Complementary BI:

The New Approach to Business Intelligence

Executive Summary
The role of business intelligence (BI) to help organizations drive top-line revenue growth, profitability increases, operational improvements, and customer satisfaction is well documented. Many businesses have existing business intelligence efforts that serve their business needs to some degree, while IT organizations have plans or are in the process of building out a more comprehensive BI solution. Often some business users are serviced well, while many others continue to struggle to get access to the critical data they need to be effective in their jobs. Getting their new reports written or analytical tools deployed is not always possible for an overburdened IT organization that is focused on delivering longer term strategic objectives. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) business intelligence can be used in a way that is complementary to in-house BI systems to address targeted business needs more comprehensively.

is being used to rapidly address high-value, urgent business needs when the IT organization is consumed with other It
strategic or urgent activities.

leverages existing investments and infrastructure, driving increased value to the business by creative IT organizations. It Solutions are delivered in as little as six to ten weeks and are very affordable. Places minimal demands on IT and business users. Delivers high user satisfaction, a compelling ROI and significant business benefits in a short period of time.
Complementary BI results in a win-win-win situation for all involved. It provides business users with access to the critical information needed to run their businesses; it allows IT to focus on the strategic projects on their roadmap; and it allows the business to improve its business performance and perform to its potential.

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Complementary BI Priority #1: Business Intelligence

Businesses no longer view business intelligence as simply an operational necessity, but instead as a strategic differentiator. Business intelligence (BI) is the enabling technology to compel new business insights to drive revenue increases, cost reduction, margin increases, operational improvements, and customer satisfaction. A recent Aberdeen survey of 4,300 companies identified business intelligence and analytics as the number one technology that could have the greatest impact on the business during the next two to five years; SaaS products would have the second greatest impact. Business intelligence has provided many companies with visible benefits that can be quantitatively measured and attributed. For example, Casual Male Retail Group has stated that through better visibility into product performance, inventory, and demand, it has increased responsiveness via a SaaS business intelligence solution, improving profit margins by 3.5%. Casual Male is also using a low-resource SaaS BI solution to monitor its market entry strategy into six different European markets to identify high-performing and low-performing areas of the business.

The Challenge: Addressing Immediate Business Needs While Executing the BI Strategy
Many companies have a well-conceived, long-term business intelligence strategy that addresses many of the key components required to put an enterprise BI system in place. Often this includes an enterprise architecture, data management strategy, data cleansing and integration, data warehousing, reporting tools, governance, and ongoing support. Larger companies have dedicated teams to drive, execute, and support their BI strategy and have a multi-year program plan to get this capability in place. In addition to the BI strategy, there are often many other critical IT programs that are in process to address key strategic needs. The challenge many IT organizations face is the pressing need from business users for solutions today (in many cases, they needed them yesterday). In particular, these increasingly analytical business users are demanding access to information and analytic tools to do their job. They have pressing business goals that require IT to enable their execution---whether it is a customer service issue, profitability improvements or an operational issue. The requests are growing rapidly and becoming more urgent, and IT is often under-resourced to keep up with the growing demand. Given the mix of strategic programs, tactical support, and immediate business needs, IT organizations are justifiably strained. In these pressing economic times, the business pressures will grow more intense and additional IT resources will become even scarcer.

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Complementary BI New Approach: Complementary BI

Complementary Business Intelligence is an approach to address specific, short-term, critical business needs, with a BI solution that will complement the existing BI infrastructure. It drives additional value from the investments, infrastructure, and capabilities in place today, and it complements the longer term BI strategy that is being rolled out. This new approach is deployed to address specific business opportunity areas that can drive high value and fast return on investment to the company. Complementary BI allows IT organizations to continue to execute their strategic IT agenda yet extend their ability to be a valued partner to the business user community. Many companies already have BI reporting tools, data stores, and analytical capabilities that may range from spreadsheets and targeted data marts to sophisticated statistical analytical tools and enterprise data warehouses. These capabilities address long-term, broad strategic requirements for the organization. Complementary BI is an approach that works with the existing BI strategy. Key characteristics of complementary BI include:

