UNIVERSITY OF EXETER BI/09/05

BI PROJECT BOARD, 05 August 2009

S Sherwood
Project Manager (BISS), Academic Services

Business Intelligence Project the next steps

1 INTRODUCTION

Due to a change in strategic direction for the University, the Business Intelligence project has been
refocused from KPIs to include Business Planning. Although the project is still in progress, the procurement
work stream has been stopped pending a review of available options and an agreement on the required
approach. The Data quality work continues, in addition to a range of other smaller work streams, looking at
BI in key areas, such as Admissions and NSS data.

The BI Project team have been asked to prepare this document to summarise the next steps of the project,
the available procurement options for the University, and some key action points.

2 CURRENT SITUATION

2.1 Project Scope

The scope of the project, although mostly unchanged from the original PID, has had a shift in emphasis
towards Business Planning and the necessary supporting data. The KPI reports and balanced scorecard will
also need to be delivered alongside the planning requirements. There is a substantial increase in scope in
terms of requirements gathering now that the full business planning process is to fall with the project remit
and this does need to be evaluated in terms of resourcing and finances.

2.2 BI Team resources

The current BI project team consist of 4 core team members:

Project Manager (currently 50% fte)

2 x BI Developers (currently 80% fte each)
Data Analyst (currently 50% fte)

The BI developers are working on a range of mini-projects and other University work, including Xrep exam
reporting, Admissions data warehouse, Monarch, HR system reporting and various other operational
reporting requirements.

Once a route has been agreed, resources would need to be considered.

2.3 Data Quality

The Data Quality work continues to move forward:

An outline template for dealing with data quality has been drawn up and is being tested on data in
SITS. The template aims to provide a framework for gathering all the necessary information, assign
the problems and documenting changes that are made. An essential part of this process is to agree
data owners and responsibilities to ensure that data is monitored, corrected and maintained once
the initial fixes are complete.

Alongside work on pure data quality the team are looking at issues surrounding data structures with
the aim to produce a master list of Schools, Departments, programmes, JACS codes and cost
centres. The list will contain all the core structures in each of the key IT systems at the university
and maps them all into a framework which can be used for reporting.

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 Work through July and August will focus on testing the template by working on data quality in the
SCE (Student Currently Enrolled) screen in SITS, as this screen contains some of the most critical
data that we will use for BI. The team will also be focussed on producing the master list of data
structures so this can be implemented in SITS in time for the new academic year. As a team it is
now important to decide how we will measure success in terms of data quality and what we will
measure to show that the work that is being completed has been successful.

All work on data quality and data structures will be completed in consultation with Schools and Professional
Services to ensure that the data is operationally correct and manageable for reporting.

2.4 Business Planning

Given the new focus on Business Planning, there will need to be a period of requirements gathering and a
definition of scope and objectives for the project.

The University currently has a Business Planning process that has been modified and refined over a
number of years. The current system is constrained by the software available and as a result does not
provide the necessary flexibility or insight into Business Planning. In addition it is very resource intensive, is
open to errors and is inefficient.

The focus on any requirements gathering should therefore be to identify:

a) What we do currently:
Processes and workflows
Strengths/weaknesses of Business Planning
Stakeholders and their input
Bottlenecks
Data quality issues

b) What we would like to do in the future

What should Business Planning incorporate?
Optimum process
Optimum business plan design
Who needs to be involved?
What other data should we include?
What Business modelling and forecasting we need

The initial aim is for the BI team to gain a greater understanding of the Business Planning process, the staff
involved, and the planning timetable. Discussions with a School and with key stakeholders from Finance
would be beneficial in this process.

This can then be followed by a series of business planning workshops, supplemented with ad-hoc
discussions/interviews with key staff involved in the planning process.

The process and outline timescale for scoping the Business & Financial Planning are:

1. Initial information gathering and identification of key stakeholders August 2009

2. Requirements gathering workshops September 2009
3. Finalising Business Plan design, workflows and deliverables October 2009
4. Completion of scoping work and sign off of requirements 1st November 2009

2.5 Business Intelligence

Whilst there has been a refocus to Business Planning, the core Business Intelligence area remains a key
part of the project, in aiming to deliver reports against University KPIs, a balance scorecard, and other
reports as required.

The core Business Intelligence work will be focussed on developing a single data warehouse that consists of

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a number of different business areas, containing data that is mapped, transformed, and structured to suit our
reporting needs. This will form the basis for the University KPI reports, and will also be used for the
Business Planning element of the project, which will call on the core BI system to pull data into Business
Plans and forecasts

2.6 Project budget

The project budget is 1.17million, of which 90k has been spent, mainly on project staff salaries (Project
Manager and Data analyst), consultancy for the early stages of the project, and payment back to the
Academic Services budget for some pre-project spend against the Dowry Fund (primarily for BI servers and
hardware).

