1) BI Self Service

Gone are the days when BI was the software for limited users in an organization. Today, BI tools are required and utilized efficiently at many different levels. Even though BI is still a different process, it has become a part of daily use. This criterion has created a need of different types of Reports and Dashboards required at different levels based on the level of the user. Top Management, Middle Layer, Sales Teams and many other user groups have different needs in terms of reports and analysis. Till now IT was responsible for creating required dashboards and reports for different users as and when needed.

But, not any more, as the new trend of Mobile BI and On-The-Run connectivity has enforced users to take the power into their own hands and create the reports and dashboards as per their requirement without interaction of IT team. There is the increased need to create insight on the fly instead of through standard IT (governance) processes. More and more BI users are taking over tasks that traditionally were the field of the IT developers.

As more organisations are looking for user friendly and self-serve BI tools, vendors will oblige by helping non-IT users with the required flexibility. This will also help IT teams to focus on other aspects and challenges.

2) BIG Data

BIG Data in itself is not new but in recent years the term has created a buzz mainly because it is now applicable to regular BI users and overall organization. Successful business intelligence projects will need to consider Big Data as part of their data landscape for the value it delivers. More and more organisations will look toward statistics and data mining to set strategic direction and gain greater insights to beat the competition. Big Data can change the whole scenario on Information & Data storage as it is expected to start to move out of silos and into enterprise IT.

Big Data is expected to change the information scene and the organisations adapting it will benefit with strong competitive advantage and insight previously impossible. Solutions to handle Big Data will enable organizations to provide enriched customer experience and manage the risks in better way; fundamentally changing the way information is managed and used.

BI vendors will need to adapt to Big Data in order to provide enhanced performance and better results.

3) Cloud Computing

Cloud computing will gain even more popularity in 2012, so will the discussion of BI in the Cloud. There are 2 completely different opinions among the BI communities.  On one side, Users and Experts still have their doubts on moving BI in the Cloud mainly because of the challenges in movement of the data and attaining required performance. On the other hand, BI on Cloud presents multiple advantages of its own to the users. Businesses of all sizes can leverage vast computing and storage resources in the cloud without having to invest in expanding their existing IT footprints or IT support staffs. Cloud-based BI and analytics tools also free business users from having to rely on IT to generate reports or create dashboards for them, thus enabling decision-makers to act quickly on fast-changing market conditions. The accessibility of cloud-based BI and analytics also helps foster greater collaboration and teamwork among decision-makers, including those who might be geographically separated.

Yet, challenges are far feared to be more compared to the advantages with current offerings provided by different BI vendors. The major challenge is to move the huge amount of data into the cloud initially. Also, there are other key considerations like Security, Bandwidth requirements, Performance related issues, Client interfaces on multiple type of platforms and devices driven by changing Mobile technology & BYOD.

When data is in the already in cloud it will be a great benefit to have BI there. Right now, though, there isn’t enough data on cloud. BI on Cloud is an important trend but not critical for BI yet

4) BI on Mobile

Inarguably, Mobile BI is the hottest trend yet; making everyone, including BI Users, Vendors and Experts, jumping on the Mobile BI Bandwagon. Changing technology of mobile applications is enabling users to stay connected to the business application all the time. This is creating highly mobile and remote users even in BI space, especially the Top Decision Makers who require the on-the-fly connectivity. The increase in maturity and adoption of mobile technology has created a workforce reliant upon instant access to information resulting faster reactions. The increasing use of Smartphones and Tablets has brought in the freedom from Wired World to the Wireless, mainly due to availability of richer application on multiple platforms; which in BI front is a slight challenge. With growing support to BYOD, BI vendors will have multiple platforms to support as they go mobile.

Yet, the advantages are far better and users are demanding the BI on Mobile than any other developments. Operational BI and mobile tools synergize to create an environment where performance can be managed effectively and from any location. Thus Mobile BI has become a must have solution for every orgnisation with more & more C-level executives seeing the value of better business decision making, more often, when and where they need it.

These are the focus areas of BI for the months to come. But the effectiveness of the changes caused by them will remain for a very long time changing the entire scenario in a few years’ time. Not only it will help organisations become more flexible and responsive to changing market needs but also to create a self-reliant and knowledgeable workforce making better decisions at all levels.

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Performance Benchmarks

This disruptive breakthrough in performance to generate BI reports with millions of records is a game changer. MAIA Intelligence tested within its labs on a 4GB RAM Client Machine and 32GB RAM Server Machine to process over 10Million+ transaction records from SQL 2012 database in multidimensional in memory BI cube report format published within browser in 5seconds flat. Find the attached screen shot to understand the performance scalability like never before.

