The all-seeing eye

Find yourself a US dollar and look for the all-seeing eye; it`s on the reverse side, on top of the pyramid. (If, like most rational people, you wonder about the appropriateness of this distinctly pagan imagery adjacent to the phrase "In God We Trust", take comfort from the fact that you`re in good company.)

With 360-degree insight, executives and managers can pull together all their disparate systems to drive a single, cohesive view of the organisation.

Marc Scheepbouwer is CEO of GBI, the business intelligence division of Global Technology.

The eye sees all we do, understands our basest instincts, and it is our all-encompassing conscience. You cannot comprehend the eye, and you cannot escape it.

Business intelligence (BI) has become a bit like that. We have evolved way beyond the traditional view of and approach to BI to the point where it has become pervasive, ubiquitous and all-encompassing.

This opens a philosophical debate: what will it be like to live in a world where our every movement is noted, ALL our actions and transactions captured and exploited for a variety of purposes?

This is the stuff of Hollywood, where the Big Bad Government has the potential - and uses it when it so chooses - to collate a dossier on any and every civilian.

Human rights activists have been vocal against the creation of such an Orwellian, state-owned and -driven information system. The fact is, though, that it exists and is becoming more powerful by the day. The US government, fearful of a repeat of 11 September, has invested billions in companies which can gather data in real-time from widely disparate sources, apply reasoning, scenario modelling and predictive technologies to it, and reach conclusions, with appropriate action taken timeously.

This is not science fiction or fantasy. It is part of the fabric of American life, it is all-pervasive and it is only going to get more powerful and intrusive.

On the one hand, this is no way to live; on the other, the investment in such technology has pushed the envelope, and we will certainly see the benefits for many years to come, in much the same way that Nasa`s space missions have given the world many commercial applications.

Taking the debate away from bleeding-edge to the prosaic, the ability to gain a comprehensive insight into the business is one many thousands of companies are seeking. This is typically known as the 360-degree enterprise: one in which management can easily and seamlessly gain insight across the entire business. With 360-degree insight, executives and managers can pull together all their disparate systems to drive a single, cohesive view of the organisation.

360-degree insight derives from a conscious decision to pull together, in one logical and well constructed whole, core production systems, customer-facing systems, HR systems, supply chain systems and business intelligence systems - typically using the appropriate enterprise data integration and enterprise application integration tools, and with significant re-engineering.

360-degree insight makes it easy and intuitive for management to see the linkages between costs and employees, processes and profitability; identify the most profitable customers and products; the effectiveness of marketing and sales strategies; and the ripple effect of actions on the entire supply chain.

Perhaps most importantly, 360-degree insight yields all of these insights in real-time.

This is clearly theory, as the technology does not exist today to make this happen. For instance BI must, of necessity, occur against historical data (even if by historical we mean data that is a day or just a few hours old). Secondly, the work required to bring all data sets together in a cohesive whole puts it beyond the scope of any organisation, anywhere in the world.

(This is not to mention the degree of change management that would be required to deliver against such a mandate, and the degree of corporate politicking that would be needed to break down internal Chinese Walls!)

Does this mean it`s undoable and unfeasible, or that we should not be building for this goal? Anything but. The ultimate benefits to be gained from a business that is this transparent and seamless in its workings will make the investment in time, effort and capital well worthwhile.

And, it should be clear, the foundations are being laid around the world for just such a kind of organisation. Companies that have grasped the business performance management (BPM) nettle are already seeing the manifold benefits such a discipline bestows.

Building on the back of cohesive BI investments, these companies are finding that an architected, logical approach to business management works best when it is driven against a single view of the truth.

BPM is showing the way for 360-degree insight: integrated strategy, planning, budgeting and forecasting, internal and external reporting, query and analysis, monitoring and balanced scorecard, all off a single, multidimensional view of the corporate truth.

Smart, pioneering executives have grasped the fact that BPM represents the spearhead of business management today, and is laying the foundation for what will surely be a better managed, more effective business world; and which could over time lead us to a world of 360-degree insight.

And this will be an all-seeing eye we don`t have to fear!