Description
Business Intelligence and the Need for Real-Time Reporting
Business Intelligence
and the Need for
Real-Time Reporting
A Lawson Software
™
White Paper
Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
The BI Boom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Reporting Leading to Action—The Lawson
™
Solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2
A New Approach to Upgrading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3
LAW-2414 White Paper_alt.qxd 5/17/06 3:34 PM Page a1
Business re p o rting has evo l ved from a
post hoc, paper-based tool used
p e riodically by business managers to
d e t e rmine long-term business trends
into a near real-time, on-line tool used
to gauge the daily tactical health of
business operations. The number of
such tools and users of them has
p ro l i f e rated in larger operations. Of
p a rticular concern to many publicly
held businesses are re p o rting tools that
continually monitor the thousands of
t ransactions that underlie financial
re p o rting. The need for these tools
a rises from increased scrutiny of
financial information, the result of
Sarbanes-Oxley and other legislation
in the U.S. and similar measures
p romulgated by the European Union.
To meet these new needs for more
comprehensive and up-to-date
reporting tools, many businesses are
attempting to integrate their
numerous former “point” reporting
solutions into a unified business
management infrastructure. The aim
is what many call a “business
intelligence” solution—or a
comprehensive and integrated
reporting application that provides a
single perspective on both tactical and
longer term business perf o rm a n c e.
On a technology level, this has meant
that fixed integration, the ‘hard
wiring’ of applications into
permanent relationships, is giving
way to the creation of loosely-
coupled, composite services that are
created from a resource pool of
applications, tools and hardware, and
which are available as needed by
users in different levels of the
organization. APIs based on open
industry standards, HTML and other
internet markup languages, and, of
course, the internet itself are making
such services possible. The overall
framework for such a constellation of
flexibly and loosely coupled services
is most commonly referred to as a
service-oriented technology
architecture (SOA).
The demands new reporting
requirements and new technology
paradigms reflected by concepts such
as SOA place on businesses are two-
fold. For one, business managers
require an environment in which the
complexity of applications and
tools—including the many well-
established legacy applications which
still lie at the heart of many
businesses—can operate in an
increasingly loosely-coupled yet
well-integrated fashion. Secondly,
managers must implement new
reporting environments that surface
important data about the operations
and transactions in clear, easily
interpreted, and easily auditable
formats. The importance difference
between financial reporting now and
in the past is that today reporting
must be proactive rather than
reactive. Questionable transactions
must be identified and corrected long
before they require restatements of
financial data. This can’t be fixed by
technology alone but instead often
requires major adjustments to the
way businesses operate internally.
It comes as little surprise that
Business Intelligence (BI) is,
according to recent research
conducted by Forrester Research, fast
becoming one of the highest priority
requirements for business managers.
The Forrester research surveyed
227 finance decision makers at North
American companies. Forty-three
percent of this group planned to buy
BI systems as key support tools for
financial activities—the largest single
product category. Forty-one percent
planned to buy new internal control
systems. Both figures were up sharply
from similar research done before
Sarbanes-Oxley, the U.S. Patriot Act,
Basel II in the EU, and other measures
were enacted.
Driving this new focus on business
intelligence and better internal
controls are the new responsibilities
business managers face ensuring that
transaction and financial data pass
external regulatory security. For
example, accurately reporting on the
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
and other metrics has always been
important within the enterprise as
a method of getting a snapshot on
how the business is running. Now
such information must be monitored
for a variety of regulatory compliance
requirements and the components
that make up such measures must be
fully auditable right down to their
transactional data sources.
1
Background The BI Boom
LAW-2414 White Paper_alt.qxd 5/17/06 3:34 PM Page 1
In this new environment, businesses
need to both simplify and unify their
business management and reporting
applications, a task which leads many
businesses to conclude they need new
business intelligence functionality
that integrates previously stand-alone
or disparate applications.