We have learnt from the procurement process that our initial budget was realistic the final 6 bids received
at tender ranged between 370k and 720k for software and consultancy to deliver BI and KPI reporting to
the University. In all cases these costs included a BI Planning tool, although the consultancy required to
support and deliver a Business Planning solution were not provided in full, due to the initial focus being
primarily on KPIs.

The original project budget made allowances for additional (non recurrent) technical staff on the project, to
address any requirements for multiple mini-projects that could be run in parallel, to help deliver KPI reports
and other BI requirements across the University in a condensed timeframe. Whether this is required is not
yet certain, but will depend on the full scope of the project, and the timescales in which the Board requires
the BI and Business Planning solutions to be delivered.

Consultancy rates varied dramatically, but given the change in the economic climate since this project
began, the University would be in a very strong position to negotiate very competitive discounts for both
consultancy and software, which would enable us to use the project budget more flexibly.

The budget provision, the information generated from the procurement, and the above analysis suggest that
the University should be able to ensure it gets maximum value for money from the budget through provision
of both BI and Business Planning software. Some further analysis is necessary to give a definitive position
and which will need to be done prior to the next procurement on this, but at this stage the prognosis is good.

Recommendations

Clearly define the project scope, objectives, and deliverables

Define resource requirements and agree requirements of all team members.
Define the Business Planning goals for the BI project

The recommended structure going forward is to look at BI as a Programme of work with two
separate projects running. These projects would be headed up by two project managers:

Project 1 Business Intelligence

Project 2 Business & Financial Planning

It should be noted that although there are two project elements, they will be connected under a
single programme, with one budget, and one Project Board. Work streams may run across both
projects (e.g. data quality)

3. THE MARKET

3.1 Market Research

The University has undertaken a significant amount of market research prior to the BI project, including
demonstrations from Microsoft, Cognos, Oracle, Business Objects and SAS. The BI product
demonstrations were supplemented by visits to Warwick, Durham and Newcastle Universities, and a visit to
BT to see how each organisation uses (or intended to use) BI. The feedback from the Universities listed
above proved to be of limited value on tool selections, as decisions were made before the current offerings
in BI were available. For example, Nottingham chose Cognos 7 years ago, and implemented Business
Planning at a later date mainly because it fitted their existing system.

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The BI project procurement process has also allowed us to see more of the major products (Oracle and
Business Objects) through supplier presentations, in addition to the WebFOCUS product offered through
Information Builders. The Proof of Concept workshops allowed us to investigate further still, with hands on
experience of the latest Oracle and Business Objects tools, and how they can be used to solve real life
University data and reporting issues.

Appendix A shows BI products currently being used in the HE sector, and where available, details of how BI
is being used at each institution.

3.2 Changes to the Market

The BI market has been going through a period of consolidation over the past 12 months and there has
been little change in the positions of the major suppliers apart from the withdrawal of Microsoft from the
Corporate Performance Management (planning and budgeting) market, and the purchase of Business
Objects by SAP. According to Gartner the emphasis from the mega-vendors has been on integrating recent
acquisitions into their product stacks rather than making further major acquisitions.

3.3 Gartners View

The lists below give the leaders in both the BI sector and the Corporate Performance Management (CPM)
sector according to Gartner. During the previous procurement cycle it was decided that the Universitys
requirements for data quality software were minimal as much of the work could be completed in house, and
therefore there would not be the requirement for specialist tools. As such this area of software is no longer
under consideration. The Extract, Transform and Load (ETL) tool is likely to be purchased as part of the
overall package and will not greatly influence the purchase decision so this has been omitted from this
paper.

Business Intelligence Corporate Performance

Leaders Management Leaders
IBM Cognos Oracle
Microsoft SAP Business Objects
Oracle IBM Cognos
SAP Business Objects
Information Builders
Microstrategy
SAS

The diagram below is taken from Gartners Magic Quadrant for Corporate Performance Management,
which ranks BI vendors according to their position in the market. This ranking considers a wide range of
factors, and is considered one of the best indicators available to assess the quality and scope of the BI tools
offered by each vendor.

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Gartners assessment clearly puts Oracle, Business Objects, and Cognos as leaders in the BI Corporate
Performance Management field. This gives us confidence in our procurement process, as all three were in
our final 6 that were invited to tender, and two were part of our final shortlist. This would also mean we could
invest in these products with confidence, knowing that Gartner considers them to be the best tools on the
market and able to meet business needs more fully than their competitors.

Following a recent conversation with Gartner, the following points were noted:

General

There is currently a lot of interest in CPM (Corporate Performance Management) and Planning tools
Gartner are not surprised at our change in project emphasis
Given the current financial situation we should expect up to 50% discount on any product selected
There are many CPM products available for smaller organisations like ours.
Any supplier chosen should have a good understanding of the HE sector in terms of terminology,
funding models etc. Oracle, IBM and SAP all have specialist HE partners.

