w sapx363 - Managing the Total Cost of Ownership of Business Intelligence, Książki IT

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//-->SAP White PaperBusiness intelligenceManaging the total Cost of ownershipof Business intelligenCeA 360-Degree PersPectiveContent34556891010About the AuthorExecutive SummaryWhat Is My Business IntelligenceTotal Cost of Ownership?Business Need Drives it spendHow Should EnterpriseBusiness Intelligence Run?Data Explosion and StrategicInformation Managementcapitalizing on the Data explosionwith top-Down DevelopmentControlling the Cost ofBusiness IntelligenceProviding AppropriateAnalytical tools11111112121212131414Understanding the Cost Drivers ofBusiness IntelligenceBusiness NeedsAnalytics toolsPeopleHardwareDatagovernanceBest Practices forManaging TCOSummaryFor More informationAbout the AuthorDr. Wayne Applebaum is a principal business consultant with over 25 years ofexperience in business intelligence and business analytics strategy. He developsanalytic frameworks that allow clients to take action by merging the key elementsof business analytics, data design, and technology into a cohesive whole.Dr. Applebaum takes a systemic view of enterprise information management andworks closely with each client to ensure a complete solution, combining thetalents of both the client and sAP to create a unique perspective.He holds a doctorate in research methodology from the University of Pittsburgh.exeCutive suMMaryiF YOU DON’t Meet YOUr NeeDs,cOst DOesN’t MAtterA major question that companies areasking business intelligence (Bi) pro-viders is, “What is your total cost ofownership?”For many companies, total cost ofownership (tcO) is out of control.And the problem is growing, fueled byever-increasing demands from the usercommunity, massive new sources fordata, new capabilities, shadow it land-scapes, and the cost of keeping peopleabreast of all the changes.User expectations are growing. Bi usersexpect all information to be available allthe time and in a format that can beeasily understood and easily accessed.in addition, the data must be of highquality, transparent, and relevant totheir jobs.these demands are not that unreason-able considering the culture we live intoday, with information coming at usfrom the time we wake in the morningto until the end of the day.How does an organization position itselfto deliver a cost-effective Bi solutionthat can meet its user community’sthirst for information and offer thelowest tcO? How does it manage thetcO of Bi? For it professionals, this isa problem that keeps us awake at night.the purpose of this paper is to focuson developing a framework for monitor-ing and managing the tcO of Bi.For many companies, total cost of ownership is outof control. And the problem is growing, fueled byever-increasing demands from the user community,massive new sources for data, new capabilities,shadow it landscapes, and the cost of keepingpeople abreast of all the changes.4SAP White Paper– Managing the total cost of Ownership of Business intelligencewhat is My Business intelligenCe totalCost of ownership?ANsWeriNg tHe rigHt QUestiONA number of metrics have been pro-posed for determining total cost ofownership of business intelligence, suchas cost per user and cost per report.While calculating the tcO of Bi – or forthat matter any it solution – may beinteresting, the real issue is more aboutthe management of tcO. to manageBi tcO, just like managing any organi-zational expenditure, we have to lookat business need.that the cost of business intelligence,like any other part of business opera-tions, be controlled by assessing andunderstanding the business need andletting that drive the priority of spend.Business need changes and shifts overtime and so does the need for Bi withinan enterprise. New needs arise, whileothers disappear as does the needfor certain types of data. One of thequickest ways to decrease the cost ofBi within an enterprise is to thoroughlyexamine each area and determine whatportions of it are no longer required tosupport business needs. these couldinclude obsolete reports, tools, and data.in some cases, there may even be theopportunity to simplify solution sets,standardize the data model, and rethinkthe user community delivery model.For example, if a data warehouse is fiveyears old, and if we assume that mostreports are run only over this year’sand last year’s data, then only 40% ofthe data in the data warehouse mayactually be required within the produc-tion system. some of the data, like thatused in reports on shipped items orclosed sales orders, might have a shorteruseful life. By examining the useful lifeof the data, we can take actions, suchas archiving data, that can increasesystem performance significantly whilesaving hundreds of gigabytes of storageat the data warehouse level, to saynothing of the backups, change logs,and duplicate copies.Another example is the use of the righttool for the right job. Most businessintelligence enterprises put the burdenof developing analytics on the it depart-ment or power users within the busi-Business Need Drives IT Spendthe tcO of Bi is tightly coupled tobusiness need. it is business need thatdrives it spend in this area. in general,the maturity of a company’s Bi capa-bilities has a large impact on tcO.Business intelligence tools are scalablewith respect to capacity, so the cost asload or users increase is fairly propor-tional. Once a Bi effort reaches criticalmass in a company, the increase incost per headcount, per query, or perreport remains relatively constant.therefore, a key driver for managingthe total cost of business intelligence isa company’s ability to effectively incor-porate business need into a flexible yetsustainable solution. this is not to saywe are advocating limiting businessneed to control costs, but we advocateA key driver for managingthe total cost of businessintelligence is a company’sability to effectively incor-porate business needs intoa flexible yet sustainablesolution.ness units. A tool that uses in-memoryanalytics and an intuitive interfacelets users explore and analyze largedata sets and save the view for futurereference. this could eliminate theneed for hundreds of reports to begenerated.SAP White Paper– Managing the total cost of Ownership of Business intelligence5 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]