Lawson offers its own integrated
Business Intelligence Suite (LBI). For
many companies, LBI can provide a
complete performance management
solution that provides the core
financial and business management
tools needed to help run a company
more efficiently and successfully.
These include not only financial
management tools, but also Human
Capital Management, procurement
tools, which help automate
purchasing and manage inventory,
distribution management tools, and
Services Automation, which is
designed to help manage both people
and projects together. What ties them
all together in the context of BI and
enterprise-wide reporting is a set of
services Lawson calls Enterprise
Performance Management.
One of the key components of Lawson
Enterprise Performance Management
is the Lawson Business Intelligence
(LBI) application, which helps provide
the tools needed to capture,
consolidate and analyze key data
from legacy applications and newer
SOA applications and then publish it
to users, via the web, in a wide range
of formats.
There are two important aspects to
reporting. One is that data from all
relevant applications are incorporated
into a single point of access—one
place where business managers
can go to both view and manage
their reports.
LBI provides this capability by
sourcing data from both Lawson and
non-Lawson data sources. The second
aspect is the ability to produce reports
in as near to real-time as possible so
that managers are in touch with the
current state of business processes.
The combination of capabilities—
the use of legacy system outputs as
inputs to LBI coupled with data from
Lawson’s own applications—makes
this possible.
The Lawson solution uses dashboards
as the single point of contact between
the system and relevant managers.
With the right information feeds,
dashboards can become simple, yet
powerful tools for publishing
information in a manner that makes
sense to a business user. It is also an
approach that can be flexible, which
means that the same basic data can
be reanalyzed and published in a
range of different formats to suit the
differing needs of managers and staff
throughout the business process
workflow chain.
As for taking action, Lawson provides
a feature called Lawson Smart
Notification.
®
This can target key
financial controls and combine them
with workflow automation features
built into Lawson applications. For
example, the dashboard could
highlight a problem with specific
overdue accounts. The Lawson Smart
Notification component incorporates
the ability to use preset rules that
could trap such a problem and
automatically set in motion a series
of investigations and consequent
actions designed to remedy the
problem as soon as the business rules
are triggered.
These preset rules deliver information
links to the appropriate staff, so they
can take prompt action. This could
include information from a wide
range of sources, such as payment
records, credit risks, product
deliveries, outstanding issues, and
recent communications with
the customer.
These capabilities of Lawson Business
Intelligence help increase the speed at
which staff can serve the needs of the
business to help maintain the best
margins possible.
2
Reporting Leading to Action—the Lawson
™
Solution
LAW-2414 White Paper_alt.qxd 5/17/06 3:34 PM Page 2
3
1
Footnote
LAW-2414 White Paper_alt.qxd 5/17/06 3:34 PM Page 3
As businesses start to implement
service-oriented architectures (SOA),
the capabilities of Smart Notification
®
can grow in value. This is due to the
ability to integrate a wide range of
applications into a more unified and
flexible reporting environment.
By integrating a wide range of
applications, Lawson
™
Business
Intelligence allows users to bypass the
traditional upgrade model. Now it
becomes possible to adopt a model
in which new applications are added,
integrated, and run in parallel with
the legacy systems.
4
A New Approach to Upgrading
4
LAW-2414 White Paper_alt.qxd 5/17/06 3:34 PM Page 4
Notice: The content of this white paper is based on information reasonably available to Lawson, and may include the opinions of Lawson or other persons. This white paper does not
create or amend any contractual obligations or warranties. Information contained herein is subject to change without notice.
Lawson, Lawson Software and the Lawson logo are trademarks of Lawson Software, Inc. Other product or services names mentioned may be trademarks of Lawson Software, Inc. or the
respective owners of those trademarks.
Copyright ©2006 Lawson Software, Inc. All rights reserved. SEPM-WP460 0506
For information on Lawson
™
Enterprise Performance Management and Lawson Business Intelligence, please visit
www.lawson.com.