Addresses a specific, critical business need Deploys in weeks to drive rapid time to value Limits IT resources required to deploy and manage Focuses business users scarce time through use of prebuilt analytics as a starting point Integrates multiple data sources including enterprise, departmental, and simple source systems Leverages existing BI infrastructure including data warehouses, marts, tools, and capabilities
Complementary BI is delivered via a Software-as-a-Service (also known as On-Demand) model to enable rapid deployment, fast time to value, low price point, and minimal use of IT resources. It can be delivered in as little as six weeks. Many CIOs are turning away from the traditional do-it-yourself mindset toward SaaS as the best way to support immediate, critical business issues. According to CIO Magazine, BI vendors are also hearing a lot of pain from current and potential customers who need a quick fix: Inside companies of all sizes, the pressure to aggregate, synchronize, and deliver clean and actionable data to business users has never been more intense. Traditionally, CIOs have had on-premise options to implement business intelligence. First-generation SaaS solutions lacked the requisite security, richness, and comprehensiveness that business users required. They were data visualization tools that sat on top of single data sources, often spreadsheets or simple databases. But todays second-generation SaaS solutions are a different story. They provide a focused solution to quickly drive business value that is as robust and secure as home-grown data warehouse projects, provide a full set of capabilities for many types of users, and can deliver a complete, customized solution in weeks rather than months. Todays SaaS model is about leveraging economies of scale, technology, and expertise. The total cost of ownership for a SaaS solution is typically 30-40% that of an on-premise solution and a small fraction of resources to deploy and support. This is mainly driven by economies of scale in the hardware, software, and infrastructure. SaaS providers have secure hosting facilities set up to leverage servers and storage, and SaaS software development is lower cost as the software is designed, developed, and tested for one specific deployment environment, not the multitude of operating systems. Finally, some leading SaaS providers have domain experts on staff to provide vertical or function specific best practices. These experts can provide guidance to customers, assist in the customization of metrics, and develop a continual stream of new metrics, analytics and reports to be used, as needed.

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Complementary BI
Welchs is a good example of a company employing Complementary BI; Welchs has a number of BI tools, data sources and systems. Their SaaS business intelligence solution enables them to extract and see integrated supply chain analytics data from three different systems. The SaaS solution requires minimal ongoing support from the business and IT groups. They are using this information to find opportunities for cost savings in transportation and fuel usage, and service improvements through more efficient routes, load levels, and carriers. They state that they have been able to pay for their SaaS BI solution in less than 30 days.

Examples of Complementary BI Deployed

Consumer Packaged Goods Company
A large consumer-packaged goods manufacturer recently installed an on-demand BI application that provides analytic insights from its systems and its services providers that was not available from their ERP system. The new complementary business intelligence solution provides a granular level of detail that helps them manage escalating costs in a specific department during these difficult financial times.

Life Sciences Equipment Provider

A global life sciences equipment company has deployed a large ERP system with a standardized set of BI tools; however, one department had pressing business objectives, but was low on the list to get a reporting solution in place. Faced with a looming deadline to deliver business results, this department deployed a Complementary BI solution to enable it to meet its near-term business goals.

Services Company
A leading services company was using a manual approach to measuring the performance of its sales team and products in the marketplace. There was no corporate solution for BI, but there was a pressing need to put something in place quickly. They turned to a Complementary BI solution to address their needs while continuing to develop an enterprise BI strategy.

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Complementary BI Scenarios Where Complementary BI Can Be Deployed

Complementary business intelligence can benefit organizations of any size, industry or level of BI maturity. There are many different examples where Complementary BI can be effectively deployed. Five sample scenarios are listed below.

Targeted Departmental Need:

Inevitably, there are functional departments that get higher priority than others in having their business intelligence reporting and analytics needs meet; however, those departments lower in priority often have pressing business needs as well. The Complementary BI approach can be used to help those departments get a solution up and running in weeks to address their needs without distracting the IT organization from executing its BI roadmap and other critical projects. IT continues to execute the BI strategy, and the business gets its reporting and analytics solution. Win-Win.

Integrated Reporting Off EDW and Other Sources:

Often the enterprise data warehouse (EDW) is a strictly controlled entity subject to oversight by an enterprise IT committee. Integrating new data sources into the EDW is carefully guarded. The actual roadmap for data source systems to be integrated can run 12 to 24 months; however, the business may need to have reporting with data from the EDW and other yet to be integrated (or never to be integrated) data sources. The Complementary BI approach can be used to pull data from the EDW and other data sources into a special purpose data warehouse, and drive reporting and analytics from it. Therefore, the EDW remains sacred and uncluttered, and the business gets a multisource reporting solution. Win-Win.

