Johannesburg, 18 Nov 2005
Information Builders, developer of WebFOCUS, the enterprise business intelligence (BI) solution, has announced the industry`s first truly portable business intelligence solution.
"WebFOCUS Active Reports enables users to leverage portable analytics capabilities to obtain critical business information whenever, wherever and however they need it," says Fujitsu WebFOCUS product manager, Denita Lawrence.
Fujitsu, the world`s third largest IT company, is the local partner for Information Builders in South Africa.
"By providing customers with the ability to manipulate and understand data through dynamic reports, regardless of their connection to a network, Information Builders continues to extend the power of business intelligence to frontline workers wherever they may be."
A sample report is available to demo at http://www.informationbuilders.com/active-report.
Faced with competitive market pressures and heightened customer-retention needs, organisations are continuing to expand the use of business intelligence across the enterprise. Frontline workers are now becoming BI users, required to access critical data to be proficient at their jobs.
These users need dynamic reports with calculations, filters and visualisations even though they may not be connected to the Internet, when travelling or working remotely. WebFOCUS Active Reports` portable analytics empowers users with near-real-time, direct data access in a familiar format, increasing productivity and enhancing decision-making capabilities.
"Today`s business organisations struggle to enable a decentralised and far-flung workforce," said Eric Rogge, vice-president and research director at Ventana Research. "Bottlenecks in information distribution from a distant corporate headquarters can hamstring field operations. A key requirement for business intelligence technology going forward will be to efficiently bridge between centralised information management and distributed information analysis and use."
Unlike interactive BI solutions that operate only in one environment, WebFOCUS Active Reports can be created in both connected and disconnected modes. This enables users to view and interact with reports regardless of their connection to the network, eliminating the requirement for a cube or report server.
Users are able to separate combined reports and deliver a particular output to other users through WebFOCUS ReportCaster, saving valuable resources required to rerun queries and recreate individual output for solitary recipients.
With WebFOCUS Active Reports, instead of waiting for reports from the corporate office, employees can access data directly from the warehouse and reassess information in near-real-time to maximise inventory levels, check distributor performance and optimise warehouse efficiency.
Portable reporting also has an impact outside the walls of the enterprise. For financial services organisations, BI is frequently used for customer-facing applications. Bank customers typically require online viewing of statements and credit card bills.
In most cases consumers are only able to read or print the bill as is, limiting the information that can be viewed. If the bill is delivered with WebFOCUS Active Reports, users can customise the information they want to view, resorting the data such as by the highest charge or a specific timeframe.
Other key product highlights include:
* Intelligent search engine - a customisable search function that provides users with the ability to search data across multiple columns.
* Visual representation - incorporates chart and graph presentation formats to ease the pain of complex metrics.
* Security - facilitates securing delivery of information transmission and stored reports.
* Overall ease of use - no training is required for non-technical users since reports emulate other outputs and include intuitive icons for simplistic efficiency.
"Business intelligence continues its proliferation across the enterprise and we have witnessed the evolution as BI has made its way out of the back office and onto the shop floor, the home office, and the sales field," said Gerald Cohen, president and CEO of Information Builders.
"For the past 30 years we have provided customers with cutting-edge technology and innovative strategies to support organisational success. The advent of portable business intelligence builds on our pioneering spirit and commitment to customer requirements."
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