“With 1KEY unprecedented deployment success since 2006,” said Sanjay Mehta, CEO of MAIA Intelligence. “It has already surpassed over 45000+ user base. With the upcoming release of 1KEY HPC, we expect more existing customers to make the move to 1KEY HPC and additionally add over 50000+ users within one year of release. Banks, Life Insurance, Financial Services companies are going to be the first adopters of this technology as their requirement of instant decision making on large volume data is dire need”

“This version 1KEY HPC eliminates traditional BI task of OLAP formation or building MDX queries, with quick aggregated data throughput it is great user satisfaction and removes irritant of processing report time lag.” Said Hiten Rathod – Head Channels & Partnerships. “There is no requirement to purge data or create multiple access methods to improve report performance. Just click and data is available in a flash. “

Large Volume Data Aggregation Availability Instantaneously

1KEY HPC is going to be an BI platform with in memory architecture where in aggregation methods, complex calculations with analytical data crunching is done in memory through 1KEY engine to improve massive performance capabilities. The point is that even with a one server of 1KEY HPC on SQL 2012, you can get blistering performance from a reporting query, because it performs the calculation in memory. This would address the data problems of today and tomorrow effectively. 1KEY HPC will be made commercially available in Q3 of 2012.

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By now, it is clear that, 1KEY TOUCH lets you create interactive and dynamic dashboards. But it is not just the dynamic dashboard that differentiates 1KEY TOUCH from competition. There are many other features like Maps, Export to Presentation which helps 1KEY TOUCH to be a top choice Dashboard Software for any CIO.

A dashboard in 1KEY TOUCH can have multiple tabs. Also, there can be single or multiple sources of data for single dashboard. On any tab 1KEY TOUCH allows us to use many types of parameters for creating dashboards. Common parameters are the ones which are common to all tabs while Tabwise parameters have limited scope to a particular tab. Individual parameters cater to single object and Query parameters act as a pre-filter to data before running a dashboard. Input parameters provide input value and are used for “What-If Analysis” for complete dashboard. Input Slider parameters are same as Input parameter but allow us to select a range of input using slider.

1KEY TOUCH features multiple types of objects which can be integrated together on a single dashboard. Objects like Charts, Grids, Gauges, Maps can be integrated with custom Images, Videos, Labels etc. into single dashboard. Also, all these objects can be related to each other and be dynamic. Ie. Changes in any object can be automatically reflected on to the other related objects.

1KEY TOUCH provides us with multiple types of chart like Common, Multiseries and Stacked charts. It also features Multiseries Combination charts, Dual Axis Charts and Inverse Spline Charts. Charts in 1KEY TOUCH provide features like Drill Down, Number Scale Formatting, Trendlines, Formulae etc.

1KEY TOUCH also provides us with Grids that can be used for creating objects with KPIs, Mini Charts, Mini Gauge & Data Summery etc.

Gauges in 1KEY TOUCH are also of multiple types for various kinds of dashboards. Along with Angular and Linear gauges, it also features Thermometer, Cylinder and Bulb Gauges. These gauges include features like Top Bottom Values, Aggregation, Start Angles & Limits, Formulas and KPI Conditions.

Another important feature of 1KEY TOUCH is Maps. Dashboards in 1KEY TOUCH are enabled include geographical maps. Various single or multiple shape files can be added into a dashboard. The map files are part of 1KEY TOUCH bundle. Interestingly, Maps also have features like Drill Down, Custom Data Grids, Customized Tool Tips, KPIs for each Level and Markers.

Additionally, 1KEY TOUCH is a Web Based application which has Zero Footprints on client side. This means, IT teams do not have to worry about installation and maintenance on user level which is a big benefit for IT teams.

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Three main types of digital dashboard dominate the market today: stand alone software applications, web-browser based applications, and desktop applications also known as desktop widgets. The last are driven by a widget engine.

Specialized dashboards may track all corporate functions. Examples include human resources, recruiting, sales, operations, security, information technology, project management, customer relationship management and many more departmental dashboards.

Digital dashboard projects involve business units as the driver and the information technology department as the enabler. The success of digital dashboard projects often depends on the metrics that were chosen for monitoring. Key performance indicators, balanced scorecards, and sales performance figures are some of the content appropriate on business dashboards.

The business intelligence dashboard is often confused with the performance scorecard. The main difference between the two, traditionally, is that a business intelligence dashboard, like the dashboard of a car, indicates the status at a specific point in time. A scorecard, on the other hand, displays progress over time towards specific goals. Dashboard and scorecard designs are increasingly converging. For example, some commercial dashboard products also include the ability to track progress towards a goal. A product combining elements of both dashboards and scorecards is sometimes referred to as a scoreboard.

