Enterprise Performance Management - Data is First Priority

I compared the “Data Management” with a story of Elephant and Seven Blind Men in my last blog post http://manageyourdata.blogspot.in/2012/09/data-management-elephant-seven-blind-men.html . I promised to start writing my views about the issues that I heard so far from my customers, consultants and product companies that I worked with. The first issue is confusion with the whole terminology. This seems very basic thing but if all stakeholders in this value chain are not talking same language, same terms with same meaning the initiative is doomed to fail. 5 years back in 2007, when I was working on evaluating a “data mapper” product for a company in California – I realized how complex a terminolgy issue can be. I was at their office for 2 days, going through product screens, meeting high value real architects. The product was really good, nice UI, good functionality – but less appeal in the market. I was talking to marketing head, and he said – Prashant ask me questions about...

I am sure most of you read a story of Elephant and Seven Blind Men. For starters - this is how the story goes - "A number of blind men came to an elephant. Somebody told them that it was an elephant. The blind men asked, ‘What is the elephant like?’ and they began to touch its body. One of them said: 'It is like a pillar.' This blind man had only touched its leg. Another man said, ‘The elephant is like a husking basket.’ This person had only touched its ears. Similarly, he who touched its trunk or its belly talked of it differently." As Wikipedia mentions - This story has been used to illustrate a range of truths and fallacies. At various times it has provided insight into the relativism, opaqueness or inexpressible nature of truth, the behavior of experts in fields where there is a deficit or inaccessibility of information, the need for communication, and respect for different perspectives. The moral of the story is - While one's subjective experience...

A very good article by Dave Hannon - Successful Procurement? It's A Numbers Game  . I fully agree with Dave on this one. Thanks Prashant

Exceprts and link to a good procurement article by Chris Salis, SAP's Global Vice President of Procurement Solutions - The procurement organization has never been afraid of technology. It rode the dot-com wave like many other departments, rolling out e-procurement and reverse auction functionality, while launching public and private marketplaces by the dozens. It used technology to automate routine tasks with the goal of taking the next step and focusing on more strategic areas like supplier risk management and detailed spend analysis. But for many procurement organizations, that next step didn’t come. They got bogged down in resource constraints or budget cuts and never deployed the technology required to truly transform procurement. Now is the time for procurement to take that step. In the current market, many companies are focused on bottom-line savings and top-line growth, and the latest wave of procurement technology can help drive both. To learn how new innovations ar...

If you are SAP Service partner and looking forward for new business avenues with growth trajectory in 2012 - here are some convincing pointers coming out from SAP from their financial results outlook and all the buzz around just concluded SAP FKOM in New Orleans and Milan. Lets look at the highlights of 2011 financial results and outlook provided - ( http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-25/sap-forecasts-higher-profit-sales-this-year-on-analytics-mobile-software.html ) 1. Record Software Revenue 2. Exceeding Revenue Guidance 3.  Exceeding Operating Profit Guidance 4. S trong Margin Growth 5. Exceeding Company Expectations for SAP HANA and Mobile In general - SAP will ride heavily on 5 things in next 2 years to reach to that critical goal  of 320 Million euros from HANA only and 2015 goal of 20 Billion euro company. HANA Cloud Mobility Sustainability Analytics If you are already in atleast one of these - lot of opportunities to grow - if you are not - ...

In today's competitive business environment (as if it was less competitive at some point ), the most important thing is analytics. Analytics because it gives some kind of actionable intelligence. This intelligence when implemented correctly through multiple actions inside organizational business units provides a predictibility - which directly business bottomlines. SAP is having this complete solution suite - Enterprise Performance Management - which includes different solutions for different problems. The end goal for each of these is same - to gain some predictability and enhance performance of the function and then collectively enhance performance of the organization as a whole. Lets look at these different solutions - Strategy management – Set your goals, map your strategies, and then manage performance from high-level objectives to operational metrics. Planning and consolidation – Increase the accuracy and effectiveness of planning, budgeting, forecasting and financial...

So there is a new animal in the zoo. Is it really really different ? probably yes - probably not. But yes - world seems to be curious to know - if its different then whats that difference is? SAP recently launched its long awaiting "new" product in Spend Analytics named as "SAP BusinessObjects Data Enrichment and Classification" (SAP BOBJ DEC). You can read official SAP page  here  and also download the product related information in this  SAP DEC PDF . Is it a game changer ? Yes. Since SAP took over Analytics Inc in 2008 and Business Objects in the same year - they announced a product roadmap integrating the technology platform with the engine that Analytics got on board. 3 years of big effort and we got this good new product. So whats the real difference that SAP partners like Bristlecone can offer now ? 1. A faster engine - Which means less execution time for a engagement - traslated into quick spend visbility 2. Large vendor repository - a real good more...