Business Intelligence
eBusiness~
This report contains resources for Business Intelligence in eBusiness. eBusiness uses Internet technology to improve and transform key business processes. Supply Chain Management (SCM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) are major areas in eBusiness. We discuss in greater detail how CRM affects business intelligence and success stories in CRM.
Supply Chain Management (SCM) encompasses the processes used while doing business with suppliers. SCM includes everything from software, strategies, and approaches to efficiently work with suppliers. SCM is used to ensure that suppliers produce correct quantities of products at optimal prices and distribute them to the correct location at the specified time. SCM oversees the supply chain from manufactures to warehouses to customers and manages planning across the chain from demand to manufacturing to transportation. SCM aims to reduce costs while improving efficiency and customer service.
SCM Vendors~
i2 offers a complete SCM application including
supply chain model, marketplace-to-marketplace support and content management
capabilities.
SAP offers a product called mySAP SCM that provides applications from supply chain planning to supply chain networking.
SynQuest provides applications that manage the entire supply chain, including materials supply, manufacturing, distribution, transportation and trading partners.
Cadre offers a wide range of software to manage warehouse operations, transportation, order capture, purchasing, and accounting/invoicing systems.
http://www.2020software.com/search/display.asp?tCategoryID=3&tMethod=category
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) aims to increase efficiency throughout an entire organization. The main reasons companies implement an ERP system are: 1) the desire to standardize and improve processes, 2) to improve the level of systems integration, and 3) to improve information quality.
ERP is an industry term for a modular software application used by a business to automate its key business processes, uniting various disciplines within the organization, such as Finance, Manufacturing, Distribution, Sales, Human Resources and Payroll. Typically, ERP refers to a relational database management system (RDBMS) licensed from a single supplier, such as Peoplesoft, Oracle or SAP. The implementation of an ERP system often costs millions of dollars and spans several years. Usually, these traditional ERP systems are strong in one area, such as Finance, but considerably weaker in another, such as Human Resources. One issue which extends the implementation time is the proscribed order in which various modules must be brought on-line. For example, Finance might need to be implemented before Payroll, which might need to be implemented before Human Resources.
IBM
Business Intelligence can help you transform your massive ERP data into actionable information. Find that needle in a haystack. Visualize trends that are impacting your business. See business results in real time. Arm your knowledge workers with the information they need to excel.
IBM offers business intelligence expertise, plus data mining and data warehousing software and ERP integration capabilities to customize a business intelligence solution for you. For instance, you can produce over 40 Sales Analysis reports to understand real-time how your sales are meeting planned targets. Obtain data right from your ERP package. Getting started is easy. Participate in a data warehousing considerations workshop, tailored for ERP customers.
For more information on ERP from IBM:
http://houns54.clearlake.ibm.com/solutions/erp/erppub.nsf/detailcontacts/erp_services
Capterra
ERP enables an organization to automate activities such as product planning, purchasing, inventory management, supplier management, and order tracking. Over time, ERP has evolved to include other area of the business model, such as accounting and human resources.
For more information on ERP from Capterra: http://www.capterra.com/categories.tcl?cat=erp
Oracle:
Oracle's ERP applications provide complete visibility into global Human Resources, Projects and Financial operations. The E-Business Suite allows companies to access all of their data in one place without having to integrate or synchronize separately deployed systems. As a result, managers are able to make better decisions with up-to-date, integrated information from across their operating units, organizations, and projects.
For more information on ERP from Oracle: http://www.oracle.com/applications/bus_intelligence/index.html?erpi.html
The following link provides an extraordinary amount of information on everything associated with ERP: http://www.erpassist.com/
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) focuses on making and keeping good customer relationships.
CRM is an idea that utilizes software tools, data management, ideas, and strategies to maximize the relationship that a business develops with its customers. The idea, according to IBM, is to take more of a long-term view and look beyond the immediate transaction. In other words, being able to better predict what your customer, and additionally future potential customers, may want before they ask for it.
A main feature of CRM stresses the importance of empowering all employees in an organization with the information they need to service a customer upon request. This way when a customer calls in about the status of an order, to place an order, to file a complaint, to inquire about a bill, etc, any employee can help them. This information can include things such as order history, payment history, complaint history, purchasing preferences, etc.
CRM also stresses communication between the employees and the customers and to allow this communication to take on many forms. These forms can include things such as fax, phone, email, or direct contact. It is important that all of these forms of communication are integrated into a manageable system that all employees in the organization have access to so that timely information can be provided to the customer. CRM helps bring these forms together. SAP helps define CRM by supporting the entire customer interaction chain, providing a single customer view, connecting everyone in the network, and enabling collaborative CRM. All of these ideas lead to better customer relationship management. For more on SAP’s CRM program visit:
http://www.sap.com/solutions/crm/businessbenefits.asp
Visit these other Customer Relationship Management sites for more information:
http://www-3.ibm.com/e-business/doc/content/overview/28216.html
http://www.sap.com/solutions/crm/index.asp?printview
http://www.i2.com/web505/server_navigation/skeletons/i2_01/framework/navigation.cfm
CRM and Business Intelligence~
The question is now that we have CRM, how does this help our business become more intelligent? How are we better able to make decisions that affect our customers and how will improved customer relations help our business?
