Turning business intelligence into real enterprise information management is the new technological competitive edge - and any company wishing to retain its competitive edge had better take note or be left behind as the technological revolution spreads its tentacles ever further into every-day business functions.
So says Johan Cloete, CEO of Global Technology Business Intelligence (GBI), a company specialising in the provision of services and solutions to local and international business.
"Over the last decade companies have focused on implementing ERP to integrate and gain control of their transactional systems," says Cloete. "Consequently, the emphasis has been on increasing operational efficiency, with not enough attention given to making sense of and analysing corporate data to make better informed business decisions."
Business intelligence was applied to allow companies to analyse this data rapidly and intelligently. "This was the first true competitive edge resulting from the technology," says Cloete. "The problem is that many companies have bedded down their ERP solutions, and to a large extent, the playing field has again been levelled. Anyone wishing to stand out must address themselves to the next layer of technology - and the fastest adapters to the new technology will be the first to stake out their new advantage."
What is this new technology? "Traditionally, business intelligence has been driven from the data warehouse upwards and outwards," says Cloete. "But now companies must have tools which interact with all parts of the enterprise - and this is where the next shift has come. No longer is it suitable to have information focused on one specific functional area at a time; a comprehensive, overall picture is required.
"This is enterprise information management (EIM), which touches every aspect of a modern business," Cloete continues. "This includes costing exercises, value-based management, reporting, planning, forecasting and the full scope of business analysis which includes customer profitability, balanced scorecard and performance measurement, CRM analytics and, increasingly important, e-commerce analytics."
The trick is to transform the data into information that can enable intelligent proactive action - as opposed to reactive action - and which will allow a company to measure itself against the market and the competition.
"In this way it will be possible to take advantage of emerging patterns and trends before they are fully manifested," notes Cloete. "Companies must be able to model their business plans into the future, and engage in preventative or proactive planning. All of this must be integrated into the reporting capability and fine-tuned to ensure company executives have a clear view of where the company has gone, where it is now and where it is going, all simultaneously.
"Companies must not repeat the mistake they made with ERP," warns Cloete. "As they develop e-commerce and ASP solutions, they need to ensure they incorporate information management from the very beginning, and not tack it on afterwards."
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