businessdecisions, BI will help an organization operate more eectively and moreefciently while providing an immediate ROI.

INTRODUCTION

Reality Sets In

Thousands o layos. The New York Stock Exchange is down three percentfortheday.Anotheronce-infalliblecompanyreportsthatitwillnotmeetnan -cial analyst expectations and will only see single-digit growth or the quarter,rather than the double-digit growth it had witnessed the previous six quarters.Every day, the newspaper and evening news headlines report grim newsor stockholders, employees, and executives. The consensus: an economicdownturn has hit.

Obviously, the complacency that surrounded the last ew years o economicgrowth has aded. Now that reality has set in, it is time to assess those oppor-tunitiesthatcurrentlyexisttoincreaseacorporationsvalue.Thereareinvest -

ments that can be made today by an organization to not only sustain marketshare and proftability, but to actually increase market share and proftabilityduring a downturn in the economy.

BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

NOW MORE THAN EVERThe Benefts o a Business Intelligence Investment During an Economic Downturn


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Business Objects. Business Intelligence White Paper 2

So what kind o investment will allow your company to thrive even during difculteconomictimes?Aninvestmentinatechnologythathasanimmediate,positiveimpactonyourcompanysbottomlineaswellasitsday-to-dayoperations.Technology that allows you to harness the single most important asset your

company already owns but does not leverage the inormation in its databases. Thekey is to harness this inormation: The more inormation you have, and the better(and aster) your analysis, the greater the probability that you will make winninginvestments. 1

What is BI? Business intelligence allows organizations to access, analyze, andshare inormation across the enterprise and in extranet environment, using bothtools and analytic applications. In enterprise networks, BI provides employees withinormation to make better business decisions, and can be used in environmentsranging rom workgroups o 20 users to enterprise deployments exceeding 20,000.In an extranet environment, BI is deployed in applications that allow organizations todeliver new services and build stronger relationships with customers, partners, andsuppliers via the internet. In customer relationship management, the pre-requisite or

acquiring, developing, and caring or customers is to understand how your existingcustomersbehave.Providingthiscustomerintelligenceisoneoftheuniquestrengths o BI.

Dont Delay: BI Can Help Your Organization Today

There are several compelling reasons why now more than ever BI should bedeployed within your organization:

Inaslowdown,yourrstpriorityshouldbeonwhattypeofITdeploymentprovidesthegreatestbangforyourbuck.Businessintelligencedeliversthegreatestimmediate impact or your organization, as it gives users in your company theinormation they need and supplies an instant ROI.

Leverageandmaximizetheinvestmentsinexistingpackagedapplications,suchasyour ERP and CRM systems. Business intelligence allows you to extract inormationrom your ERP and CRM data, report on it, analyze it, and make more inormeddecisions.

BIoffersexecutivesandbusinessmanagersbettervisibilityoftheorganizationby giving them a greater understanding o their business operations. With thisknowledge comes the ability to react much more quickly to problems and issuesthanwithconventionalviewsoftheorganizationsuchasbalancesheets,incomestatements, and quarterly fnance reports.

Itisduringaslowdown,whenbudgetsaretightest,thatyoushoulduseBIto

understand your customers and hold on to them. Focusing on customer satisactionwill go a long way to improving the bottom line without orcing your business toincur large expenses to attract new customers.

A SOLUTION WITH IMMEDIATE IMPACT

Payback. Return on Investment (ROI). Total Cost o Ownership (TCO). Theseare terms that have been around or decades and are active concepts or thosecompanies who spend their money careully and wisely. While these ways omeasuring the benefts o a particular IT deployment seem in vogue now thatthere is a slowdown in the economy, the reality is that they have always been a

1 GeoffreyA.Moore,LivingontheFaultLine(HarperBusiness,HarperCollinsPublishers)2000.


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One o the leading technology

analyst frms, Gartner,

discovered that among

1,400 chie inormation

ofcers surveyed, business

intelligence was cited as

the number one priority or

technology organizations

in 2008 making this the

third consecutive year BI has

topped the list.


determining actor in what kinds o IT implementations a company undertakes.

