Case studies FINAL

IS 465-002- Advanced Information Systems

Professor Sathish Rajamani

Team Case Study Assignment

April 25, 2016

Mariuxi Vasconez

Adaoha Uzoho

--------------------------------------------------Adaoha’s Section ----------------------------------------------------

2. Go to teradatauniversitynetwork.com. Select the "Articles" content type. Browse down the list

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of articles and locate one titled "Business/Corporate Performance Management: Changing

Vendor Landscape and New Market Targets." Based on the article, answer the following

questions:

A. What is the basic focus of the article? The basic focus of the article is on the emerging role of the CFO (Chief Financial Officer), the

senior executive with responsibility for the financial affairs of the corporation. It points to how

the people within these roles make use of performance management systems, as well as the the

possibilities of reshaping BI(business intelligence), and making decisions supported by data

warehousing. Lastly, this article focuses on the externally influenced trends that are driving the

transformation in the market, and the effect these changes have on the go-to market sales,

marketing, and product strategies of market competitors.

B. What are the major "takeaways" from the article? The major takeaways from the article are (1) CPM equals finance. (2) Emphasis shifts from

product to role: the office of the CFO. (3) CPM is part of a persuasive PM strategy. (4) M&A has

reshaped the CRM landscape. (5) CPM functionality coverage is comparable to pre-M&A, but

some competitive positions are now significantly strengthened. And lastly (6) Understanding

vendor strategies is critical to current and future buying plans.

C. In the article, which organizational function or role is most intimately involved in CPM? In this article, the organizational function or role most intimately involved in CPM is the role of

CFO, this is the Chief Financial Officer. This would make sense because when we look at the

essence of CPM, it deals directly with KPIs which are Key Performance Indicators. These would

include revenue, return of investments, overhead, and operational costs. Because of these

indicators, that is why CPM is primarily used within financial departments.

D. Which applications are covered by CPM? CPM stands for Corporate Performance Management has software designed to be used

throughout the enterprise. These applications compliment BI systems. The applications include

forecasting, budgeting and planning functions. Associated with its applications are graphical

scorecards, and dashboards to deliver corporate information. This applications also let its users

to track progress of projects relative to corporate goals and strategies. Some methodologies

that companies make use of are balanced scorecard or Six Sigma. The main applications

covered by CPM are Hypertension, OutlookSoft, Cartesis, and Cognos.

E. How are these applications similar to or different from the applications covered by Gartner's CPM?

They looked similar after the acquisitions. The major change lies in the competitive footprint of

a handful of powerful vendors: Business Objects, Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP. They are far

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stronger than before.

F. What is GRC, and what is its link to corporate performance? GRC stands for Governance, Risk, and Compliance. GRC is linked to corporate performance in

that its implementation helps with organizational structure. Each component is defined as

follows: Governance: the oversight role and essential to setting strategic objectives. Risk

management: evaluates all relevant business and regulatory risks to control and monitor

mitigation actions in a structured way. And compliance: is the execution of the objectives based

on risk tolerance. We can see how GRC is linked to performance because of the managing of

risks and the assurance of compliance throughout the business. The higher the level of maturity,

the more strategic GRC becomes and the stronger the link performance management which

overall affects the corporate performance.

G. What are some of the major acquisitions that have occurred in the CPM marketplace over the last couple of years?

Some major acquisitions that have occurred in the CPM marketplace over the last couple of

years include SAP’s updated strategy which resulted in OutlookSoft and Pilot Software. SAP also

entered a key partnership with Acorn Systems for profitability management. Oracle acquired

Hypertension, and Business Objects purchased Cartesis and Cognos bid for Applix. These major

moves made by these companies result in a significant upheaval in the market for CPM

applications and related services.

H. Select two of the companies discussed by the article (not SAP, Oracle, or IBM). What are the CPM strategies of each of the companies? What do the authors think about these strategies?

