Well Managed Migration with APOS Solutions

From the frequent feedback and numerous requests we've received, it's clear what's on many of our customers' minds: migration. Specifically, migration to the new SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.x platform.

SAP's instructions for migrating to its new version are deceptively simple. If you have any project management experience, you'll know that that apparent simplicity hides substantial complexity and many potential risks. For any enterprise softsware deployment or upgrad, risk mitigation has to be the primary objective.

How can you ensure your risks are low and your ROI is high?
APOS well managed BI solutions should be part of your SAP BusinessObjects risk mitigation strategy ‑ before, during and after the migration process. Together, these solutions form a suite of well managed BI solutions to help you perform due diligence with regard to the "5 pillars" of well managed BI:

• Strategy / Optimization
• Security
• Performance
• Operational Maintenance
• Compliance

The time to achieve well managed BI is before you migrate to BI 4.0 FP3, not after, and APOS has the solutions to help you plan, design, implement, cut over and go live effectively. The key to a successful migration is effective risk management. The more variables you account for during planning and design, the fewer deviations there will be from the project plan during and after implementation (and the more likely the project will be to come in on time and on budget). You mitigate risk by knowing your system, your requirements, and your capabilities prior to migration.

That's the role of APOS well managed BI solutions:

• APOS Insight ‑ benchmark and optimize performance, plan the target environment, compare security environments.
• APOS Storage Center ‑ safeguard object, instance integrity for audit and compliance; save to neutral formats; purge Web Intelligence reports intelligently; manage disc space.
• APOS Administrator ‑ clean up content; manage security and users; apply bulk operations on objects, instances, recurring schedules to simplify complex deployments.
• APOS Publisher ‑ develop enhanced information delivery capabilities ‑ advanced bursting, consolidation and document delivery based on business rules.

SAP Announces Intent to Purchase Ariba - $4.3BN

Ariba, the Sunnyvale, California, based cloud computing developer, is the latest acquisition target for SAP. According to SAP, Ariba "is the leader in cloud-based collaborative commerce applications and the second-largest cloud vendor by revenue." The purchsase price is said to be US$4.3 billion.

Redefining BI

In the March 2012 edition of IT in Europe, SearchDataManagement.co.UK's Brian McKenna presents a simplified definition of BI:

Business Intelligence is ripe for defamiliarisation as a term. For IT professionals, the temptation is to understand it to mean query and reporting tools from the BI megavendors. But for one of the finance professionals quoted in this issue of IT in Europe: Data Management & BI Edition, “business intelligence means trying to make money out of data.” [Emphasis added.]

I like this definition, because it takes us closer to first principles. It takes us back to strategic objectives.

When we get set in our ways, comfortable and complacent in the status quo, we start to mistake the practice for the objective. Why do we do things the way we do them? Because that's the way we've always done them.

But the imperative to optimize the top and bottom lines of an enterprise requires us to re-examine our practices on a continuous basis. Can the practice be improved to bring us closer to our strategic objectives? Can a practice be said to be a best practice if it is not connected somehow to the realization of a strategic objective?

As I said, I like the redefinition. However, I don't think it goes far enough. I'm in the Peter Drucker school of thought on this one. Drucker was suspicious of the profit motive as a primary business driver. The purpose of a business, according to Drucker, is to create a customer. By measuring the success of the company against the ongoing relationship with the customer, we create a business that is first and foremost sustainable, but also mutually profitable.

BI's potential contribution to the pursuit of strategic objectives is obvious but not inevitable. BI professionals need to take a progressive approach ‑ to look for ways to achieve strategic objectives through better utilization of the BI platform.

In an article dedicated to the centenary of Drucker's birth, Oliver Marks notes another Drucker maxim: "Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes." For the BI professional, it's not just about improving knowledge, but about improving the way knowledge is stored, managed and disseminated.

The New APOS Website Is Here

Here's a shout-out to Martijn van Foeken (@mfoeken), who was one of the first to notice and tweet about the redesigned APOS website. Since the site's soft launch at the end of April, we've had lots of feedback from our friends, but none so vocal as Martijn's. Thanks.

The site does not represent a departure for us: it's just catching up. It now shows our focus on the concept of "well managed BI," the organizing principle of our solution set.

What do you think of when you think of APOS Systems Inc.? Maybe you think of report scheduling, or report bursting. Maybe you think of system monitoring and alerts. Maybe you think of backup and selective restore capabilities. Many people use APOS solutions to resolve specific issues they have esperienced in SAP BusinessObjects.