Visibility Into a Newly Acquired Business:

After the acquisition of a new company closes, there are a series of integration plans. There is often a big question about standardizing systems or integrating them. When should the acquired companys systems be sunsetted? Do the restructuring costs and synergies pay for rollout of back-end system to the new company? Cant that capital be better deployed? In these cases, a Complementary BI approach can be used to pull data from the acquired companys systems, combine it with data from the acquiring business, and provide reporting and analytics to have visibility across both in a very short timeframe. Win-Win.

Organizations Stretched Thin on IT Resources:

During lean economic times, IT budgets get slashed, but demands on IT continue to grow. IT is stretched to its limit to maintain existing systems, address the few, most strategic initiatives, and fight day-to-day fires. A Complementary BI solution can be deployed to provide a rapid, low resource solution for analytics and reporting in specific business areas. IT spends a minimal amount of time during deployment with very limited requirements for ongoing support. Win-Win.

Filling Business-Knowledge Gaps for IT:

Some organizations have knowledge gaps where the business users dont have the time or enough detailed knowledge to articulate their needs precisely so that the IT organization can build the right system to meet their needs. Some companies turn to consultants to help identify best practices for the company to fill this requirements gap. A SaaS BI solution can have business knowledge embedded in it, which can close this gap. Win-Win.

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Complementary BI Contrasting Enterprise BI to Complementary BI

Enterprise BI Scope Focus Entire company Enterprise-wide across departments, data sources, and tools addressing many requirements Typically 2-3 year program with initial deployment in 6 months $500,000 to $ Multi-Million All data that may ever be needed in the data warehouse Built by IT organization Medium to significant Multiple roles Complementary BI Targeted, functional areas Specific business or functional needs that deliver high value, very quickly

Timeframe Cost Data Strategy Content / Tools IT Support

6 to 10 week production go-live $100,000 to $500,000 Business-relevant data based on specific business questions being addressed Best practices packaged into solution Minimal Focused on high value activities

Return on Investment Often a year or two plus

As short as a few months

Benefits of Complementary BI
Complementary BI is a win-win-win situation for an organization: a win for IT, a win for users, and a win for the overall business. Users win because they get the functionality they want in a timeframe that makes it meaningful to them. Instead of waiting until the next fiscal year, they can have it in the next month. The business wins because critical strategic initiatives are being enabled with a BI solution. For the IT organization, they are providing a lot of value to users quickly at an affordable price and without taxing internal IT resources. Plus, it gets the CIO a quick win with the ability to continue to execute the strategic IT agenda. There are some specific, tangible benefits to deploying a Complementary BI solution:

SaaS solutions are often sold with a relatively low up-front fee and a modest monthly management
service fee thereafter. Not only are these fees normally 30-40% of the cost for hardware, software and support of a traditional on premise solution, but they are also fixed, predictable, budgetable fees.

users access the hosted SaaS solution through a secure web-based connection. These interfaces End
tend to be designed for intuitive use and can be accessed from secure, remote locations by employees, services providers, customers, or suppliers with the appropriate access rights.

Hardware and software upgrades are built into the monthly management service fee and handled by the
SaaS vendor, which saves IT departments from rolling out enterprise-wide updates every year or two.

Most SaaS providers have a core solution model with a great degree of flexibility for personalization and
customization.

SaaS BI providers specialize in data integration, allowing them not only to integrate multiple data Top
sources, but also to integrate complementary business data provided from the existing BI infrastructure.

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Complementary BI
SaaS BI moves at the speed of business, providing flexibility to address critical, dynamic business
needs.

Most importantly, Complementary BI delivers real value to the bottom line quickly. It may come
through increased revenue, reduced costs, improved customer satisfaction, and/or stronger operational performance.

Conclusions
As CIOs strive to simultaneously balance urgent business needs with longer term strategic goals, business intelligence will continue to be on the to-do list. Business intelligence and reporting clearly delivers value to organizations. Often the more value delivered, the more BI capability is requested. The Complementary BI approach is being deployed by creative CIOs who want to provide business intelligence solutions to their users that integrate smoothly with existing infrastructure, are cost effective, and deliver the functionality required in a very rapid timeframe. Complementary BI is delivered via an on-demand SaaS model and can benefit organizations of almost any size. Whether an organization has an existing data warehouse that serves as a data source or the business has a specific reporting need that must be addressed quickly, Complementary BI delivers results quickly, at an affordable price, and without a drain on IT resources.

