BusinessIntelligence

Whitepaper: Business Intelligence for Large Corporates

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In a survey conducted by Economic Intelligence Unit of The Economist magazine, 80% of the top managers surveyed said that they would like to focus on adapting to the changing market needs and improve customer service. Almost 50% said that growing revenues was their second priority. These top managers also identified that the challenges to achieve these objectives is analyzing data to understand the changing trends and identify new opportunities.

Business Intelligence tools enable corporates to analyze, aggregate and correlate their data. Most corporates have implemented one or the other Enterprise Resource Planning system. While an Enterprise Resource Planning system brings operational efficiencies in the business operations, they do not provide the necessary tools to analyze the data that is being generated from business operations. At best, operational reports can be generated out of the system.

However to do advanced analysis of the data, a Business Intelligence tool is necessary. For e.g. if the corporate wants to analyze Supplier Performance and eliminate poor performing suppliers, it is simply not possible to do this in the ERP unless a number of software programmers and business analysts are engaged to bring out such a report. The ERPs are not designed to cater to such business requirements. A Business Intelligence tool, on the other hand, can create a simple supplier performance scorecard by accessing the data from ERP systems and using various tools to create the scorecard in a visually intuitive manner. The tool also provides the capability to drill-down into various dimensions to analyze where a specific supplier is underperforming. Or the tool can be used to understand why a supplier is performing optimally. There are many such examples. Analyzing Operational expenses, analyzing product line performances, analyzing customer demand are many such examples.

A Business Intelligence tool provides the following benefits to the organization:

  • Provides the Senior Managers the necessary information (data) to make effective business decisions. As against a Management Information System (MIS) solution, a BI solution is a Decision Support System.
  • Faster access to data enables Senior Managers to find the answers to their business problems much quicker than spending time analyzing various operational reports.
  • The BI tool provides the Key Business Metrics (Key Performance Indicators) whenever and wherever they are required. BI tools provide access to KPIs on a webpage or on a mobile devices.
  • Business Intelligence tools provide great insights into customer behavior. Using BI tools, business managers can understand customer preferences (which products are bought frequently and through what channels) quickly, and hence can greatly enhance customer experience.
  • BI tools also provide capabilities to analyze expenses and can bring in efficiencies in the business operations. Business Managers can analyze their top 5 spends and identify areas of bringing in cost efficiencies.
  • BI tools can also monitor inventory and enable business managers to manage inventory much better. This will in turn ensure that the customers get the products when they want, but will also reduce the inventory carrying costs.
  • BI tools enable CEO and top management to keep measuring performance against the set goals. This enables them to guide the organization to achieve their short term as well as long term goals.

 About Centum Software:

Centum Software is a young dynamic company set up in Noida, India. We focus on providing Business Analytics, Learning Management, Web Development services to our customers. We also enable and empower students from higher education institutions to learn new technologies and upgrade their skillsets, making them fit for corporate world.
For more details, please visit our website : www.centumsoftware.com You can also contact us at: sales@centumsoftware.com Connect with us on Skypeid:centumsoftware,  Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin.
smecloudcomputing

Why more SMEs are embracing cloud computing

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The advent of cloud computing has changed the way IT demands are met. There are some factors which make cloud computing a must for SMEs

The USP
Cloud computing significantly brings down the running cost for an organization . “Cloud computing has emerged as a new era in IT and is at the top of the agenda for every CIO today. SMEs that contribute to 1/3rd of IT investment find cloud computing as a most appealing IT feature. As per a recent study by Zinnov, the cloud computing market in India is estimated at around $400 million and is expected reach $4.5 billion by 2015 and SMEs being the backbone of Indian economy are likely to drive the growth.

Cloud adaptation not only brings down total cost of ownership , lowers risk and promotes innovation, but also offers a protected IT set up with high business continuity and IT talent retention which is most crucial for SMEs today,” says Neeraj Athalye, Head, Cloud Business, SAP India Pvt Ltd.

No maintenance
“Cloud computing not only enables you to access a lot of software and other related services but it also cuts down heavily on your maintenance cost. All you have to do is to pay some varied amount to the cloud service provider, which means that there is nothing which you have to maintain. To avail cloud computing services only a basic computer is required, so that it gets connected to cloud and the rest is taken care of by the host.

You just need to keep your computer up and running. This eventually makes functioning of an organization a hassle-free affair, as far as IT solutions are concerned. All you need is one account with a cloud computing provider, where entire staff can log in and operate,” says Abhishek Tyagi of Perfect Solution.

Luring SMEs
There is perception among SMEs that cloud computing is very expensive and beyond their reach. “Many SMEs which are not based in metropolis still believe that they cannot afford cloud services as it way beyond their budget, whereas to reap the benefits of cloud computing just a couple of hundred dollars are needed.

This lack of awareness is holding back many SMEs to make the most of cloud services,” points out Manmohan Aggarwal of Yebhi.com. He further adds that cloud computing service providers also need to come forward and spread awareness to make SMEs more aware of flexibility of cloud services.

The road ahead
Though cloud computing is picking up and more and more SMEs are coming forward to adopt it, experts do believe that cloud computing providers need to make it more cost effective and at the same time there is need of more awareness on the same.
“Small and medium businesses in India operate in lean environments with limited resources and IT personnel. Due to these limitations, upfront infrastructure investment is a big challenge for the vast base of SMBs and hence they consider cloud infrastructure to enhance competitiveness. The cloud model’s flexible payment model (pay per user per month) makes access to technology affordable for resource-constrained small and medium businesses.

One more significant thing to consider is that the adoption of cloud speeds up the implementation of technology and would help the vast SME base in India to achieve global competitiveness,” states Rajesh Janey, President, EMC India & SAARC.
“As for SMEs, they have to come forward and explore the various packages which suit their needs. Believe me, cloud computing is so flexible that it disappoints no one with its price and services,” concludes Abhishek.

Courtesy:TOI