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Trasactioal data shold be a widow ito
yor bsiess stratey, bt for most compaies,
opei that widow takes more brte force tha
they miht care to exert. Eabli that data to
sere as the basis for aalysis typically reqires
areati it from arios trasactioal systems
iside a data mart or a data warehose or work-
i with spreadsheets ad the static data locked
iside them. This pretty well defeats ay hopes
of execti bsiess plas i real time based o
dyamic data.
Perhaps the sitatio i a lare acial ad isr-
ace compay that has some real-time access to its
operatioal data will strike a chord: “We’re taki
raw trasactios ad tri them ito aalytics,
ad from there we’re doi aalysis tredi ad all
that other ood stff,” says the compay’s director
of IT. Bt—ad here’s the catch—“it’s ot real-time
by the time that happes.”
It’s oly whe the eterprise has access to ad
isiht ito p-to-the-mite data from ERP
systems ad other sorces that the widow opes
wide, with reater ease. Tri hih olmes of
trasactioal data ito kowlede that bsiess
sers ca efcietly access, derstad ad act
o—ot i hors or days bt i secods, ad
from ay deice, aywhere—matters for may
reasos. They iclde eerythi from optimizi
prodctio maaemet based o spplier ad
prchase order actiity to boosti retrs o
retail promotios thaks to sales data say—ad
doi it withot hai to areate, smmarize
or trasform that data meas redci reddat
ifrastrctre ad batch processi jobs that add
costs to the IT eiromet.
Aayzig Data: Vii Veu reaity
Today that compelli isio is i cotetio with
reality for may oraizatios. I a lobal srey
of IT leaders codcted by IDg Research Serices,
early 80 percet said their mai oraizatioal
oal for the ext 12 moths is to proide or mai-
tai a iformatio architectre that spports
ftre bsiess objecties ioli cstomers,
prodcts, serices ad markets.
“We look for opportities for ew bsiess ad
ew reee sorces—ad a lot of it is related
to the aalytics we ca do—to do a better job
of spotti this that are ot of parameter, ad
the we leel-set or reset whe we see opporti-
ties to ct costs or improe reee streams be-
case of that trasactioal data,” says Rex Pritt,
maaer, MIS protability ad risk, at PREMIER
Bakcard. “Deitely or oals ad objecties are
cetered o doi that.”
1 I TrAnsAcTIonAl DATA: DRIvIng REAL-TIME BuSInESS
Transactional Data:Driving Real-Time BusinessA GLOBAL SURVEY OF IT LEADERS SHOWS THAT MOST ORGANIZATIONS FIND
CONVERTING HIGH VOLUMES OF FRESH TRANSACTIONAL DATA INTO KNOWL-
EDGE THAT BUSINESS USERS CAN EFFICIENTLY ACCESS, UNDERSTAND AND ACT
ON IS CHALLENGING. SAP AND HP ARE TACKLING THIS CHALLENGE HEAD-ON.
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Creati the iformatio architectre may of
the srey respodets seem to eisio is a
tall order: Oly 27 percet of those who cited
this reqiremet cosider themseles to be ex-
tremely or ery effectie at doi the job ow.
I eterprises that wat to do so mch
more—ad so mch faster—tha they ca
crretly do i maai ad aalyzi
data that describes eets from bsiess
applicatios, that’s jst oe of may aps
to ll. Eterprises are ee less practiced at
specic objecties sch as these:
n Amo the respodets, 67 percet said
it’s critical or ery importat to be able to
idetify ew bsiess opportities, bt oly
23 percet idetied themseles as bei
qite effectie at doi so.
n This tred coties with predicti ad
respodi to cstomer eeds i real time;
that’s importat for 65 percet of respo-
dets, bt oly 19 percet reported bei
extremely or ery effectie at this.
n Whe it comes to accessi tred data
relatie to cstomers’ pcomi eeds, 64
percet clamor for it ad 19 percet are
particlarly ood at spporti it.
nAlso, hai the ability to qickly idetify ew
bsiess opportities raks hih for 67 percet
bt is a stro practice for oly 23 percet.
The diersity of the applicatio ecosystem
where acial order, ioice, loistics ad
other eet-related data resides cotribtes
to creati aps. Srey respodets report
that they rely primarily o acial reporti
ad ERP systems as well as persoal prodc-
tiity tools sch as Excel for accessi, stor-
i, aalyzi, modeli, delieri, reporti
ad tracki trasactioal data. Bt other
applicatios are also i the mix, ad doi
somethi with the data that spas them
ca add layers to eterprise architectres.