LAW-2414 White Paper_alt.qxd 5/17/06 3:34 PM Page 5
doc_342491327.pdf
Business Intelligence and the Need for Real-Time Reporting
Business Intelligence
and the Need for
Real-Time Reporting
A Lawson Software
™
White Paper
Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
The BI Boom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Reporting Leading to Action—The Lawson
™
Solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2
A New Approach to Upgrading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3
LAW-2414 White Paper_alt.qxd 5/17/06 3:34 PM Page a1
Business re p o rting has evo l ved from a
post hoc, paper-based tool used
p e riodically by business managers to
d e t e rmine long-term business trends
into a near real-time, on-line tool used
to gauge the daily tactical health of
business operations. The number of
such tools and users of them has
p ro l i f e rated in larger operations. Of
p a rticular concern to many publicly
held businesses are re p o rting tools that
continually monitor the thousands of
t ransactions that underlie financial
re p o rting. The need for these tools
a rises from increased scrutiny of
financial information, the result of
Sarbanes-Oxley and other legislation
in the U.S. and similar measures
p romulgated by the European Union.
To meet these new needs for more
comprehensive and up-to-date
reporting tools, many businesses are
attempting to integrate their
numerous former “point” reporting
solutions into a unified business
management infrastructure. The aim
is what many call a “business
intelligence” solution—or a
comprehensive and integrated
reporting application that provides a
single perspective on both tactical and
longer term business perf o rm a n c e.
On a technology level, this has meant
that fixed integration, the ‘hard
wiring’ of applications into
permanent relationships, is giving
way to the creation of loosely-
coupled, composite services that are
created from a resource pool of
applications, tools and hardware, and
which are available as needed by
users in different levels of the
organization. APIs based on open
industry standards, HTML and other
internet markup languages, and, of
course, the internet itself are making
such services possible. The overall
framework for such a constellation of
flexibly and loosely coupled services
is most commonly referred to as a
service-oriented technology
architecture (SOA).
The demands new reporting
requirements and new technology
paradigms reflected by concepts such
as SOA place on businesses are two-
fold. For one, business managers
require an environment in which the
complexity of applications and
tools—including the many well-
established legacy applications which
still lie at the heart of many
businesses—can operate in an
increasingly loosely-coupled yet
well-integrated fashion. Secondly,
managers must implement new
reporting environments that surface
important data about the operations
and transactions in clear, easily
interpreted, and easily auditable
formats. The importance difference
between financial reporting now and
in the past is that today reporting
must be proactive rather than
reactive. Questionable transactions
must be identified and corrected long
before they require restatements of
financial data. This can’t be fixed by
technology alone but instead often
requires major adjustments to the
way businesses operate internally.
It comes as little surprise that
Business Intelligence (BI) is,
according to recent research
conducted by Forrester Research, fast
becoming one of the highest priority
requirements for business managers.
The Forrester research surveyed
227 finance decision makers at North
American companies. Forty-three
percent of this group planned to buy
BI systems as key support tools for
financial activities—the largest single
product category. Forty-one percent
planned to buy new internal control
systems. Both figures were up sharply
from similar research done before
Sarbanes-Oxley, the U.S. Patriot Act,
Basel II in the EU, and other measures
were enacted.
Driving this new focus on business
intelligence and better internal
controls are the new responsibilities
business managers face ensuring that
transaction and financial data pass
external regulatory security. For
example, accurately reporting on the
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
and other metrics has always been
important within the enterprise as
a method of getting a snapshot on
how the business is running. Now
such information must be monitored
for a variety of regulatory compliance
requirements and the components
that make up such measures must be
fully auditable right down to their
transactional data sources.
1
Background The BI Boom
LAW-2414 White Paper_alt.qxd 5/17/06 3:34 PM Page 1
In this new environment, businesses
need to both simplify and unify their
business management and reporting
applications, a task which leads many
businesses to conclude they need new
business intelligence functionality
that integrates previously stand-alone
or disparate applications.
