"Interactive dashboards are increasingly becoming a `must have` for companies committed to high performance," says Marc Scheepbouwer, MD of local Hyperion distributor, Intellient. "Easy-to-use and personalised interactive dashboards offer an unparalleled ability for users, regardless of their experience, to drill deep into source data and find the root cause of problems or variances."
A survey recently conducted by Hyperion in April, has revealed that organisations believe interactive dashboards that enable business users to identify problems, and determine the reasons for those problems, are critical to achieving performance visibility.
The results further showed that respondents view business intelligence software, such as management reporting and analysis, as key to fuelling overall business performance management.
More than 95% of the 500 respondents in the survey said that interactive dashboards with drill-through capabilities are "very important" or "somewhat important" to determine the root causes behind data variances. 62% said that their top priority at present is a focus on issues such as planning, budgeting and forecasting; and more than 74% said management reporting, analysis and other business intelligence tools are "extremely important" to solving these issues.
"The ability to quickly drill down into data, regardless of the source, and build an actionable strategy is critical for every organisation," Scheepbouwer says. "Hyperion provides such insight through customisable, interactive dashboards. The results of the Solutions 2005 survey support our belief that interactive dashboards are critical to true performance visibility." When asked whether business intelligence has moved beyond the confines of finance, 74% of the respondents indicated that they believe it has and that line-of-business executives are increasingly leveraging business intelligence to drive better planning and forecasting.
Participants in the survey were drawn from both IT and finance departments, ensuring that results were not biased according to the experiences of only one department in an organisation, and that the findings could be applied to organisations as a whole.
"Solutions 2005 also featured a business performance management workshop in which attendees were invited to drive their own interactive dashboards," Scheepbouwer says. "Featuring individual computer stations that allowed customers to walk through several pressing business scenarios and drill down into data using Hyperion interactive dashboards, the workshop drew more than 1 000 conference attendees during the event."
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Intellient provides BI solutions which include comprehensive support to the entire management cycle, delivering data platform and integration services, query and reporting, data analysis, performance scorecarding, modelling, budgeting, planning, activity-based costing and management, forecasting and financial consolidation and reporting. When these solutions are used in collaboration, they contribute towards improved organisational growth and profitability, and form a framework of BPM software solutions. Intellient is the local distributor of Hyperion and ALG Software. These solutions are used by 85 leading South African companies, including 20 of the top 25 public companies. Intellient is a member of the EOH (Enterprise Outsourcing Holdings) group of companies.
Hyperion
Hyperion is the global leader in business performance management software. More than 9 000 customers - including 91 of the Fortune 100 - rely on Hyperion software to translate strategies into plans, monitor execution and provide insight to improve financial and operational performance. Hyperion combines the most complete set of interoperable applications with the leading business intelligence platform to support and create business performance management solutions. A network of more than 600 partners provides the company`s innovative and specialised solutions and services.
Named one of the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For 2004, Hyperion employs approximately 2 500 people in 20 countries. Distributors represent Hyperion in an additional 25 countries. Headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, Hyperion generated annual revenues of $622 million for the 12 months that ended June 30, 2004. Hyperion is traded under the Nasdaq symbol HYSL.
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