At oe lare pharmacetical compay, with
900 employees ad $1.2 billio i reee,
acial data—sales, shipmets, prchase
orders ad so o—resides primarily i its ERP
system, whereas its MES (mafactri
exectio system) holds data o materials
stats ad labor as raw materials are coerted
ito oods. It’s oly i the last year that the
compay has stadardized o these systems
ad be aalyzi the data, with a primary
focs o qality ad cost iformatio, sch as
which mafactri processes hae the most
siicat impacts o prodct qality. The
process to date has reqired extracti datafrom the trasactioal systems i Excel format
ad loadi it ito a SAS eiromet. “We
se SAS statistical tools to eerate correla-
tios betwee qality laboratory reslts (sch
as abot prodct stability ad potecy) with
mafactri coditios ad ariatios,”
explais the director of techical operatios
systems ad ERP. “We also adjst for storae
ad moemet iformatio as well as lot track-
i iformatio from the ERP system.”
Spplier performace ad cstomer iforma-
tio are ext o the compay’s aalysis sites,the director says. Ideed, depedi o what a
bsiess wats to achiee, it may eed to ai
real-time access to trasactioal data from
third parties sch as sppliers ad parters or
from sorces tracki macroecoomic idica-
tors or competitie iformatio. Althoh
etti sch third-party access is amo the
reatest challees for srey respodets,
may also cold se help with iteral data.
Almost half of the respodets reported that
it was at least somewhat difclt to hae
real-time reach ito iteral order/cotract
ad cstomer iformatio, ad more tha 40
percet said the same of operatioal compay
performace data. Oe-third cited this as a
isse for corporate acial iformatio.
Bttm ie: There’s room for improe-
met across the board. Less tha 20
percet of the respodets reported that
aii access to ay type of data affiliated
with trasactios i real time was “ery
easy.” With so mch of it spread across so
may systems ad so mch time ad effort
spet o processi it so that it’s seble
to drie bsiess decisios, it’s clear that
most eterprises cold se some help. For
may that help will come i the form of
tiht ties betwee isiht ad aalytics so-
ltios that miimize database sae adadmiistratio ad i-memory database
techoloy that redces reliace o disks
for accelerated qery processi that ca
lead to maki iformed bsiess deci-
sios irtally o the fly.
Tday’ Wkfe I Mbie; Data
Maagemet ad Aayti Mut Be, T
Real-time aalytics ca’t be tied to the
desktop—ot whe more ad more kowlede
workers ad execties who eed to der-
stad the data to be aalyzed are as likely,
or ee more likely, to be o the road as theyare i the ofce. It’s critical or ery importat
to spport speedy trasactioal data access,
modeli ad aalysis across mobile deices
for exectie/corporate maaers as well as
ace, sales ad operatios stakeholders ad
IT pros, accordi to srey-takers. Jst 46
percet of the respodets see hai sch ac-
cess i real time ia mobile deices as critically
importat for marketi professioals, bt IT
ad bsiess leaders from ery lare compa-
ies—those with 10,000 or more employees—
were siicatly more likely to iclde that
fctio i their mst-hae cateory.
Those ambitios, howeer, hae yet to be
broadly realized. Exectie ad corporate
maaers ad IT staff hae sch access i 45
ad 42 percet of the cases, respectiely, bt
for all other fctios, sch abilities are less
assred. Oly abot oe-qarter of opera-
tios ad sales workers, oe-fth of ace
2 I TrAnsAcTIonAl DATA: DRIvIng REAL-TIME BuSInESS
Sixty-e percet of srey respodetssaid it’s importat to predict ad respond tocustomer needs in real time. Oly 19% said
they are “effectie” or “ery effectie” at it.
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professioals ad jst 16 percet of market-
ers ca se their mobile deices this way.
What’s holdi them back, ie that the
potetial of self-serice BI for facilitati
data access ad dashboard aalysis across
all edpoits, icldi mobile oes, is socompelli? Imaie the possibilities for the
eterprise whe workers roami the factory
oor ca access ititie, real-time BI ad
respod istatly to eets as they occr.
The aswer may hae to do with the chal-
lees eterprises face i tryi to delier to
wireless mobile platforms isihts leaed
from processi qeries across massie
amots of data efcietly (ad i a isally
coheret way). Whe it comes to the qery
performace qestio, i-memory techoloy
for mappi data from ERP or other sorce
systems i a serer’s mai memory steps i:
Hdreds of billios of records ca be aalyzed
i secods rather tha what wold be, for sers
o mobile deices, a itermiable ad itoler-
able wait of mites or loer.
