eTV finds crystal ball for AS/400

Free-to-air television station, eTV, has managed to save a considerable slice of its IT budget by deploying Seagate business intelligence (BI) software and intends using these funds to explore the technology more thoroughly.

Hussein Dudhia, director: administration at eTV, draws an analogy between Seagate Crystal Reports (SCR) and the seat-belt in his motor car. "If one separates the cost of a seat-belt from the total price of the vehicle, its value is disproportionate to what you pay for it."

Elaborating, he says eTV`s business depends on an AS/400-based, media-specific application that runs exclusively on a database called Paradigm. "It creates the programme schedule -which includes allocating times to flight advertisements; manages contracts - both with programme suppliers and advertisers; controls programming inventory; and supports most functions particular to running a television station," he says.

However, as with many industry specific applications, the majority of the development effort was put into system logic with very little into providing business intelligence functionality. "The system has a standard set of reports that are not customisable and, therefore, provides management with a deluge of information that is difficult to wade through," he says.

As Seagate Info, incorporating SCR, interprets information stored in virtually any database, including Paradigm, it enables Dudhia to extract the specific information required by different areas of the business. "In this way, SCR is the seat-belt of eTV`s business system. Its cost-per-user is a fraction of the overall outlay for the application and its value to the business is inestimable."

With the help of Seagate Certified business partner, Grape Software, the company developed a set of parameter-driven custom reports that filter out extraneous information and provide various sections of the business with what they need to perform optimally. Isolde Rosner, operations director of Grape Software, says these reports put management in charge of the database rather than letting the application control the business.

"The technology allows users to sift through the information contained in our database, select fields that are relevant to the task at hand and create custom reports almost at will. Although most of our users are fairly unsophisticated when it comes to using IT the templates are encouraging them to be proactive in seeking out information," adds Dudhia.

In addition, the reports are available to authorised users across the Internet through a standard Web browser. "Users can connect over the Internet from anywhere in the country and run queries against the database," he says.

Previously, eTV would have had to request modifications or new reports from the American developers of the application. "This was a laborious and extremely costly exercise. No longer having to do it is the primary reason for the savings we`ve made," comments Dudhia.

eTV intends using the savings from deployment of the Seagate Software products to further finance the foray into BI, moving next to the extended OLAP functionality of Seagate Holos. "It will enable users to run `what if` scenarios against the information in our database," he explains.

Down the line, Dudhia expects the implementation of Seagate Software`s full suite of BI tools to combine information in eTV`s own database with market research data such as demographics and viewer statistics will enable us it build and customise media plans specific to the goals of individual customers.