The Oco Complementary On Demand BI Solution

We provide the most comprehensive BI SaaS solution on the market. It has been deployed as a Complementary approach to existing BI deployments. The solution has a number of characteristics that allow companies to deploy it in a variety of circumstances:

Deploys in 6 to 10 weeks Incorporates best practice vertical analytics Provides a comprehensive solution with data integration, data warehousing, and reporting & analytics Capabilities for all types of users, from executives to line managers, business analysts to casual users Tools include executive dashboards, ad-hoc tools, multi-dimensional drillable reports, push reports,
exception reports and alerts

Delivered as a On-Demand SaaS solution Monthly pricing synchronized with value realization
The solution allows companies to gain significant benefits without having to divert from their enterprise BI strategy. These benefits include:

Very rapid time to value, targeted at 90 days resource requirements from the IT organization Low Limited, focused involvement from the business during solution deployment Leverage existing investments and experience with BI tools and data management infrastructure
Please visit Oco at www.oco-inc.com to find out more about how we can deploy a Complementary BI solution to provide rapid ROI in your existing BI infrastructure.

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Complementary BI

Five Things You Should Know About SaaS

1. What kind of services are offered?
Todays SaaS solutions address a range of business applications including expense management, customer relationship management, human resources, and business intelligence. Services are generally delivered via web browsers with carefully deployed security protocols and access control.

2. How do SaaS vendors charge for services?

Services may be offered by subscription, by department, or by project. Look for a vendor that has the experience to deliver on its promises.

3. What kind of companies use SaaS?

SaaS solutions have a significant presence across all company sizes with large Fortune 500 and midsized companies using them to address specific areas of functionality. SaaS solutions are projected to make major inroads into larger corporations, especially within business units that want to deploy strategic solutions quickly without the overhead and expense of working through a strategic, centralized corporate BI infrastructure.

4. Are SaaS solutions secure?

SaaS solutions are typically hosted at Tier 1 hosting facilities that are in the business of managing outsourced data. Security protocols typically include very tight security at the physical location including biometric access, and carefully monitored cyber security processes with tools to ensure breaches do not occur. Often SaaS solutions are more secure than corporate IT departments and have the certifications to prove it.

5. How mature are SaaS solutions?

Todays SaaS vendors have moved past the early stage of market development to robust, enterpriseclass applications.

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Complementary BI

Making the right choice

Today, the SaaS market is comprised mostly of young and innovative companies who may only be a few years removed from their initial start-up phase. While some leaders have emerged, such as Salesforce.com, in most SaaS markets its still a relatively fluid field. CIOs would do well to consider these key points when evaluating a SaaS solutions provider:

Is this a proven, field-tested solution?

Ask for customer names and find out what their experience has been with the SaaS solution and how long the implementation really took. Did the provider deliver on its promises? Is the solution really adding value to the business?

Is it secure and scalable?

As SaaS applications proliferate, ensure that your provider meets your security requirements. The industry security standards such as SAS 70 Type 1 and 2 certification or PCI compliance can be good guidelines; however, the sensitivity of the specific data involved should be your guide to avoid paying for a gold plated security solution that may not be warranted.

Does it offer robust analysis?

Not all SaaS BI solutions are created equal, and some provide more granular detail such as drill-down data analysis that ensures end users dont exhaust the benefits of the solution after six months. Business users cant trust the solution if they cant drill down to the base level data to build confidence in it.

How fast can you expect a working solution?

SaaS BI providers should be able to commit to a firm project timeline to realize the rapid returns set forth in the initial value proposition. While SaaS isnt a panacea for everything, it is an effective means of quickly delivering targeted BI applications to business users. CIOs would be wise to consider SaaS as another weapon in their IT arsenal. Especially for those CIOs who need to do more with less, and do it more quickly than ever before, SaaS may be the best ally they have.

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Contact: 781.810.2100 www.oco-inc.com

Copyright 2011. All rights reserved. Oco and Oco, Inc and the Oco logo are trademarks of Oco Incorporated. All other names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective owners. All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies. Data contained in this document serve informational purposes only. National product specifications may vary.