Lawson offers its own integrated
Business Intelligence Suite (LBI). For
many companies, LBI can provide a
complete performance management
solution that provides the core
financial and business management
tools needed to help run a company
more efficiently and successfully.
These include not only financial
management tools, but also Human
Capital Management, procurement
tools, which help automate
purchasing and manage inventory,
distribution management tools, and
Services Automation, which is
designed to help manage both people
and projects together. What ties them
all together in the context of BI and
enterprise-wide reporting is a set of
services Lawson calls Enterprise
Performance Management.
One of the key components of Lawson
Enterprise Performance Management
is the Lawson Business Intelligence
(LBI) application, which helps provide
the tools needed to capture,
consolidate and analyze key data
from legacy applications and newer
SOA applications and then publish it
to users, via the web, in a wide range
of formats.
There are two important aspects to
reporting. One is that data from all
relevant applications are incorporated
into a single point of access—one
place where business managers
can go to both view and manage
their reports.
LBI provides this capability by
sourcing data from both Lawson and
non-Lawson data sources. The second
aspect is the ability to produce reports
in as near to real-time as possible so
that managers are in touch with the
current state of business processes.
The combination of capabilities—
the use of legacy system outputs as
inputs to LBI coupled with data from
Lawson’s own applications—makes
this possible.
The Lawson solution uses dashboards
as the single point of contact between
the system and relevant managers.
With the right information feeds,
dashboards can become simple, yet
powerful tools for publishing
information in a manner that makes
sense to a business user. It is also an
approach that can be flexible, which
means that the same basic data can
be reanalyzed and published in a
range of different formats to suit the
differing needs of managers and staff
throughout the business process
workflow chain.
As for taking action, Lawson provides
a feature called Lawson Smart
Notification.
®
This can target key
financial controls and combine them
with workflow automation features
built into Lawson applications. For
example, the dashboard could
highlight a problem with specific
overdue accounts. The Lawson Smart
Notification component incorporates
the ability to use preset rules that
could trap such a problem and
automatically set in motion a series
of investigations and consequent
actions designed to remedy the
problem as soon as the business rules
are triggered.
These preset rules deliver information
links to the appropriate staff, so they
can take prompt action. This could
include information from a wide
range of sources, such as payment
records, credit risks, product
deliveries, outstanding issues, and
recent communications with
the customer.
These capabilities of Lawson Business
Intelligence help increase the speed at
which staff can serve the needs of the
business to help maintain the best
margins possible.
2
Reporting Leading to Action—the Lawson
™
Solution
LAW-2414 White Paper_alt.qxd 5/17/06 3:34 PM Page 2
3
1
Footnote
LAW-2414 White Paper_alt.qxd 5/17/06 3:34 PM Page 3
As businesses start to implement
service-oriented architectures (SOA),
the capabilities of Smart Notification
®
can grow in value. This is due to the
ability to integrate a wide range of
applications into a more unified and
flexible reporting environment.
By integrating a wide range of
applications, Lawson
™
Business
Intelligence allows users to bypass the
traditional upgrade model. Now it
becomes possible to adopt a model
in which new applications are added,
integrated, and run in parallel with
the legacy systems.
4
A New Approach to Upgrading
4
LAW-2414 White Paper_alt.qxd 5/17/06 3:34 PM Page 4
Notice: The content of this white paper is based on information reasonably available to Lawson, and may include the opinions of Lawson or other persons. This white paper does not
create or amend any contractual obligations or warranties. Information contained herein is subject to change without notice.
Lawson, Lawson Software and the Lawson logo are trademarks of Lawson Software, Inc. Other product or services names mentioned may be trademarks of Lawson Software, Inc. or the
respective owners of those trademarks.
Copyright ©2006 Lawson Software, Inc. All rights reserved. SEPM-WP460 0506
For information on Lawson
™
Enterprise Performance Management and Lawson Business Intelligence, please visit
www.lawson.com.
LAW-2414 White Paper_alt.qxd 5/17/06 3:34 PM Page 5
doc_342491327.pdf