Johannesburg, 22 Aug 2002
Information provides the raw material input, which every organisation needs to develop and execute successful business strategies. This is the reason why companies continue to invest millions in mission-critical information systems - such as ERP and CRM - so that they can capture, process and store critical data about markets, customers, competitors and business processes.
Business intelligence (BI) enables companies to maximise those underlying data sources by placing them in an accessible format to be delivered to any stakeholder for success in the business.
"Most clients are aware that they need intelligent reporting," says George Smalberger, sales and marketing director at Ovations Technologies. "They realise that they have a wealth of information available to them, they just have to be able to get to it when they need it, in the easiest possible way.
"Crystal Decisions invests 20% of their turnover back into research and development and as a result have built from the ground up, a Web management platform called Crystal Enterprise to provide any organisation with the power they need to understand their corporate information in one integrated solution for reporting, analysis and delivery for the Web. This tool offers a completely customisable solution for providing secure access to interactive, actionable information for employees, customers and suppliers.
"People can make the right decisions and we all know what that means. The fact that SAP and Microsoft - two of the three largest software companies in the world - have chosen to bundle Crystal`s solution with their own, indicates the superiority of the product."
The BI solutions offered by Ovations Technologies enable companies to become more self-reliant in building of their reports. It also allows end-users to modify those reports themselves (all via zero client browser-based interfaces), freeing up the IT department to concentrate on more critical business and technology related issues.
"Companies have variety of reasons for needing BI," explains Smalberger. "Needs range from basic relational reporting to the slicing and dicing of OLAP multidimensional data to advanced analysis tools like the balance scorecard. Our solutions cover the whole spectrum. The products are customisable and everything is in open-source code. This allows a company to carry the look and feel of their portal across to the management tools with such seamless integration, that users often don`t even realise they are in the Crystal enterprise system."
Companies generally spend 20% of the total cost of BI on the product and the remaining 80% on professional services, a ratio of 1:4, resulting in high implementation costs. In line with Crystal`s goal to make the user more self-reliant, its products are easy to maintain and many of the requirements can be carried out by the end-user, thus reducing total cost of ownership (TCO) by cutting down the number of people involved in preparing a report and the time taken to achieve the end deliverable.
It has come time to educate the South African market that Crystal is not just Crystal Reports. Crystal Reports is still the world leading reporting tool with over 10 million registered copies sold, but with it comes a complete business intelligence system which is making its mark with the likes of Gartner. The fact that Crystal Decisions has an annual compound growth rate of 29% clearly demonstrates that it is on its way to becoming a world leader in BI. It is a company to be watched with a product that sells itself well. In terms of after-sales service, Ovations Technologies offers customers technical support for their BI products, automatic upgrades of products released within a year of purchase, as well as the services of Crystal-certified consultants.
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