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Dashboards give signs about a business letting you know something is wrong or something is right. The corporate world has tried for years to come up with a solution that would tell them if their business needed maintenance or if the temperature of their business was running above normal. Dashboards typically are limited to show summaries, key trends, comparisons, and exceptions. There are five Key elements to a good dashboard:

1. Simple, communicates easily

2. Minimum distractions…it could cause confusion

3. Supports organize business with meaning and useful data

4. Applies human visual perception to visual presentation of information

5. Comforting to the eye

Dashboards can be broken down according to role as strategic, analytical and operational. Strategic dashboards support managers at any level in an organization, and provide the quick overview that decision makers need to monitor the health and opportunities of the business. Dashboards of this type focus on high level measures of performance, and forecasts. Strategic dashboards benefit from static snapshots of data (daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly) that are not constantly changing from one moment to the next. Dashboards for analytical purposes often include more context, comparisons, and history, along with subtler performance evaluators. Analytical dashboards typically support interactions with the data, such as drilling down into the underlying details. Dashboards for monitoring operations are often designed differently from those that support strategic decision making or data analysis and often require monitoring of activities and events that are constantly changing and might require attention and response at a moment’s notice.

Digital dashboards may be laid out to track the flows inherent in the business processes that they monitor. Graphically, users may see the high-level processes and then drill down into low level data. This level of detail is often buried deep within the corporate enterprise and otherwise unavailable to the senior executives.

NOTE : This post will continue in Understanding Dashboards – Part II

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With the offset of the product-based approach of selling insurance products that was so successfully used for more than half a century, and the subsequent onset of a customer-driven approach, insurance companies are increasingly making the switch to a Business Intelligence powered products. Customers are now desirous of a cluster of products from one single source that is able to meet their needs. This makes insurance companies make use of Business Intelligence tools such as data mining, data warehousing and online analytical processing (OLAP).

Business Intelligence applied in insurance assists in creating a superior management dealing sales force, marketing, enhancing actuarial and underwriting functions. This improves the ability to transform the raw data into valuable information related to the customer, market competition, and the overall business environment. Life insurance is divided as life, health, and other products in installment basis. Also, enterprises are focused on individual customer’s needs rather than the products values. This means that companies are concerned with the requirements of the customers, which can only be derived from gathered information. For this purpose, and for the technological advancement that it provides, insurance companies make use of Business Intelligence.

BI churns out the important data and helps the management take the company to the next level. From the management perspective, Business Intelligence tools supervise the key performance indicators of the enterprise, including the profitability level, on a daily basis. In terms of marketing, it analyzes sales, distribution channel performances, and marketing campaigns and lapses. In addition, it generates cross-selling and up-selling reports. But Life Insurance industry is highly competitive with numerous companies trying to attract customers with innovative products. Most competitors can imitate each other’s products; therefore, the speed and execution become extremely crucial factors for improving business and market share. Furthermore, the information’s ability to provide the users with strategic and critical information, which will sway customer’s to purchase is of paramount importance.

BI helps enhance every function of the insurance chain by scrutinizing each function. It helps in profiling customers and ensuring that the most apt customers are targeted by the marketing strategies and also examines the causes for customer attrition. It assists the insurance company to optimize the usage of its agents and sales force, while also enhancing the effectiveness of the actuarial and underwriting functions. Business Intelligence helps in identifying and eliminating fraud selection, and also aids in estimation of claims. It significantly lowers the insurer’s risk by applying sophisticated risk models, developed by applying data mining tools. What’s more, Business Intelligence tools can facilitate the provision of vital information to corporate clients, which can lead to many a prosperous relationship between insurer and client.

One example for effective usage of BI will be as follows..

Let us consider a Life Insurance Company which has another company providing Vehicle Insurance. Vehicle insurance company has database of all the vehicle users with information of their age, profession, location etc. Based on this information Life insurance company can design specific product for customers. This will include following steps –

1. Find out the customer from Vehicle insurance who are not Life Insurance customer for the company
2. Segregate these customers by their age, location, profession, risks involved in their profession etc.
3. On basis of this information one can find out the potential market for respective product or customize existing product which will be suitable to the target customer.

This kind of usage of information and analysis of the information can result in creating many new customer segments untapped by competition. It can also help in new product development.

BI can help Insurers with following aspects –

• Reduce marketing cost by identifying duplicate member records
• Optimize insurance payments
• Trend, analyze agent performance and paid commissions
• Execute monthly Sales and Marketing report to analyze policy Issue count, Issue volume, Issue premium
• Detect the bottleneck for issuing high face value policies
• Reports to view policy by face amount, by gender, by age, by occupation etc.
• Identify policy response time (based on date applied and date issued)
• Integrate data from multiple life insurance systems, specialty insurance and subsidiary companies

Business Intelligence can improve the productivity and helps bring in the flexibility that most life insurance companies are looking for. Not to mention it can also help with the information-handling process, resulting a boost in the employee morale and raising their confidence levels. This makes business intelligence applications a must have for life insurance industry and can influence the organization to undergo a highly positive paradigm shift.

