Business Intelligence

 
 

Transforming Information Into Competitive Advantage

Today's business environment requires agile and accurate decision-making. Companies must look for better ways to leverage their information. This can be achieved only through the seamless flow of information and related analyses, achieving a single source of the truth. What are some challenges organizations face?

  • Limited visibility at an executive level into enterprise-wide information
  • Data compiled and analyzed into one format
  • Time consuming and complex reporting methods
  • Lack of focused and specific key performance indicators and executive dashboards

Gartner defines Business Intelligence as:

An interactive process for exploring and analyzing structured, domain-specific information (often stored in data warehouses) to discern business trends or patterns, thereby deriving insights and conclusions. The business intelligence process includes communicating findings effecting change. Domains include customers, suppliers, products, services, and competitors.

Wikipedia defines Business Intelligence as:

Business Intelligence (BI) refers to skills, knowledge, technologies, applications, quality, risks, security issues, and practices used to help a business acquire a better understanding of the market behavior and business context. For this purpose it employs collection, integration, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of business information. In simplified meaning, it may refer to the collected information itself or the explicit knowledge developed from the information.

BAC BI

Definitions are always up for debate, but the need to achieve a sustained competitive advantage never is. At BAC, our Business Intelligence designs (combined with our Data Warehousing) give our clients greater visibility into their disparate data sources so that they manage their information from a single version of the truth. That is a trendy phrase, but what it really means is that everyone from Marketing to Finance receives the same information and is making informed, consistent decisions. Whether you call it a dashboard, data mart, or scorecard, the content remains consistent throughout your organization.

Most consulting groups focus their efforts on one technical solution. BAC implements the appropriate technology for each client to resolve a multitude of issues. Our depth spans industry and technology platforms while always focusing on bringing you the desired ROI and a sustained competitive advantage.

We have a core cadre of senior business executives with significant global experience who are able to discuss global business issues with our clients and help them define and use the correct metrics and processes to achieve their desired goal. Our team is highly skilled in global business and the individuals have walked in the shoes of the executives they work with daily.

Microsoft

Microsoft asked Blackstone & Cullen to evaluate the consolidation of 77 Go-To-Market strategies into 7 master customer campaigns and recommend the approach and develop the analytics tools for the scorecards and dashboards used by executive and field management to determine program effectiveness. Read more: Microsoft Business Strategy Case Study

Imerys

Imerys needed to rapidly respond to multiple mergers and acquisitions by compiling multiple, corporate-wide data sources at a global level. Blackstone & Cullen provided a Performance Management system that would have Imerys quickly up and running on a system that would be mutable for future mergers. Read more: Imerys Business Intelligence Case Study

InComm

Blackstone and Cullen worked with InComm to create and implement a SQL Server Data Mart for aggregation and publication of business intelligence to both internal and external clients.
Read more: InComm Business Intelligence Case Study

Magellan

In order to fulfill a new contract, Magellan needed custom Business Intelligence reporting built on both existing and new data over multiple platforms (SQL and Oracle). Read more: Magellan Business Intelligence Case Study

LeasePlan

LeasePlan was spending too much time collecting, reconciling, and analyzing sales and marketing data to "up-to-date" information to their customers. Read more: LeasePlan Business Intelligence Case Study
 

Getting the most out of your investment in Microsoft SQL Server 2005
Microsoft SQL Server

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2, designed to enable you to leverage the enhancements within Windows Vista and the 2007 Office system, is now available. New capabilities in Reporting Services provide enhanced interoperability, including native support for connecting to additional external data sources, such as Oracle and Hyperion, and delivery of reports through rich integration with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. When it comes to Reporting Services, Analysis Services and SQL Server Integration Services (ETL) they all come in the box with SQL Server at no additional cost.

What Microsoft SQL Server Technologies Deliver

  • Faster Results

    Microsoft SQL Server 2005 provides a new Management Studio, integration with Visual Studio 2005, and the Microsoft .NET common language runtime - all of which help you build, debug, and operate applications faster and more efficiently.

  • Better Decisions

    SQL Server 2005 provides a comprehensive business intelligence platform for data integration, analysis, and reporting that helps you turn insight into action and make better decisions, faster.

  • Trusted Platform

    SQL Server 2005 supports the highest performance, availability and security to run your most demanding applications with native data encryption, secure default settings, and password policy enforcement.

BAC Delivers the Maximum on Your Microsoft Investment

  • BAC envisioning session for BI and Data Warehousing
  • Data Warehousing Architecture
  • Scorecard strategy and implementation
  • SQL Server 2005
  • Analysis Services & Business Intelligence
  • Reporting Services
  • Integration Services
  • Relational Engine
  • Business Scorecard Manager
  • Scorecard strategy
  • KPI and scorecard dashboard creation
  • Pro-Clarity Analytics
  • Performance Point
  • Office 2007 Integration
  • Cross Platform Integration

BAC also Works with These Technologies:

  • Oracle
  • OBIEE
  • IBM
  • COGNOS
  • SAP
  • Business Objects
  • Crystal Reports
  • ETL (Extract Transform and Load)

Blackstone & Cullen Engagement Delivery Process

Delivering on time and on budget is always a challenge. BAC has developed a solid and proven process to ensure we are always in synch with our clients.

We begin by developing a project charter or business case. This document is normally about 20-25 pages in length and describes the Business Need, Benefits, Critical Success Factors, Measures of Success, Approach, Scope, Deliverables, Cost Estimates, Project Control Strategies, a Work Breakdown Structure and a Communications and Issue Resolution Plan. It defines the total amount of work that must be done. This is jointly created document, with both our clients people and BAC people in the charter. Once the document is created we both sign it agree to move forward.

The WBS is converted to a detailed project plan. We collectively sit down at the project inception and jointly pre-approve the work to be done by both our clients people and BAC people as both teams are assigned tasks in the project plan. We both pre-approve the plan and move forward with a two week tactical plan that we will update weekly.

At the end of the first week, we have a project status meeting. We openly discuss our progress to date and review joint activities. If all is in order, we both sign off on the previous weeks work, and that status report is attached to your weekly invoice. We then layout the work to be done in the next two weeks both our clients people and BAC people and we jointly pre-approve the work.

Occasionally a change in scope is needed as new business requirements are uncovered during the project. For example, last week the client wants the screens to be Green but the senior executives want the screens to be red no problem, that is a change in scope that was not identified at the beginning of the project. We have several options, BAC can make the change or the client team can make the change. We truly do not care who does the work. Our goal is to jointly deliver a successful project. If additional funding is available, BAC is happy to do the work, if not, it is likely the client team will do the work. We are all in this together.

Weekly we jointly review the project status, pre-approve work scheduled for the next two weeks and continue the process to project completion.

In our nearly 20 years of business this project delivery methodology has proven to be the cornerstone of our success and customer satisfaction. All work is jointly pre-approved weekly. Ensuring on time and on budget delivery.

BIq

What is your Business Intelligence Quotient?

Want to know where your organization stands with its Business Intelligence program? Take a few minutes out of your day for BAC's BI Business Maturity Assessment. Learn where you stand and how BAC can help you tie your Business Intelligence to your Business Strategy.
To start your BI Business Maturity Assessment, click here.

Intelligence Not Just Data

Managers are drowning in data but cannot convert it to intelligence. Operations data, quality data, marketing research, sales data, cost summaries all clog desktops, but few managers have the benefit of a top down perspective and real business intelligence.