Business Intelligence is related to CRM because it is necessary to collect large amounts of data about the customer base of an organization. Once this data is collected, it needs to be organized and understood so that customer relationships can be developed and improved utilizing the information gained from the data collection. The world is a highly competitive and interconnected place and customer data is being collected and is readily available to any business that is intelligent enough to collect it. It is important to develop this data into useful information that will provide the business with solutions to questions such as, how to attract new customers, how to encourage repeat customers, and how to better understand the needs and wants of the customer. All of these questions need to be answered and they need to be answered in timely fashions. Oracles business intelligence plan includes CRM by managing customer information though all aspects of the business, such as, marketing, sales, purchasing, service, manufacturing and customer service. For more on Oracle’s CRM and business intelligence plan visit:
http://www.oracle.com/applications/bus_intelligence/crmi.html
Having all of this information can help your company make more informed decisions in the future. IBM suggests decisions such as which markets to enter, which customers to pursue, and which products to promote. Incorporating the Web and information technology to develop better CRM programs does this. For more on IBM’s business intelligence solutions go to:
http://www-3.ibm.com/e-business/doc/content/overview/23395.html
SAP’s CRM relates to the overall business intelligence of an organization by allowing the organization to experience increased revenues, reduced costs, and gaining a competitive advantage. This is accomplished by improving the efficiency of customer acquisition, improving market response rates, reducing marketing costs, optimizing inventories, and increasing customer loyalty and retention. Read more about the business benefits of SAP at http://www.sap.com/solutions/crm/businessbenefits.asp
Microsoft assigns more tangible measures of utilizing a business intelligence plan by achieving:
28% faster time to market
166% return on investment
277% internal rate of return
CRM is an important part of that overall plan. For more on Microsoft’s business value solutions visit: http://www.microsoft.com/business/solutions/value/valuehome.asp
Time Warner Cable: When, due to changes in federal law, new market opportunities appeared for Time Warner, they lacked a CRM which would have enabled them to respond quickly by automating their sales, marketing, and customer service functions. Microsoft helped them to establish a CRM which has given Time Warner all of those automations, including enhanced training functions for their salesforce. This has led to a 60-day telemarketing campaign sales number of $1.5 million in new subscriptions. For more on Time Warner’s success using CRM visit:
http://www.microsoft.com/business/casestudies/crm/charlesmackassoc_timewarner.asp
Nestle Nordic: This business arm of Nestle was comprised of essentially 4 separate companies in four different countries. Each company had its own customer call center and operations department. SAP integrated their systems into one and developed on central call center. Overcoming the language problems and other potential setbacks, the result is an overall lowering of operating costs and improved customer service, purchasing, inventory, sales and forecasting systems.
Siemens ICM: The company is second in the European market for cell phones and third in the entire world. They recently worked with SAP to link its sales and office based personnel with all relevant customer data. This has led to better service and greater customer satisfaction. This story is one in how a process of continuous improvement in an already successful business can pay off in te long run.
For information on these two and other SAP success stories visit their website at: http://www.sap.com/solutions/crm/customersuccesses.asp
Taylor Made: Taylor Made is a manufacturer of golf equipment which sought CRM solutions to its problems with forecasting demand. By integrating operations with production, creating online shopping, and enabling wireless customer inventory management, i2 has created a company that is more in touch with its customers and can better forecast demand for their products. This has enabled Taylor Made to set management goals of generating $50 million in value of 3 years through better inventory management, supplier management, and customer relations. Already production time is down and they offer the fastest service in the industry. For more on this story visit i2 at: http://www.i2.com/web505/media/C29C7A2B-729D-47F9-8538F4EADBBE1F20.pdf
Pepsi Americas: A division of Pepsi, the company traditionally had their delivery people do the selling. They wanted to separate selling and delivery so that could do a better job of taking advantage of opportunities in the market. They developed a CRM system with PeopleSoft which enables them to have a “360 degree view of our customers by integrating with our financials and human resource systems”. This will enable them to lower costs, capture lost marketing opportunities and improve customer service. For more information concerning this story visit: http://www.peoplesoft.com/media/en/pdf/PepsiAmericas.pdf
Bank Hapoalim: Bank Hapoalim is Israel’s largest bank but they realized a need to convert themselves from a product organization to a client organization. They accomplished this by creating, with Teradata, a new CRM. They needed to streamline and customize their marketing campaigns through the use of customer databases. By setting goals, enabling each department access to customer information, and providing employees with faster access to more integrated information, the company has seen increases in the number of targeted marketing campaigns and improving response rates from potential customers from those campaigns. For more information on this success story, go to: http://www.teradatalibrary.com/pdf/eb3057.pdf