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The analytic approach with Theory Of Constraints comes from the contention that any manageable system is limited in achieving more of its goals by a very small number of constraints, and that there is always at least one constraint. Hence the TOC process seeks to identify the constraint and restructure the rest of the organization around it. An organization can achieve operational speed with strategic direction to outmaneuver competitors, gain loyalty with customers, and rapidly build sustainable earnings growth. You can apply these insights and methods to your organization — be it business, not-for-profit, manufacturing, or service based — in order to shorten lead times, slash inventories, reduce production variability, and increase sales. So how does ToC work?

The theory of constraints (TOC) adopts the common idiom “A chain is no stronger than its weakest link” as a new management paradigm. This means that processes, organizations, etc., are vulnerable because the weakest person or part can always damage or break them or at least adversely affect the outcome. The 3 dimensions of TOC are Throughput (the expected end result), Inventory (any kind of investment or assets; monetary or knowledge or Work in Progress) and Operational expense (the efforts the system makes in order to turn inventory into throughput). But the most important idea is the achievement of organizational goal.

Before the goal itself can be reached, Necessary Conditions must first be met. This typically includes safety, quality, legal obligations, etc. For most businesses, the goal itself is to make money. However, for many organizations and non-profit businesses, making money is a necessary condition for pursuing the goal. Whether it is the goal or a necessary condition, understanding how to make sound financial decisions based on throughput, inventory, and operating expense is a critical requirement

Theory of constraints is based on the premise that the rate of goal achievement is limited by at least one constraining process. Only by increasing flow through the constraint can overall throughput be increased. The biggest problem with bottlenecks or constraints is, IF WE DO NOT MANAGE THEM, THEY WILL MANAGE THE PROCESS and THE THROUGHPUT.

ToC can help by providing a form of control, wherein, every bottleneck or constraint in the design and build processes is identified. The most important constraint is then analyzed and it is decided how that constraint can be exploited. All other processes that are not constraints are subordinated to this constraint. Then the bottleneck in the process is handled. Action is taken so that the bottleneck will disappear and the constraint is broken. What will happen is that another process will automatically become a new constraint. This constraint is then handled in the way the first one was. The Theory of Constraints simplifies the process of planning and decision making on the basis of problems and issues a great deal.

ToC can be used in 2 ways for BI..
1. For implementation of BI
The ideology of ToC can be used in Software Project Management. This theory states that the most important bottleneck in the project needs to be identified. The outputs of all other activities related to this bottleneck are then fixed. Those activities do not output more than a bottleneck can handle. Then the problems and issues in the bottleneck activity are solved. Automatically a new activity will then become the bottleneck in the project. By directing the project only with a focus on solving the problems in a bottleneck activity, the monitoring and control elements become much easier to manage.
Here, ToC can be applied for Project Management of BI. One can identify constraints restricting success of deployment of BI tool and then by eliminating the bottlenecks project can be completed successfully. This approach can be used for any software project or knowledge based project management.

2. Usage of BI tool for eliminating constraints with effective decision.
In this approach we can use ToC to identify the constraints of the system and eliminate them. Here, we need to identify the business objectives for improvement. These objectives in turn will give us the constraints that are restricting the expected results.
For eg. For Sales improvement one needs effective Sales Planning. But for effective sale planning we require historical information of sales. Here, if the past information required is incorrect then entire project can fail. BI tool can help find the correct information to facilitate the management to determine the Sales Plan. Let us consider another scenario where prices are slashed for increasing sales. This may result in improving sales figures. But at the same time management must be aware of the resulting changes in Profitability which in turn is another objective for overall growth. Here both objectives aggregating to overall growth of the organization are conflicting with each other. In such cases, BI can help make an informed decision on the strategic front.

The biggest benefit of using ToC was identifying the most significant constraint. It is this constraint that has the greatest impact on the corporate objective of the company. One of the indirect benefits of using this approach is it helps identify all the constraints that are internal in nature and could be elevated internally.

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Since BI serves as a tool for decision-making, it is imperative that data coming from database / data warehouse system be accurate. One cause of inaccurate data is contamination due to errors, duplicate or missing items, and other inconsistencies.

Data cleansing, synonymous with the less frequently-used term data scrubbing is the process of detecting and correcting (and if necessary eliminating) corrupt or inaccurate records from a particular (single or multiple) record set, table, or database. Used mainly in databases, the term refers to identifying incomplete, incorrect, inaccurate, irrelevant etc. parts of the data to replace, modify or delete this so called dirty data to ensure that a given set of data is accurate and consistent with other sets in the system. The actual process of data cleansing may involve removing typographical errors, inconsistencies or validating and correcting values against a known list of entities. The validation may be strict (such as rejecting any address that does not have a valid postal code) or fuzzy (such as correcting records that partially match existing, known records).

The root cause of inconsistent data is often that the data sources have discrepancies in format, an inconsistent, missing or duplicated value which means that a single version of the truth is not achieved. Data inconsistencies may arise when:

• Different data dictionary definitions of similar entities are used in different data stores.
• User entry errors
• Data corruption during transmission or storage.