Whatmetricsdoesyourcompanyuse?Howdoestheorganizationdeterminewhether or not to give the green light to an IT project? Regardless o whether youuse ROI, IRR, TCO, NPV, or some other acronym or weighty fnancial concept, the

whole discussion boils down to one question during this downturn: What solutionwill have the most positive impact on the bottom line o the company in the shortestperiod o time?

Ifyouareaskingyourself,WherecanIndthebiggestbangformybuck?the answer lies in a solution that will immediately improve the way your companyoperates, immediately changes the way inormation is shared among workers, evenimmediately changes the way the organization thinks about its customers, partners,and suppliers. Business intelligence will alter the way your company does business,and in a very short period o time.

HereareafewwaysthatBIhasimpactedorganizationsaroundtheworld:

Aninsuranceorganizationpainstakinglyprintspaperreportsandsendsthemto

every customer, spending signifcant money on creating documents which otenare not even read. This process can take weeks or months. Deploying businessintelligence gives a company the ability to immediately publish these reportselectronically to customers via email, or better yet, allows customers direct accessto its databases and to the inormation they specifcally need through an extranet.By no longer producing reports, this organization saved nearly $500,000 per year,and stands to make millions in additional ees by charging customers to access theinormation.

Alogisticscompanyusedtohavedriversmanuallylloutreportsonwheretheydrove and with what type and load o cargo they transported. This inormationwas never available in real-time and trucks would return empty ater dropping o ashipment because there was no system to identiy additional delivery opportunities.Deploying business intelligence has quickly given the company a means o trackingand reporting on virtually everything, even down to how many miles per gallon thetrucksgetwhentruckersdriveatcertainrpms.Whatismore,trucksrarelygoempty and that means huge cost savings or the company.

Adistributioncompanyusedtothinkcustomersatisfactionwassimplybeingniceto its customers and having the sales rep take them out to a ancy lunch once in awhile.Afterdeployingbusinessintelligence,thiscompanynotonlytakesthemtolunchbutalsoshowsthemareal-timereportofthecustomerslasttwoyearswortho purchases and plans with them how they can pool their purchases to buy inlarger quantities and receive higher levels o discounts.

The list goes on and on, and the ways BI is used within organizations is endless.You may see the benefts o a BI deployment and understand that these beneftscan happen in the immediate uture. But a more immediate question might be,where will you fnd the budget or this type o expenditure?

One o the leading technology analyst frms, Gartner, discovered that among 1,400chie inormation ofcers surveyed, business intelligence was cited as the numberone priority or technology organizations in 2008 making this the third consecutiveyear BI has topped the list.2

Gartnersndingsrevealthatbusinessintelligencesoftwarehastrulyprovenitselfto be a defning dierentiator or business competitiveness. Taking budget originallyallocated to hardware and spending it on business intelligence will allow you to stay

2 Gartner Executive Program, Gartner EXP Worldwide Survey o 1,500 CIOs Shows 85 Percent o

CIOsExpectSignicantChangeOverNextThreeYears,February2008.


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a step ahead o your competitors and put you in an even stronger position vis--vis your competition when the slowdown is over. Even more importantly, businessintelligence will oer immediate benefts and will still be an integral part o theinfrastructureyouwillputinplacelater.Businessintelligencewillbethefront-end

o any successul ERP or CRM system later on, or example, and there is nothingstopping you rom rolling out BI now and completing your larger project later.

INCREASING THE VALUE OF YOUR PACKAGED APPLICATIONS

While or some, speed o deployment is an important part o a BI solution, orothers it is the means by which they can leverage their pre-existing investment in apackaged application.

Large-scalepackagedapplicationsareessentialtoanybusiness,asisthemassive amounts o data that they generate. Most large applications, however,are not designed to allow you to extract inormation out o this data in a timelyand easy ashion. Business intelligence allows you to harness the inormation you

already have accumulated in these packaged applications and put it to work oryour company. Using BI will give users the inormation they need now whiledelivering a ast ROI.

AftersettingupanERPsystemtorunitscoretransactionalprocessing,amul -tinationalcompanydecidedtocreateaexibleenterpriseBIsystemthatwouldpull data directly rom the ERP application. Through laptop computers, thesales and marketing people gained access to product and customer inorma-tion specifc to their areas o responsibility and were now able to drill into thedatafordetails.Theaddedexibilityhasgreatlyacceleratedthecompanysbusiness processes.