Hw ce Ae Ue t rea-Time
Udetadig f Taatia Data?
Oe optios exchae is realizi seeral
beets from access to trasactioal data.
users ca r qeries with the help of its
statistical aalysis software, plli i trad-
i data i real time to display o the CEO’s
ad CFO’s dashboards.
“They hae a real-time iew of what’s hap-
pei i the tradi eiromet—all the
differet tradi istrmets ad how they
are performi,” says the optios exchae’s
director of systems, storae ad plai.
A ariety of data abot the trades that
bsiesses codct with the exchae fels
decisios abot which of them are eliible
for discots. Also, its relatio ad sreil
lace departmets are able to aswer SECiqiries abot trades i real time—“the lea
departmet also beets from bei able to
iew real-time data,” he says.
As alable as the promise of real-time ac-
cess to this data o ay deice is, less tha
half of the respodets hae a eterprise-
wide soltio i place to maae ad aalyze
it. They may hae pt i place some techol-
oy to address particlar isses i a more
piecemeal or layered ad ear-real-time
fashio. For example, a director of techical
operatios systems ad ERP i the pharma-cetical idstry says that his compay is
focsed o etti a ear-real-time feed of
select iformatio from its ERP, MES ad lab
qality systems ia a data mart. “The little
data mart is what we look at o a daily basis
to see what happeed today, where some
isses miht be ad what miht we eed to
adjst,” sch as a isse with the potecy of
a particlar batch of medicie, he says.
Bt may oraizatios’ desire to embrace
a more holistic approach is clearly there: Of
the respodets, 40 percet hae eter-prise-wide implemetatio plas.
The driers for, ad therefore the expected
otcomes of, iestmets i eterprise-
wide soltios for maai trasactioal
data are reater exibility ad resiliecy (76
percet) for the bsiess, followed closely
by improi the stadardizatio of bsiess
processes ad/or KPIs across departmets
ad bsiess its (73 percet). O the IT
side, the oerwhelmi driers, oted by
78 percet of the respodets, are redced
complexity ad lowered costs (see chart).
Deployi the riht techoloy is jst the start-
i poit for sccessfl deploymets, howeer.
The biest barriers to the implemetatio of
soltios for trasactioal data maaemet,
srey respodets said, hae bee the eed to
spport iteratio soltios ad skills across
mltiple bsiess processes (cited by 59
percet) ad a lack of resorces to implemet
3 I TrAnsAcTIonAl DATA: DRIvIng REAL-TIME BuSInESS
Reducing IT complexity and lowering costs
through standards-based use of technology
% Critical/Very Important IT Drivers for Solutions Used to Manage Transactional Data
Improving the business ability toself-supportand reduce reliance on IT
for data access and analysis
Increasing the speed of transactionalinformation flow (in areas
such as planning, forecasting, etc.)
Improving data control and governance
Improving IT control and performance(managing IT as a business, SLAs)
Having the ability to quickly analyzelarge volumes of data (trends,
data-mining, predictive analytics)
Having the ability to access andmanipulate both structured
and unstructured data
66
65
65
65
64%
57%
IT Drivers for Data Management Solutions
78%
66%
65%
65%
65%
64%
57%
How important are the following as IT drivers for your organization’s investments in solutions used to
access, transform, store, analyze, model, report, deliver, and track transactional data?
Source: IDG Research Services
IT leaders recognize the value of real-time access to data, yet fewer than half of respondents have an enterprise-wide solution in place.
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their isio (oted by 56 percet). It is pos-
sible, howeer, to speak to a critical hope may
compaies hae abot iesti i trasac-
tioal data maaemet soltios: Amo the
respodets, 66 percet said that improi
the self-spport ability of the bsiess adredci reliace o IT for data access ad
aalysis are critical IT driers for moi i this
directio.
Takig Ati
Fortately, a ew soltio presets ways to
eable bsiesses to access critical iforma-
tio i real time ad ia a simple self-serice
model that ets arod some obstacles, sch
as IT’s ow resorce limits.
SAP, co-ioati with parters ad cs-
tomers, has itrodced the SAP I-Memoryappliace (SAP HAnA™). SAP HAnA ses
a i-memory eie to speed data aalysis,
a deelopmet that comes alo at a crcial
time: The amot of data is rowi, bt
the more aailable data is, the more dif-
clt techically it becomes to access. That
chaes with SAP HAnA, which presets a
ew paradim for maki access to that data
more real-time so that kowlede workers
ca make decisios that are based o actal
iformatio, ot esswork.