CPM Products

The two leading suppliers of enterprise CPM software are Oracle and SAP (Business Objects)
Oracle Hyperion is the Rolls Royce application in the marketplace today. However, Oracle OBIEE
Plus with Essbase would probably be sufficient for our needs
Similarly, Business Objects BPC tool may be slight overkill
Cognos TM1 planning engine is similar to Essbase a lower-end tool with associated lower total
cost of ownership
Microsoft has recently withdrawn its dedicated CPM tool. Use of Microsoft for planning would
require SharePoint and Excel.

Other Options

There are not many open source CPM solutions mainly because large corporates (especially
Finance Directors) are nervous of using open source for mission-critical applications. This is unlikely
to change in the near future. The only offering that has such capabilities is Pentaho.
Another area which is growing in popularity and which may offer a quick and cost-effective option is
SaaS (Software as a Service). Adaptive Planning and Host Analytics are worth considering. However,
a good ETL tool would be required to extract the planning data for BI purposes.

Project Approach

Gartner advise that a single supplier, fully integrated solution for BI and CPM (Oracle, IBM or SAP)
is the best option to go for. However, best of breed is OK if we are willing to accept integration costs
Implementing CPM could provide a quick win for the project and could be considered in parallel
with BI if resource permits.

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Recommendations

Sufficient market research has been conducted to be able to proceed with the next phase of the
project. The Project Board are asked to approve this decision

4. OPTIONS

In terms of buying BI software, there are a range of options available:

OPTION 1

Best of Breed this term is used to define the strategy of buying the best tool for each specialised area of
the business process, instead of looking at a more integrated solution.

Advantages: each set of requirements is likely to be met more fully by the specialised tools

Disadvantages:
o Each system or component stands alone and has to be supported by the individual
suppliers
o Where problems fall between systems it is sometimes difficult to assign responsibility to one
supplier
o Data moving between the systems will need bespoke development and maintenance with
the added risk of bugs being introduced

OPTION 2

Choose a single supplier based on the Upgrade route - this option may be available because we already
use products from some of the BI vendors, and may be able to purchase additional software. The major
software suppliers are listed below with details of whether the upgrade route would be possible. It should be
noted that as a result of the procurement process, the team has increased knowledge of Oracle and
Business Objects and therefore a better understanding of both their advantages and disadvantages.

Oracle

Advantages:
Current supplier of BI justifiable upgrade
One of the 2 chosen suppliers from the previous round
Acknowledged leader in both BI and CPM
Have Campus agreement for HE specific discounts
Relatively cheap (provided the Campus Agreement deal is favourable)
Proved popular with end-users during Proof of Concept stage
Seen during Proof of Concept would not need in depth evaluation

Disadvantages
Requires complicated negotiation around Campus agreement
ETL component not as good as others

SAP Business Objects

Advantages:
Current supplier of BI justifiable upgrade
One of the 2 chosen suppliers from the previous round
Acknowledged leader in both BI and CPM
One of the best ETL tools on the market
Seen during Proof of Concept would not need in depth evaluation

Disadvantages
Relatively expensive
IBM Cognos

Advantages:

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 Acknowledged leader in both BI and CPM
Widely used within HE

Disadvantages
Relatively expensive
Not one of the top 2 chosen in previous round
Not a current BI tool within the University no justifiable upgrade, so could
require EU tender route
Not seen during Proof of Concept would need in depth evaluation

SAS

Advantages:
Acknowledged leader in BI
Very good reputation for CPM package (just outside Leader Quadrant)
Have Campus agreement for HE specific discounts, which would cover all
staff and students for less than the price of any of the other tools under consideration
Relatively cheap
Not a current supplier of BI, although we do have an education only licence
probably not a justifiable upgrade in terms of BI, but worth investigating

Disadvantages
Not one of the top 2 chosen in previous round
Not seen during Proof of Concept would need in depth evaluation
Very limited use in the HE sector

Microsoft

Advantages:
Acknowledged leader in BI
Have Campus agreement for HE specific discounts (??)
Relatively cheap
Current supplier of BI justifiable upgrade

Disadvantages
Not one of the top 2 chosen in previous round
Not seen during Proof of Concept would need in depth evaluation
Has no CPM component would become best of breed solution

OPTION 3

Consultancy we could use a split tender for software and consultancy, which would reduce risk, but may
limit our discount options and take longer. Depending on the software, this approach may bring each
element below the 139k EU limit, allowing us more flexibility on selection.

OPTION 4

Software can it be broken down into modules? We could look to buy the BI and planning software in
smaller chunks, which may bring more flexibility, but may lose us any bulk discount or software bundle
advantages.