BETTER VISIBILITY OF THE ORGANIZATION

Executives and business managers within an organization always strive to betterunderstand how their business works. In reality, though, the view most executiveshave o their business is simply through the balance sheet and income statements.Knowing the assets and liabilities on the balance sheet is one thing, but to trulyunderstand all o the drivers in a business rom sales fgures to inventory levelsto measurements o lead generation rom various marketing programs thesemembers o the organization must have a technology that will deliver greatervisibility over all parts o the business. Up and down the value chain, BI should notonly give executives better visibility but also enable them to gather this inormationquickly and provide a mechanism or analyzing their fndings.

Imaginethisscenario.TomSmith,anancemanagerwithaFortune500company,receivesavoicemailfromhisCEO,IvejustgottenwordfromJoe(theCOO)thatour sales were below target or the quarter. Find out why we missed our numbersandgetbacktomeASAP!Nothavinganyabilitytoaccesstheinformationstored in the data warehouse directly, Tom asks the IT department to create orhim a report showing him the sales revenue broken down by region as well asby individual product. Not able to wait the two weeks it will take IT to create thesophisticated report he request, Tom turns instead to polling other people withinthe organization or their opinions on what caused sales fgures to slump.

With a short deadline rom the CEO on his analysis, Tom is let no choice but to

use qualitative data using the opinions o his colleagues as well as his own pastexperience in his briefng. Tom reports back to the CEO, In the past, when we


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have not hit our sales targets, it has been because o heavy discounting o ourproducts done in reaction to increasingly ferce competition. We have discounteda bit this quarter and that is the most likely reason or us missing our numbers. Iwill confrm this with you at the end o the month, once I have received the sales

reports rom IT.

Now,imaginethesamesituationbutthistimewithBI.Tomhangsupthephoneand quickly creates a report himsel that shows revenue fgures or the variousregionsofthecompany.Hendsthatthecompanyssalesinthewesternregionofthe United States were below normal. Digging deeper into the report, he discoversthat two particular products did not sell well in that region. Knowing that one o thestrengths o a report created using BI is its ability to be shared with others, Tomsends this report to other managers in the western region to allow them to lendtheir expert opinions on the issue.

Awesternregioncustomerservicemanagercreatesherownreportandndsalarge number o complaints logged or the two particular products Tom pinpointed

in his report. The reason or the complaints turns out to be a 60% increase in latedeliveries o the products.

Armedwiththisinformation,Tomhasaspecicproblemtoreportandaspecicsolution to propose to his CEO: fx the deliveries o these two products and salesin the western region will no longer be lagging behind.

Targeted. Eective. Intelligent. Fast.

It is clear that the access Tom Smith had to inormation helped him make a greatdecision. Think how even more important this access to inormation would beduring a downturn in the economy. It would be even more essential to spot thesetrends and problems immediately, because one missed quarter can spell disaster.

Todayscompetitivelandscapeistoodifcultforexecutivesnottounderstandhowtheir operations work. In many cases, an analysis such as the one Tom undertookwould be too late during tough economic times. That analysis would have to beperormed during the quarter, and only a solution like BI would give you access toinormation in such a timely manner.

HELPING YOU HOLD ON TO YOUR CUSTOMERS

The benefts o business intelligence are not just in giving managers and executivesbetter visibility o the organization to allow or greater operational efciencies. Manycorporations are taking this a step urther and improving customer satisaction.We always hear that it is much more expensive to attract a new customer than itis to keep an existing one. Knowing that, a company should do all that it can to

understand not just what product or service their customers purchase but why andhow they purchase them. Being able to retain customers is as important, i not moreso, than gaining new ones.

With business intelligence, companies have the ability to truly understand thebehavior o their customers. Certain BI applications allow you to segment yourcustomers by very precise criteria, such as average purchase size, geographiclocation, economic profle, etc., as well as the ability to look at those segments overtime. What is the true beneft o this type o fne understanding o your customers?Youcanpredictmoreaccuratelythosecustomersfuturespendingpatterns.Itisone thing to retain customers, which BI will help you do. It is an even greater thingto target your existing customers to not only stay with your company, but to knowand understand them well enough to sell them even more o your products and

services. BI will help you do that.