The process of checking the quality of the data being imported into the data warehouse for BI is called Data Quality Assurance. A significant portion of time in the development process of BI project should be set aside for setting up the data quality assurance process and implementing whatever data cleansing is needed.

After cleansing, a set of data is consistent with the rest of the system or, as it meets their standards and expectations, it can be delivered to the business community.

The importance of regular data cleansing is unquestionable in any data based or data dependent business as its impact of using inaccurate and inconsistent data can cause serious problems on various levels

The process of data cleansing involves following steps:

1. Data Auditing
2. Workflow specification
3. Workflow execution
4. Post-processing and controlling

It is always best to address data quality as early in the cycle as you can. Popular methods for carrying out data cleansing are Parsing, Data transformation, duplication elimination and statistical methods.

Key points to be considered when the operational data for the BI target databases is identified and selected:

• integrity (the importance of internal integrity of the data – the most crucial criterion)
• precision (the precision of the data)
• accuracy (the correctness of the data)
• reliability (the source and generation of the data)
• format (the source and target format of the data – the closer they are, the fewer conversions they require)

Data cleansing is especially of great importance when a large amount of data is to be processed for BI. The goal of corrective action on the dirty data then is to make any errors as insignificant as possible. Unless data cleansing is undertaken regularly, mistakes can accumulate and lead to decreasing the efficiency of work.

Dirty Data must be eliminated as they will undermine the value of the BI data and the worth of the tool. If a number is wrong or does not reconcile to another, in a BI environment it gets quickly challenged. As a result the organization ends up with higher quality at all levels.

BI projects may well be constrained by data quality at first. But they get the issues in the open very fast and very well so they can be seen. The added cost of resolving then must be recognized and born, but the payback in the end is much higher too.

Success of any BI tool lies on the availability of data as well as how much data can be trusted. If data using which reports have been generated cannot be trusted then BI tool will undoubtedly fail miserably. Data is a prime asset which company can leverage the way it wants. BI helps to extract meaning out of information and helps in decision making process of organization. If the information itself is wrong, then the consequent interpretation will be wrong and subsequent decision taken will be wrong. BI tool if used intelligently can help point out to inconsistent or wrong data and help in increasing trust in data. Information held by the company is one of the pillars of the organization and hence trusted information is a priority.

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Every day at Pan India Foods, data from various POS was being transferred to HO and updated the back office application. Getting updated data from around 250 outlets was always a challenge for Pan India IT team. This manual work required late night working when the operations were shut. IT team was always under pressure and tremendous work load. On top of it a network problem could add to the worries. Updating this data in existing application and Data Warehouse almost took around 6-7 hours. Also many times, they did not get the data at all from some outlet. In that case the data coming from reporting module gave false information. Some or the other outlet data was missing.

Secondly, updating the warehouse required someone to be personally present and organize received data from various outlets. Being a time consuming process, it could not be executed in day-time as it would give more load to server and existing application, when there were many users accessing the system. Hence processing this data in night shift was another challenge.

As the outlets were increasing, the time taken for the warehousing process also took longer time. Even after putting so much of efforts, it was observed that some of the information was still missing.

Top five business challenges:

• Co-lateral of Data
• Analysis of the data
• Corrective action taken on time
• Projection of the business
• Reduce manpower

Solution

After lot of brain storming sessions, the IT team at Pan India came to conclusion that good analytical software could resolve the challenges. Long needed BI tool was the only option for the increasing data coming from various outlets. Whenever there is change in any report, generally it’s developed at central location and released to various users only after testing. Certain reports are scheduled, which are available to remote users by email. Due to the import functionality, even when there is no connection with the server, users could play around with the data and generate the desired output from the cube reports.

“Timely availability of information in the required format for enabling decision making was a challenge for our users.  With 1KEY, management can now depend on BI to implement various promotions for various outlets depending on season and festivals. It enables our users across outlets to easy access information on inventory that was just difficult to make available before. Now decisions by kitchen and purchase are made taking the availability of the product into account thereby reducing wastage and getting better rates. 1KEY provides an easy-to-use, integrated reporting and analytics platform that provides our end users greater business insight. We looked at other competing offerings, but preferred 1KEY’s end user experience and easy connectivity. We’ve found it to be extraordinarily feature-rich. MAIA’s consulting partner SSIS and its team, played a crucial role in the successful deployment of this BI project by providing technical support, services and training. They were involved right from project planning, scope study till actual implementation and even beyond.”

-           Siddharth Laskar, Head IT, Pan India Food Solutions

Why 1KEY BI

It was tough task to find the right product with right solution. So after evaluating different products company came across MAIA Intelligence’s 1KEY Agile BI Suite product which had value for money.