OPTION 5

We could restart the EU procurement process, implementing any lessons learnt:

We could use the PQQ process to filter out more suppliers that dont fit our criteria
We could utilise the new, faster EU procurement route proposed by the OGC, where a restricted route
could be run in around 30 days
We could shortlist less suppliers, although the current EU route stipulates at least 5 should be invited
to tender, so this would only reduce our previous shortlist by 1.
Change how we run the selection process - there is a new legal requirement that was introduced by
the OGC during our previous procurement process, whereby all tenderers have to be treated equally

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 throughout the process. If we invited 5 to tender, they would all need to do presentations and Proof of
Concept workshops, if that was our chosen evaluation method.

OPTION 6

We could run a different procurement process, although given the project value, our options may be limited,
and this would need to be scoped with Procurement and Legal Services

OPTION 7

We could look at Open source BI software, however, this is generally not used enterprise-wide, and is seen
as technically complex and resource intensive. As previously stated, there is also insufficient confidence in
the BI market for these tools to be a viable option for such a business critical process like Business
Planning.

OPTION 8

We could just buy what we need, although the total value must be less than 139k over 5 years. If we
restrict the number of licences we buy initially, then ramp up over time, this might be a viable option. This
would have the benefit of a low initial cost, and keeping the value below the EU tender limit radar. However,
given the software costs from the major vendors, even a limited roll-out is likely to take us above 139k
over 5 years, and the drawbacks of having limited end-user penetration with the software might outweigh
any benefits.

It should be noted that whatever route is chosen, the BI team should consider the proposed restructuring of
Schools into Colleges, and the impact on licensing for the BI software. It will be necessary to revisit the
original licence estimates, as there may be economies of scale with the new University structures that could
yield significant savings.

Recommendations

The most straightforward route would appear to be purchasing Oracle via an upgrade to existing
licenses. Oracle seems the most justifiable as it runs our current BI infrastructure including reporting
and the Admissions data warehouse as well as the ETL functionality.
Business Objects would also be an option as we have around 40 licenses for reporting but is the
most expensive of the options available.
Another option to stay under the OGC limit would be to investigate a low cost solution such as SAS
which offers favorable campus agreements and is currently used in the Business School for
educational purposes.
The option of an EU tender route is always available, and could be shortened to as little as 30 days.
This route would allow more detailed exploration of software and suppliers.

5 RECOMMENDATIONS

Once the recommendations in this paper have been agreed, the BI Project team will report progress to the
Board, who will be asked to approve the following:

Objectives and scope for the Project

Business Planning and BI deliverables
Recommended approach
Proposed project timescales
Project resource requirements

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Appendix 1 BI usage in the HE sector

This summary was compiled from responses from the admin planning JISCMail list, contacts at other
HEIs, and web research. It is not comprehensive and the inclusion of an HEI does not necessarily
mean they are using the BI tools enterprise-wide. At the time of writing, it has not been possible to
contact all HEIs listed, and therefore we may know the tools they are using, but not their BI focus.

BI tool University BI focus

Actuate eReport Roehampton Operational reporting on student data recruitment

targets, curricula, timetabling

IBM Cognos East Anglia

Glamorgan
Nottingham Student numbers, income planning and institutional
budgeting
Nottingham Trent Management Planning
Queen Mary London
Sheffield Staff and student reporting - finance, HR and payroll,
research management and admissions systems
Staffordshire
Warwick Business Planning

Information De Montford Management reports and dashboards

Builders/WebFOCUS

Microsoft performance Lancaster

Point / Proclarity
Northumbria Business Planning

Oracle Bedfordshire Student data and management - Intelligent campus

Dublin City
Heriot-Watt
Imperial Research data
Liverpool John Moores Student recruitment and enrolment
Manchester Curriculum and student data management
Metropolitan
Middlesex

Panorama Novaview Teesside

QlikTech QlikView Anglia Ruskin Operational reporting application and registration

statistics, space planning and budgeting
Bath Spa
Sunderland

SAP Business Objects Birmingham Student records and finance data

Cardiff Research awards, staff data and lifelong learning data
Durham Research and teaching data
East Anglia
Edinburgh Operational reporting for Finance and HR data
Greenwich Student data reporting
Newcastle Financial data and planning
Northampton Student data and management
Staffordshire Finance, personnel & payroll, admissions data
Surrey
University College BI Reporting against finance, student, and HR systems
Dublin
West of England
York Time and attendance monitoring, admissions data,
library, and accommodation

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 SAS Swansea Funding returns, academic statistics, FTE load
planning and forecasting
The Open University

Tableau LSE General BI (not Planning)

Oxford Student data and management
Warwick

Other BI products available but for which a UK HEI has not yet been identified as a user:

Bissantz Indicee JasperSoft

LogiXML Microstrategy Pentaho
Talend Tibco Spotfire

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