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AlargetelecommunicationscompanyhasrolledoutBItoloweritscustomerchurn levels. The marketing department has begun to use BI to understand thebuying habits o its customers by using BI to reveal detailed, plan-activatingtrendswithinvariousglobalregions,includingcustomerspreferredplansand

rates.Armedwiththisinformation,theycanthenusethisinformationtotargetadditional customers and markets around the world, as well as anticipate whatthe customer will need to remain a satisfed client rather than just another cus-tomerthatgotaway.

CONCLUSION

Perhaps you have already rolled out business intelligence to certain departments oyour organization. Or you have already implemented a ront- or back-end packagedapplication, and are looking to BI to yield greater benefts rom these systems. Orperhaps this is the frst time you are considering deploying business intelligencewithin or outside your company. Regardless o where you all on the spectrum, thereis no better time than now during the current economic climate to roll out a BIsolution.

It is during this time that you need more than ever to be more agile, more productive,and more proftable, and only BI oers such an opportunity. BI gives executivesand business managers better visibility o the organization through greaterunderstanding o the operations o the company. BI also gives your organization themeans to understand your customers better and improve their levels o satisaction,andthusretainsomeofyourmostvaluablecustomers.Havingagreaterabilitytonot only retain customers but also gain new ones will very signifcantly impact yourorganizationsbottomline.

You ace a difcult period: budgets are suddenly tighter, you are under more

pressure, the decisions you make today carry much greater weight than they didbeore. Concentrate, thereore, on those implementations that can oer the greatestimmediateimpactonyourorganization.Dontdelay.Focusnowonbusinessintelligence, a solution that oers users in your organization the inormation theyneed while delivering an ROI that any organization can justiy.

IfyouwouldlikefurtherinformationonBusinessObjects,anSAPcompany,and what its products can do or you and your organization, please visit www.businessobjects.com.


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businessobjects.com

2008BusinessObjects.Allrightsreserved.BusinessObjectsownsthefollowingU.S.patents,whichmaycoverproductsthatareofferedandlicensedbyBusinessObjects:5,555,403;6,247,008;6,289,352;6,490,593;6,578,027;6,768,986;6,772,409;6,831,668;6,882,998and7,139,766.BusinessObjectsandtheBusinessObjectslogo,BusinessObjects,CrystalReports,CrystalXcelsius,CrystalDecisions,IntelligentQuestion,DesktopIntelligence,CrystalEnterprise,CrystalAnalysis,WebIntelligence,RapidMarts,andBusinessQueryaretrademarksorregisteredtrademarksofBusinessObjectsintheUnitedStatesand/orothercountries.Allothernamesmentionedhereinmaybetrademarksoftheirrespectiveowners.

Appendix A

The IT Managers BI Prioritization Checklist

Spending Priority The Case or BI

Seek projects that alignwith business goals

BI plays a key role in most corporations and topbusiness initiatives such as increasing employeeproductivity, streamlining operations, and more.

Seek projects withimmediate impact on thecompanysbottomline

BI can deliver tangible results to end users orprojects ranging rom $100,000 to $1 million anorder o magnitude ar less than the $1 millionto $10 million or installing a new operational orautomation system.

Seek projects that helpretain customers

Regardless o your present inrastructure ormanaging customers, BI can help provide immediate

customeranalysisandsegmentation.Asitismuchcheaper retaining a customer than gaining a newone, BI will become a key part o any retentionstrategy you implement.

About Business Objects

AsanindependentbusinessunitwithinSAP,BusinessObjectstransformsthewaythe world works by connecting people, inormation and businesses. Together withoneoftheindustrysstrongestandmostdiversepartnernetworks,thecompanydelivers business perormance optimization to customers worldwide across allmajor industries, including fnancial services, retail, consumer-packaged goods,healthcare and public sector. With open, heterogeneous applications in the areasofgovernance;riskandcompliance;enterpriseperformancemanagement;andbusinessintelligence;andthroughglobalconsultingandeducationservices,Business Objects enables organizations o all sizes around the globe to close the

loop between business strategy and execution.

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