Pan India chose 1KEY because it was available at cost-effective price point, rapid development with all the user-friendly reporting and analysis features its users wanted. 1KEY‘s ease of use, flexibility and scalability has enabled & empowered the business users with a BI tool. It gave a higher level of business intelligence (BI) capabilities that:

• Able to easily connect with existing data
• Provide deep insight in YOY information
• Facilitated information-sharing among operation staff so they could better monitor inventory & sales in their appropriate contexts

Evaluation Parameters

While selecting the product, Pan India considered the vendor who is technically sound, and the application to be user friendly. Being in hospitality business, the handover had to be easy and require less time to train to new employees. The requirements were gathered with help of all Key Members, having experience in hospitality business and know the operations very well.

After an evaluation of competing BI products, Pan India selected 1KEY for enterprise-wide reporting analysis. BI tools were evaluated based on its ability to:

• Reporting analytics with ease of Use
• Cost Effective Solution
• Cater to needs of top management as well as operational users
• Empower the business users to build their own reports from the base cube
• Slice-n-dice the info for further analysis

Selection Process

Evaluation was done based on the business needs & what to analyze, as it was not easy to shift to ERP package immediately. So when IT was involved it was suggested to the management for creating data ware house. On top of DWH, analytical software was to be deployed to derive all the desired reporting analysis.

Implementation Plan

Initially it was decided to implement BI for 20 users from sales, MMS as these were the two critical areas.

Data was coming from different location centrally and hence the entire development was required to be done at Central Office only. It was planned to redevelop data warehouse, so that all the required reports could be generated locally. Remote users could access these reports using the web interface or VPN.

Initially the plan was to complete the BI project within couple of months. But as the actual development of the Data Warehouse started, the complexity of core database of existing application was discovered and hence project was spill over to nine months. There were numerous reports developed depending on POS, MMS as well as Tally.

The entire development was completed on time after which couple of users tested the new developed reports. All the key members from various outlets were given the training on actual data, post which all the reports were released.

Resistance is always there for any change, but change is constant rule of nature. It was because of top management’s sponsorship, implementation of BI project at all locations was possible. Due to aggressive role while implementation of the BI tool, Proper Planning from IT Team this was really difficult.

When users themselves saw the reports available in various dimensions, charts, they themselves liked this change.

Implementation Partner

The role of BI partner was challenging as they were required to understand the operation software from where they had to derive the role of BI for the business. S & S InfoTech and Software (SSIS), a MAIA Intelligence consulting partner was involved right from the evaluation, identify users, development of Data Warehouse as well as reports.  SSIS did the system study and jointly decided to redevelop the DWH.

Importance of BI

Data is very important. But only data cannot serve the business purpose. Putting the data on the presentable format and that also on time is very important in today’s competitive world. Today most of the organizations have ERP like tool to capture the transactional data.

Such data gets accumulated in large size over the years. When this data is presented in the presentable format it becomes information. This information helps to take critical decisions before condition become critical. BI helps transform data to information and knowledge.

The project which started in September 2011 was successfully completed in mere 9 months’ time.  A three days training was given on the self-serve BI tool. It is well appreciated by the business users across the departments like finance, operation, MIS, IT, etc.

Functional Areas Targeted

Being in hospitality industry, each and every transaction is important to Pan India. Fixed expenses like salary, rent, electricity, etc. were less impacted as compared to food quality and its inventory.

Being a customer oriented organization Customer is important for Pan India and is always concerned about the quality of food. Also the food wastage was to be reduced. But the major concern was inventory as many items are perishable, and needs proper care.

Apart from inventory, management was also concerned about the cover (number of customers per table) per day. They wanted to reduce the waiting period. Also there was a need to keep track on number of people visits at a given time.  (Morning Break Fast, Afternoon Lunch, Evening Break Fast or Dinner).

Benefits

PAN India’s business deals with complex method of operation where customer & lots of back office parameter take place. Basically its menu is bit complex as it deals with food preparation which involves lots of raw material. So at the start of MAIA’s 1KEY Agile implementation it started giving clear picture of products in terms of sale & procurement. It also helped to analyze which products are selling & producing better revenue.

Now the complete DWH update process does not takes more than 30 minutes.

Now more than required reports are available which helps senior management to take any critical decision. The development is done considering the future requirement too and reports are made available in all options like Drill Down, Charts, Dashboards including User Security, etc.

The major benefit IT team derived out of this BI project was time. Every morning when management needs the information, all the actual figures are readily available. Outlets are now monitored very closely with correct and authenticated information. With BI, users can compare the information across outlets and period.

Apart from that outlets also now have information about which material is available and in what quantity. Depending on the same, kitchen decides what to produce and what quantity? Also Purchase department can take decision about which items need to purchase and what quantity? As the Purchase Department having all the required information about demand and supply, they can now negotiate with vendors and get a very good price while doing the rate contract.