But the point is that APOS solutions grow with your SAP BusinessObjects deployment and your information consumers' needs, helping you become less reactive and more proactive in meeting those needs. APOS solutions resolve the issues you have now, and many of the ones you haven't yet experienced -- but will. They help you in your ongoing quest for well managed BI.

Webinar: Progressive Enterprise Publishing Solutions for SAPBusinessObjects

Are your current publishing processes growing more complex and consuming more and more of your administrative resources? Are they based on costly and outdated legacy software and platforms? This webinar will show you how to plan, automate, execute, and monitor document and statement generation from within a modern BI-integrated enterprise publishing solution.

The APOS Publisher Solution provides the agility, flexibility and security to meet complex BI publishing requirements. APOS Publisher complements the inherent strengths of SAP BusinessObjects, and brings end-to-end monitoring, control and output management to your process.

Join us on Tuesday, April 17, 2012, at 10 am or 4pm EDT for this thought-provoking discussion.

Harvard Study: Do eHealth Initiatives Add to the Cost of Healthcare?

 

According to Jesse Hirsh on CBC Radio this morning, a recently published study by Harvard researchers shows that eHealth initiatives may be too successful in that they make it too easy to access and take action on patient data. "It's a classic case of the hidden effects of technology; any time you try to solve one problem, you're inadvertently going to create another."

The Harvard study, published in Health Affairs, looked at two groups of physicians: one that used eHealth technology and one that didn't. The study found that the physicians using eHealth technology were 40% to 70% more likely to order extra tests for their patients. As a result, healthcare costs rise where eHealth technology is used. The study's abstract provides a brief conclusion to the research:

We conclude that use of these health information technologies, whatever their other benefits, remains unproven as an effective cost-control strategy with respect to reducing the ordering of unnecessary tests.

Now, this study, or at least the media coverage of this study, begs the question of the purposes for which eHealth record initiatives were introduced in the first place. Before we trumpet the failure of a certain technology to deliver cost savings, we need to look at the larger picture

One of the purposes for which eHealth records were introduced in the US was certainly to drive healthcare cost efficiencies. But the equal, and in some ways opposite, objective was to improve patient outcomes. (See the IOM's report Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21^st Century, published in 2001.) It is certainly possible to see how ordering additional tests could lead to better patient outcomes.

The conflict is not a new one. We see it all the time in business. It reminds me of the frustrations of a friend who worked in a call center some years ago. She felt she had been given conflicting objectives. She thought it was unrealistic that management should expect her to improve customer service while decreasing call time.

But are these objectives necessarily in conflict? No, they are only in conflict if we take them as absolute imperatives, and that's simply not how the world works. There have to be tradeoffs, and the real challenge for the customer service representative in the call center, and for the doctor using eHealth technology, is to balance the needs of the customer/patient versus the sustainability of the system.

Triage is not practiced only on battlefields and in emergency rooms. While decisions in the call center or the physician's practice may not always be life or death, they still require a triage mentality that balances the needs of the one against the needs of the many. Anyone who is concerned for the viability of an enterprise makes these decisions every day. To mix a metaphor, do we escalate or do we cut bait? The technology does not take away the need for human beings to make decision, balance priorities, and practice an ethic.

So, are the additional healthcare costs a result of a technological failure. No, they are more likely the result of a failure to train technology users sufficiently, a failure to adapt, and thus perhaps also a failure of vision. It's hard to satisfy your examiners when you are unaware of the criteria on which you are being judged.

From Legacy Headaches to BI ROI

I remember a time when the biggest debate in enterprise IT departments was whether to purchase "best-of-breed" solutions or integrated systems. Line-of-business managers leaned toward the rich functionality of the best-of-breed solutions, and executives and corporate directors were more interested in the wider and easier access to data provided by integrated systems. IT departments were caught in the middle, trying to please multiple masters.

These past battles come down to us as today's legacy applications. The average enterprise IT department may have dozens of software systems to maintain. But they also have to maintain the numerous platforms on which these software systems reside. And sometimes the demise of the platform overtakes the usefulness of the application.

It's a rare crisis that doesn't also present an opportunity to those who can see through the confusion. Many BI platform managers are in this position today. They have under their control a best-of-breed business intelligence solution that can access all enterprise data sources. The BI system is that formerlly elusive combination of best-of-breed solution and integrated system.

When the ROI of a legacy platform or solution is under review, the first question should be whether state-of-the-art systems such as your BI system can absorb the legacy function for increased BI ROI and reduced TCO.