The shifti ecoomics of IT has helpedprompt the deelopmet of this techoloy.
With HP’s Coered Ifrastrctre, cstom-
ers beet from major total cost of ower-
ship (TCO) redctio while bei eabled
to efcietly r their IT, si faster ad
more-capable serers; storae ad etworks
fctio as shared pools of iteroperable
resorces. Ad ow, throh SAP’s applica-
tio of i-memory techoloy, those ifra-
strctres ca be colocated with software
architectres that bri toether data ad its
processi at the same time. The ed reslt?
Closi the ap betwee the desire to create
a iformatio architectre that spports
ftre bsiess objecties reardi cstom-
ers, prodcts, serices ad markets ad the
ability of bsiesses to actally accomplish
that ad realize reater ROI from their data.
With a soltio sch as the SAP HAnA, a
hardware/software platform that combies
the SAP Bsiess Aalytic Eie with serer
techoloy from HP, the promise of self-serice
BI for bsiess sers across desktop ad
mobile deices ca be realized. Kowlede
workers will o loer be limited to traditioal
qeryi ad reporti bt ca also eae i
tre search ad discoery, sice they wo’t be
costraied by IT to worki with a restricted
amot of data. Thaks to i-memory compt-i, IT ca freely proide access to a reater
amot of data—there’s o worry that so
mch podi o the database by so may
sers will sed it crashi. Ad ed sers ca
se the mobile or desktop tools with which
they’re already familiar for accessi data from
the trasactio database that is replicated o
the HAnA platform.
The HAnA road map starts with the appliace
as a lie-of-bsiess soltio rather tha a data
warehose or data areatio play. SAP’s
BsiessObjects is optimized to r o theHAnA appliace, ad SAP is also delieri
a site of applicatios that ca sole specic
bsiess problems by si trasactioal data
with the help of a bsiess-ser-friedly mod-
eli eiromet it has created. This shold
redce reqiremets to call o IT or power
sers for help with aalysis scearios.
Amo abot a doze applicatios debti
or bei plaed for the appliace are some
for strateic workforce ad sales ad opera-
tios plai, cash ad liqidity ad trade
promotios maaemet, ad cstomer
reee performace as well as merchadis-
i ad assortmet maaemet. To frther
lihte the load o iteral IT, abot 30 per-
cet of the ew applicatios will be offered
o demad i a i-memory clod.
SAP ad HP also hae bee worki to-
ether to esre that the platform’s se
i a coered ifrastrctre eiro-
met will proceed with miimal disrp-
tio for IT. The pla also icldes work-
i closely with cstomers to deelop
prpose-bilt applicatios o top of the
platform that will beefit from i-memo-
ry compti.
Eqally importat, the directio for theHAnA is to be data sorce–aostic, sp-
porti real-time access ad replicatio of
data from SAP ERP as well as data itera-
tio serices for accessi ad idexi
iformatio from irtally ay data sorce.
That appears to be a importat capability
for compaies sch as PREMIER Bakcard
ad its real-time data aalytics objec-
ties. Says Pritt, “I thik there are a lot of
edors that are kid of myopic, with oe
techoloy fodatio associated with
their serices, ad if yo ca’t iterate
with that, yo hae to by a ew platformor do adjstmets to yor systems. I thik
flexibility ad iteratio are critical.”
With the HAnA ad the access to ad
aalysis of trasactioal data it spports,
the eterprise ets more tha a widow
ito its bsiess stratey. It also ais a
portal to bsiess sccess. After all, whe
a bsiess ca hae access to more data i
real time, what it actally ais is iforma-
tio i cotext. Ad whe a bsiess has
iformatio i cotext at the riht time, it
becomes possible to make decisios that
ca hae a profod impact.
That’s ot jst a ioatio i aalytics.
It’s also a reoltio—oe that will help
bsiesses realize so mch of what IDg’s re-
search shows they wat, from timely isiht
ito ew opportities to predicti ad
qickly respodi to cstomer eeds.
4 I TrAnsAcTIonAl DATA: DRIvIng REAL-TIME BuSInESS
Shifti ecoomics of IT has helped promptthe deelopmet of techoloy that solvesthe problem of ot bei able to predict ad
respod to cstomers’ eeds i real time.