Two other companies discussed by the article are Business Objects and Applix. Applix’s CPM

strategy is to continue to place emphasis of the in-memory, real-time nature of the Applix

platform, including more attention to data integration of enterprise data across disparate

technical environments. Next strategy is to introduce on-demand applications for CPM (3Q07).

And their last strategy is to deliver functionality over the next 12 to 18 months, incorporating

role-based security and enhanced usability for interfaces to Applix products. In regards to

Business Objects, their strategy is more focused on data integration. Business Objects’

enterprise information management (EIM) assets will integrate data from whatever sources the

customer may have. As far as opinions go, for Business Objects, authors think that: “Business

Objects historically lagged in CPM. While best-in class competitors had a big lead, the gap has

narrowed significantly with 2007’s acquisitions. Integration across CPM components is

paramount and well underway. “ As for Applix, authors stated that: “... Applix’s strength is tied

to its platform capabilities, with applications, a means to visualize how that platform can get

used within a department or enterprise.”

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3. Go to teradatauniversitynetwork.com. Select the "Case Studies" content type. Browse down

the list of cases and locate one titled "Real-Time Dashboards at Western Digital." Based on the

article, answer the following questions:

A. What is VIS? VIS is an acronym for Vigilant Information Systems. A vigilant information system (VIS) includes

both sensing and responding capabilities. Vigilant information systems integrate and distill

information and business intelligence from various sources to detect changes, initiate alerts,

assist with diagnosing and analyzing problems, and support communication for quick action

B. In what ways is the architecture of VIS similar to or different from the architecture of BPM?

In a traditional information system, a user initiates a process, by, say, querying an application,

causing a database to be accessed. In contrast, in a vigilant information system, the system

initiates the process.

C. What are the similarities and differences between the closed-loop processes of BPM and the processes in the OODA decision cycle?

The OODA decision cycle and the closed loop process of BPM are similar in that they both useful

in designing VIS. OODA loops however, do not execute as quickly, but are flexible and highly

responsive to environmental changes.

D. What types of dashboards are in the system? Are they operational or tactical, or are they actually scorecards? Explain.

The types of dashboards in the system are corporate and factory dashboards. Corporate

dashboards are more operational, while factory dashboards are tactical. They are designed to

accommodate all levels of management by varying the information aggregation. Corporate

dashboards tend to include things pertaining to the overall organizational view. Meanwhile,

factory dashboards are meant more for improving the process.

E. What are the basic benefits provided by Western Digital's VIS and dashboards? The dashboards at Western Digital are called “real time,” which means they are “sufficiently

vigilant for the process being monitored.”

The real-time dashboard have changed how Western Digital manages operations, from the

boardroom to the shop floor in the factory. It improved visibility, realtime information, and

brought about quicker OODA loops to occur at all levels of the enterprise. Western Digital is a

faster-learning and more vigilant enterprise, so it can operate more leanly. Its ability to link

executive decision making with operations in real-time through dashboards has given it a

strategic edge as a responsive supply chain partner.

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F. What sorts of advice can you provide to a company that is getting ready to create its own VIS and dashboards?

There a few pieces of advice that can be provided to a company that is getting ready to create

its own VIS and dashboards, these can be seen in the “lessons learned” section of the article. (1)

The dashboard should be the nerve center for managing the enterprise. (2) There should be a

plan, along with a schedule as to how to coordinate teams to use the dashboards to manage

enterprise-wide. (3) The learning loop should be built around each OODA loop to foster group

learning. (4) And lastly, they should be sure to make it a management initiative.

4. Go to Stephen Few's blog "The Perceptual Edge" (perceptualedge.com). Go to the section of

"Examples." In this section, he provides critiques of various dashboard examples. Read a handful

of these examples. Now go to dundas.com. Select the "Gallery" section of the site. Once there,

click the "Digital Dashboard" selection. You will be shown a variety of different dashboard

demos. Run a couple of the demos.

