Enterprise reporting underpins success of BI, paves way for effective BPM

Enterprise reporting underpins the success of a business intelligence (BI) strategy. This process of accessing, formatting and delivering data provides users with the appropriate information reliably and securely, via a chosen delivery mechanism.

Jeremy Waterman, managing director of Softline Accpac, says the convergence of BI and enterprise reporting is another vital step towards business software integration. Taking it a step further, Waterman says BI will support the growth and success of business process management (BPM). Fairly new to South Africa, Waterman says most organisations are only beginning to consider this management philosophy and may not realise how crucial BI is to the success of BPM.

"People want BI that supports the way they work as individuals or as a company. They want relevant information delivered with the enterprise reporting and analysis functionality appropriate to their task, without having to skip from application to application," says Waterman. "Using BI, BPM aims to make the core processes of a business run better. This not only allows customers to automate processes but it also aims to make them more efficient, while reducing costs. In addition, BPM solutions also provide adequate visibility into a business, enabling customers to capitalise on market opportunities."

To ensure BPM success, Waterman recommends that a standard BI solution is implemented throughout an organisation. This will deliver one version of the truth and will also reduce the number of issues preventing the organisation from enjoying the benefits of a BPM solution. "There are so many cost implications involved in disparate systems that it is in the best interest of the organisation to spend the time to select one solution that will meet several business needs."

Traditionally a finance decision, Waterman recommends that organisations look for BPM solutions that not only encompass financial management applications but also look at other operational areas such as HR, CRM and the supply chain.

"Increasing adoption rates of BPM is vital to its long-term success of a business and it is thus vital to consider all departments within an organisation."

According to Waterman, there is still a major need to educate end-users with regards to BI tools and the impact that will have on a BPM solution. He says Softline ACCPAC has been a player in the business software arena for over 20 years. Through one of its products called Accpac Insight, Softline Accpac provides enterprise-wide reporting, budgeting, forecasting and consolidation solutions. Employees, remote offices and disparate departments can manage, distribute and collaborate on data from a single, unified source by using Accpac Insight.

A high-performance financial management tool, users create and customise reports that can withstand the toughest scrutiny. "Accpac Insight extends far beyond your general ledger, providing a powerful budgeting solution complete with bottom-up budgeting, write-back, drill-down and other advanced capabilities. It provides access to your critical operational and sales data, as well as customer, product, vendor, employee, geographic data."

Along with powerful reporting capabilities, Accpac Insight offers budgeting, consolidations, report distribution, Web deployment and data warehousing, and is an ideal solution for companies with remote employees or multiple locations that require real-time access to company data.

Assisting the decision-making process, is customer education. "Simply put, people need to know what products like this actually do. Moving beyond the theory, the only way to ensure broad based user adoption is to explain the practical elements which will assist the various departments to function more effectively," says Waterman.

Accpac Insight comprises the following components:

Author - helps users create new templates quickly and easily in Microsoft Excel for repeated use.

Viewer - run reports against the Data Mart within Accpac Insight and present reports in Excel, extending the value of the data available through your ACCPAC system.

Web Deployment Server - ideal for mobile and remote staff, Web Deployment Server offers users the ability to generate reports and publish them on the Internet or a company intranet. Authorised staff can view the reports through a standard Web browser.

Enterprise Budgeting - create very complex models containing multiple worksheets. Deliver templates for end-user data entry and manipulation, and consolidate input into a single Data Mart to prepare an end-user budget in a true bottom-up fashion.

Consolidations - manage the consolidations process to deliver financial statements that illustrate financial and non-financial critical performance indicators.