Telia InfoMedia Respons AB, a subsidiary of Telia AB, has recently implemented two applications based on Seagate Software`s Seagate Holos Business Intelligence software. With these applications, a wide range of users can perform flexible analyses of the company`s financial data, with substantial benefits in terms of tracking project profitability, identifying problems and correcting errors.
Telia AB is a market-leading telecommunications corporation in the Nordic and Baltic areas, with sales of $6 billion in 1997. Its products include a range of telecom-based information and media services, which focus on collecting, sorting, packaging and presenting information using new and existing technologies. The development of these services is handled by a separate company, Telia InfoMedia Respons. Based in Stockholm, the company employs 1,300 people and has operations at 14 sites in Sweden.
Telia InfoMedia Respons has recently implemented a new infrastructure for financial reporting. According to IT manager Adrian Talbot, the aim was to give large numbers of internal users rapid access to up-to-date information.
Information for everyone
"Our existing approach to management information involved a small number of users extracting relevant information at intervals and producing paper-based reports for distribution. We wanted a much more flexible system that everybody could use," he said.
As well as implementing a new approach to financial reporting, the company also restructured its basic business model to make it more project-oriented and more flexible. This involved replacing its inflexible AS/400-based accounting system, which did not provide information at the project level. The platform was changed to Windows NT at the same time.
One important feature of the new business model was the possibility of analysing business data using on-line analytical processing (OLAP). In selecting an OLAP-based Business Intelligence tool, one of the key criteria used by Telia InfoMedia Respons was the ability to develop reporting capabilities over time.
"Basically, we were looking for a tool with a built-in development environment. Several of the products we looked at were very attractive at first glance and seemed easy to use. However, it was obvious with some of them that once we had implemented a solution, it would be very difficult to leverage existing development when carrying out further work," said Talbot.
"We narrowed the choice down to two products: Seagate Holos and Oracle Express. In the end, we chose Seagate Holos because of its better server-side intelligence and its excellent references. We were also encouraged by Seagate`s financial stability and its high profile in Sweden."
To help choose a new accounting package and design the new solution, Telia InfoMedia Respons engaged Cepro, a leading Swedish management consultancy which is also a Seagate Software consulting partner. Cepro concluded that the best solution for Telia`s needs was a combination of AGRESSO accounting software and Seagate Holos, using Oracle databases. The project started in October 1997, with Cepro and Sema Group responsible for the implementation and Seagate Software helping with the installation of Seagate Holos.
Implementation was rapid, with the first two Seagate Holos applications going live in January 1998. The system is accessed by approximately 120 users at 14 different sites.
The two Seagate Holos applications use financial data from AGRESSO. At the moment, the data is updated at monthly intervals, but weekly updating will be introduced very soon. One application is used for reporting and the other for prognosis; between them, they provide a full financial analysis of Telia`s projects and a comparison with budgetary estimates. Both applications provide full legal and internal reporting functionality, including elimination of internal transactions at any given level.
"All our products are run as projects. With the new system we can drill down through the data to the level of the individual project. We can then see how each product is doing in terms of profit and loss, and we can satisfy all our internal reporting requirements," said Talbot.
Clear Benefits
Although the applications are still relatively new, their benefits are clear. Because they provide flexible analysis and can be used by everyone, the company is able to close its books more quickly each month. Errors are detected more easily because analyses are carried out by the project leaders, who are familiar with their own projects. Also, the new capabilities for financial analysis make it much easier to identify the factors underlying fluctuations in profitability. If a project runs into problems, this is apparent immediately; in past years, most problems were only detected in autumn as people prepared for the company`s December year-end. Users are also very impressed by the performance of the new applications.
"When we chose Seagate Holos, we made a conscious decision to go for the product with the best implementation of OLAP. The new Compound OLAP architecture introduced in Seagate Holos 6 is particularly significant because it is capable of dealing with very large data structures without any penalty in terms of availability and performance. It is ideally suited for a sparse data structure such as ours, where there are an enormous number of clients but relatively few orders per client," said Talbot.
Another area where Seagate Holos scores very highly in Talbot`s view is application development. In his words, Seagate Holos`s capabilities are "on a totally different level to those of other OLAP tools." Telia InfoMedia Respons is taking advantage of these capabilities by developing several new applications to analyse non-financial factors. These applications are part of the company`s drive to implement a multidimensional "balanced-scorecard" approach to evaluating corporate performance. As the new applications are added, the number of users will increase to more than 300.
The company also intends to implement a data warehouse containing historical data that can be passed on to Seagate Holos for analysis. Other plans include the implementation of an open client interface, with MS Excel as the Seagate Holos client. Ultimately, a company intranet will be extended to include Seagate Holos information, making it accessible using a Web browser.
"In my view, Seagate Holos is clearly a leading option in the market for OLAP tools at the moment. Seagate`s technology on the server side is absolutely world-class, and it is backed up by an excellent technical support service," concluded Talbot.
Technical Information
Hardware: HP Netserver LX server, 4CPU, 2Gb RAM
Database: Oracle 7.3.3
Network: TCP/IP
Quote
"In my view, Seagate Holos is clearly a leading option in the market for OLAP tools at the moment. Seagate`s technology on the server side is absolutely world-class, and it is backed up by an excellent technical support service."
Adrian Talbot, IT Manager, Telia InfoMedia Respons AB EMEA Marketing
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