Figure 1.1 Screenshot of Call Center Dashboard for GB Insurance

Figure 1.1: Screenshot of Call Center Dashboard

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Figure 1.2 Screenshot of Sales Dashboard

A. What sorts of information and metrics are shown on the demos? What sorts of actions

can you take?

From Figure 1.1 there are a few metrics that we can take from the demo. We can see that this

dashboard focuses primarily on a call center, and it displays all the necessary actions and

functions. The dashboard displays metrics such as: the top five agents of the day, the inbound

and outbound close rate, the rates of calls transferred, the average speed to answer an

incoming call, how many calls are waiting in the queue, as well as scheduled leads. The second

screenshot, Figure 1.2, the metrics are: upcoming meetings, client distribution, top clients, and

sales results. All important metrics in monitoring the progression of sales. In this demo, the

actions include displays that come up with you hover over points on the client distribution dot

on the map. The sales results allow users to click on a specific quarter to get more specific

details.

B. Using some of the basic concepts from Few's critiques, describe some of the good

design points and bad design points of the demos.

Between these two demos we can see some of Few’s basic concepts addressed. Although we

can view all these implemented actions as “distractions”, these dashboards need them in order

to make the dashboard business and need specific. Also there is a clear distinction between the

features, because of the way they are separated into their own sections. This makes it easy to

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compare performances, from best to worst. The use of colors and legends in both demos also

point to good design concepts.

5. Download an information visualization tool, such as Tableau, QlikView, or Spotfire. If your

school does not have an educational agreement with these companies, then a trial version

would be sufficient for this exercise. Use your own data (if you have any) or use one of the data

sets that comes with the tool (they usually have one or more data sets for demonstration

purposes). Study the data, come up with a couple of business problems, and use data and

visualization to analyze, visualize, and potentially solve those problems.

Using Qlikview and loading a dataset that came with the demo, social media buzz was able to

be tracked. The dashboard displayed total tweets, and organized them in sets of days. It also

allows users to be able to sort the information

http://us-b.demo.qlik.com/QvAJAXZfc/opendoc.htm?document=qvdocs%2FSocial%20Media

%20Buzz.qvw&host=demo11&anonymous=true

6. Go to teradatauniversitynetwork.com. Find the "Tableau Software Project." Read the

description, execute the tasks, and answer the questions.

--------------------------------------------------Mariuxi’s Section ----------------------------------------------------

7. Go to teradatauniversitynetwork.com. Find the assignment for SAS Visual Analytics. Using the

information and step-by-step instructions provided in the assignment,

execute the analysis on the SAS Visual Analytics tool (which is a Web-enabled system that does

not require any local installation). Answer the questions posed in the assignment.

8. Develop a prototype dashboard to display the financial results of a public company. The

prototype can be on paper, on Excel, or on a commercial tool. Use data from the 2012 annual

plans of two public companies to illustrate the features of your dashboard.

1. Virtually every BPM/CRM vendor provides case studies on their Web sites. As a team, select

two of these vendors (you can get their names from the Gartner or AMR lists). Select two case

studies from each of these sites. For each, summarize the problem the customer was trying to

address, the applications or solutions implemented, and the benefits the customer received

from the system.

2. Go to the Dashboard Spy Web-site map for executive dashboards (enterprise-

dashboard.com/sitemap). This site provides a number of examples of executive dash-boards. As

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a team, select a particular industry (e.g., health-care, banking, airlines). Locate a handful of

example dashboards for that industry. Describe the types of metrics found on the dashboards.

What types of displays are used to provide the information? Using what you know about

dashboard design, provide a paper prototype of a dashboard for this information.

3. Go to teradatauniversitynetwork.com. From there, go to University of Arkansas data sources.

Choose one of the large data sets, and download a large number of records (this may require

you to write an SQL statement that creates the variables that you want to include in the data

set). Come up with at least 10 questions that can be addressed with information visualization.

Using your favorite data visualization tool, analyze the data, and prepare a detailed report that

includes screen shots and other visuals.

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