Depending on the feedback and data, management can bring various promotions to various outlets depending on season and festivals. The analysis with BI is done by top management as major decisions are taken by them. At present the BI access is given to the key users across departments. It was well accepted by the top management as it started giving results immediately on day to day basis.

With this tool, a self-serve BI for report availability has been provided. Lot of business users have started analyzing their own area related to data.

With proper implementation of BI technology hospitality retail division can have a dramatic change for the business.

“The keenness of Pan India Food’s top management and the capability of 1KEY BI helped SSIS team to successfully deploy BI solution at Pan India as per the requirements of the business users.”

-           Suryakant Nanaware, CEO, S & S Infotech and Software

Return On Investment

The IT team at Pan India is excited about the efficiencies they are realizing by standardizing on for enterprise monitoring, reporting, and analysis. This project has turned to form a great value proposition. Considering the information availability, BI tool is inexpensive. Rather, day by day BI is becoming business need.

It would be too early to calculate the ROI. But definitely BI has helped Pan India reduce the manpower cost of around 50,000 a month across various departments, which earlier was engaged to prepare the data.

1KEY Agile BI Suite came at a cost-effective price point. Although the ROI cannot be measured directly but yes it helped company to get better inventory on its raw material to analyze the same. CIO at Pan India is confident to achieve ROI within a year as this project helps reduce manual process of data consolidation and preparing reports and gives better understanding of sales mix. 1KEY Agile unique proposition or USP was its powerful & user friendly interface to do any analysis and present data in various dash board & graphs.

In short, 1KEY BI was the right analytical software to get more précised data in desired format with less dependency.

Partial List of Reports

Reports produced from the BI are now delivered directly to the company’s executives. BI makes information available from a wide range of departments at Pan India, such as:

• Expense Cost Center-wise reports for finance managers from Tally data. Earlier such were being manually consolidated in spreadsheet which were time consuming and error-prone.
• Branch Stock Transfer Bills from 1KEY Reporter (Static Reporting) for HO
• Sales & Purchase Analysis with 1KEY View for two-dimensional analysis
• Purchase Stock Summary
• Stores Stock Comparison Statements
• Week on Week comparison statements for stock, sales, gender-wise, store-wise, etc. with 1KEY Cube for multi-dimensional analysis
• KOT analysis
• Daily Sales Report
• Sales vs. consumption
• ABS analysis
• Inflation Report

Future Road-map

BI is an ongoing process. The way market is changing; the reports need to be modified from time to time and may need upgrade. Pan India being an growing organization; there will be need to increase the number of users. The BI deployment shall be expanded to mid-level of management users who support senior management. User community is expected to expand to almost all domains and most of the employees by the end of 2012. The company is in the process to integrate more operation software with this BI.

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The purpose of business is to create a customer

Loyalty program are proven way to engage, retain and enhance life time value of the customer with organizations. Technology integration is critical for business success

1KEY Solution Architecture & Design for Loyalty & Customer Centricity

Improve the Effectiveness of Customer Loyalty Programs

Companies across different industries use Loyalty Programs to drive and sustain growth, yet the majority of these programs fail to reach their targeted goals due to limited insight into the effectiveness of their programs on customer behavior. 1KEY Loyalty Analytics is a comprehensive analytic solution that provides new levels of information richness, usability and reach to all employees engaged in the loyalty program lifecycle. These results in faster and more informed decisions that help the loyalty organization optimize its programs to drive member behavior, build value and reduce costs.

1KEY Loyalty Analytics can help to overcome these challenges with its powerful analytical model and action links. For example, if the number of loyalty points expired goes above a threshold, it can be detected through key performance indicators (KPIs) displayed on the dashboard. Users can then interact with the dashboards to drill down into greater detail and determine if any behavioral pattern is evident or explore other reports that further analyze the members who are not making use of the loyalty points. Also, they can drill into the transactional system and launch new promotions or create marketing campaigns with targeted marketing messages reaching these members.

1KEY CRM Analytics

1KEY CRM Analytics solutions, is an outcome of 1KEY BI modules offering which provides fact-based insight into the entire sales process and into product demand, customer sensitivity, and overall customer centricity effectiveness. They enable firms to manage and track campaign performance, and to segment and retain the most valuable customers or partners. Organizations can assess the effectiveness of loyalty promotions and partner relationships, track and analyze key service center metrics, and generate a complete picture of contact center performance.

Building relationships with your most profitable and loyal customers can improve profit margins for your company.

1KEY Loyalty Analytics provides:

• Loyalty marketing managers with the ability to analyze member segments, identify which promotions to run and which members to target, and measure promotion effectiveness
• Loyalty partner managers with the ability to analyze partner contributions to program success and measure joint promotion effectiveness
• Executives with the ability to analyze loyalty program status, track budgets, evaluate membership trends and details, and summarize rewards and redemption trends overtime

1KEY Loyalty Analytics Dashboards will provide managers to understand customer segments and behaviors, track costs and liabilities, and manage partners.

