9.

3 Enterprise Reporting Characteristics in OLAP World

• Single version of truth – The value of providing the same
“fact value” irrespective of the path the user has taken to
reach for the data is of paramount importance in reporting.
• Role-based delivery – This feature is critical to avoid
information overload.
• Anywhere/anytime/any-device access – Users have their
own preferences and therefore flexibility needs to be built
to ensure that users come to the same source of
information again and again and don’t find alternative ways
to decision making.
• Personalization – Users choices of delivery method, format
like PDF/worksheet/CSV, book marking, customizing (in
terms of language), etc. will need to be addressed.
Security – Enterprises have huge concern over the unauthorized
access to business- critical information, hacking by malicious
sources, inadvertent leakage of business data, etc. The security
framework needs to be thoroughly examined before
implementing reporting.
Alerts – Decision makers need immediate notification of threshold
breaches of critical business KPIs. These alerts need to be
delivered to various devices such as laptop, mobile devices in
different forms like email, sound, voice message, SMS text, pop-
up, etc. depending on user preferences.
Reports repository: Many enterprises are attempting to create
secure report repositories that service a wide range of users and
have flexible delivery/viewing options. Managing the content of
the repository itself is a task that needs specialized competencies
and tools.
Enterprises have witnessed and reported huge gains arising out of
business analytics reporting Enterprise reporting is not about buying
tools and converting existing reports to new platforms, but is all about building a
culture of "fact-based decision making. This is essentially change
management.
Some of the long-term benefits of these investments include:
• Enhanced collaboration: Teams around the globe will use facts to be on the
same page and look at the same facts for designing powerful alternatives,
collaboratively.
• Objective communications Managers are no longer required to exercise "gut
feel" to make "seat of the pant" decisions. They can look at facts.
• Reduced cost of audits/reviews: As all members of the team are on the same
page, there is no need to waste meeting time to bring them to the same level of
understanding by briefings. They are already aware.
• Reduced decision cycle time: Enterprises adopting structure business
analytics-based reporting will make consistent decisions and that too faster.
• Better predictability and ability to influence goals: Facts can be used to
innovate and gain truly sustainable market leadership and competitive
advantage.
 9.4 BALANCED SCORECARD
• We realize that "Measurement, Analysis, and Knowledge
Management (Malcolm Baldrige criteria) are critical for effective
management of the organization and for a fact-based, knowledge-
driven system for improving performance and competitiveness. It
serves as a foundation for the performance management system.
• How many business people take the strategy talk, that has an
important link with the performance and competitiveness of their
organization, seriously? Surprisingly, not many. According to a
Fortune Magazine survey, "Only 5% of the workforce understands the
strategy, 85% of executives spend less than one hour per month
discussing strategy, only 25% of managers have incentives linked to
strategy." So, there is always a need for a strategic planning and
management system which could
• Align business activities to the organization's vision and strategies.
• Improve internal and external communication.
• Monitor the organization's performance against its strategic goals.
• The balanced scorecard is one such strategic planning and
management tool used by organizations to align their
business activities with their organization's vision and
strategies. Dr. Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton gave
the world the balanced scorecard in 1992. They have to
their credit a book titled The Balanced Scorecard which
was published in 1996. This was followed by their second
book titled The Strategy Focused Organization in 2004. In
this book, they have proposed
• the "Strategic Linkage Model" or "Strategy Model". The
balanced scorecard is designed to identify the financial
and non-financial measures and attach some targets to
them so that at a later point in time during review it is
possible to decide whether the organization's performance
has met the set expectations or not.