Loyalty Program Overview Dashboard

The loyalty program overview dashboard, allows you to: Assess the overall performance of your loyalty program Gain an understanding of the current number of members, point balances, liabilities, costs and revenue of the programs. Analyze members’ movement among tiers as influenced by the loyalty program Analyze the revenue performance of loyalty members versus non-members

Membership Analysis Dashboard

The membership analysis dashboard allows you to: Understand the characteristics of members currently enrolled in the program Analyze member data to view the demographics of various program tiers and identify what influences the buying patterns of different member segments. Identify new enrollments and the member growth rates over time. Analyze member accruals and redemptions. Understand the influence of different loyalty promotions on customer transactions and behavior. Track the member point balance

Partner Dashboard

The partner dashboard, allows you to: Evaluate partner performance within the loyalty program by analyzing the partner’s contribution to the overall success of the program. Understand the impact a partner has on new member enrollment, shared members, and accrual and redemption trends Analyze the number of members that have been referred by partners and track how much revenue have they brought in over time.

Finance Dashboard

The finance dashboard allows you to: Understand the cost and revenue factors associated with the loyalty program Analyze the liability of the accrued points and the incremental revenue that is generated by the loyalty program and the associated promotions. Identify the costs associated with the various redemptions and rewards

Benefits -Faster Implementation, Lower Risk, and Better Business Results

Traditional business intelligence solutions are costly, require many months to implement, and are difficult to modify as business requirements change. In contrast, 1KEY Business Intelligence Applications are pre-built solutions designed for faster deployment at a lower cost, lower risk, and with better business results. 1KEY Business Intelligence Applications includes pre-built data models, metrics, and best practices based on MAIA Intelligence experience across multiple CRM and ERP reporting automation implementations. In addition, 1KEY robust enterprise analytics platform enables users to easily customize and extend the application without the need for programming. The intuitive, Web-based user interface requires very little training and ensures rapid end user adoption

The three key benefits of 1KEY BI access on web are:

Improve employee communication – Businesses today rely on an increasingly sales workforce on field. More employees need anywhere, anytime access to more data on web and collaboration information—in form of reports, dashboards and KPIs to track performance.

Maximize overall productivity – By giving employees access to company tools and data on web and off line cubes, they can be productive regardless of where they are or what time it is.

Increase customer satisfaction – Real-time access to customer data and insight can lead to improved customer satisfaction because employees will be able to respond to customer queries accurately and quickly.

1KEY Business intelligence (BI) is the process of collecting, structuring, analyzing, and making use of data to gain business insight. 1KEY BI enables more informed decision-making, thereby improving performance and efficiencies across the organization. For customer focused companies, 1KEY BI can be derived from a variety of systems, including sales, billing, enterprise resource planning (ERP), CRM, and so on. Companies are using established 1KEY BI on data warehouse technologies and tools to access information from across the enterprise and to provide deep insight to their business decision makers. Using business intelligence, companies are making faster and more informed decisions that help them to optimize resources, reduce costs, and improve the effectiveness of front-end and back office activities, ranging from sales to human resources to procurement.

Having deep insight is critically important to providing a connected experience for customers. Companies use state of the art 1KEY BI modules to manage and track campaign performance, and to segment and retain their most valuable customers. They can assess the effectiveness of loyalty promotions and partner relationships, track and analyze key service center metrics, and generate a complete picture of contact center performance. These tools and the data they collect and analyze are providing sales associates with a 360 degree view of their customers.

Customer-centric 1KEY BI technologies enable companies to use past and present data assets to drive productivity and increase customer engagement, thus enabling better, faster, more accurate decision making capabilities. BI enables companies to extend data to dashboards and scorecards, and measure key performance indicators (KPIs). They can use analytics to make intelligent assumptions so that they can build predictive models and identify new opportunities. Using 1KEY BI, companies can create more effective marketing campaigns and measure the effectiveness of these campaigns.

Benefits for business users

Increase customer retention and purchase frequency, Determine key factors that drive loyalty and use that insight to increase overall loyalty program effectiveness. Improve profitability by identifying and targeting the highest value customers. Identify profitability drivers and factors that change customer behavior. Analyze data to ensure that your most valuable customers are properly rewarded. Retain valuable customers. Generate quality demand at the lowest cost. Improve profits earned from customers. Reduce wasted spend. Manage marketing like a science and less as an art. Increase customer satisfaction and retention rates, while decreasing costs. Maximize customer value by increasing cross-sell and up-sell opportunities. Monitor channel usage, costs

Benefits for IT department

Reduce implementation cost and risk with integrated analytic solutions.  Integrate data from multiple sources within the enterprise and across the value chain. Adapt to changing external and internal needs by leveraging, not replacing, existing investments. Reduce the burden on IT resources with comprehensive user self-service capabilities. Deliver better business results and rapid time to value.

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