Page 133 - DCAP208_Management Support Systems

Management Support Systems

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The visualization helps people to “see” the data in ways they would not have been able to
with just numbers and spreadsheets. It challenges assumptions while simultaneously
presenting the data in different ways, revealing potential solutions that previously may
have not been apparent.
Evolution of the P&G Decision Making Model
The old IT model was to figure out which reports people wanted, capture the data, and
deliver it to the key people weeks or days after the fact. “That model is an obsolete
model,” Passerini says.
The new model Passerini envisions is something of a virtual, instant-on war room, where
people huddle in person or by video around the needed data, pulling in the right experts
to fix a problem the moment it arises.
This decision-making environment requires better collaboration via easy-to-use video,
more real-time data, and business analytics expertise.

A new building block is high-quality video-conferencing, because people solve hard
problems faster and better when they can see one another, Passerini maintains. P&G has
been an avid user for several years of room-sized Cisco telepresence systems. The video is
used as part of a collaboration environment P&G calls Business Sphere, which CEO Bob
McDonald and his executive council use to collaborate with colleagues worldwide. It
combines video with large screens that display data visualizations on sales, market share,
ad spending and the like, so everyone in the meeting is seeing the same information. In
the past year, P&G added 50 smaller Business Sphere systems around the world, giving
more people access to the technology.
Passerini’s team is working on a video platform that broadens access even more by letting
people join in regardless of the video system they’re using, whether it’s Cisco telepresence
or WebEx or FaceTime. That would mean a key team member can video in from an iPad,
Droid smartphone, or PC if need be. In terms of data, this strategy needs the right real-
time data.
What’s real time? The goal P&G’s working toward is that as soon as data is collected, it’s
available for use, Passerini says. P&G isn’t after new data types; it still wants to share and
analyze point-of-sale, inventory, ad spending, and shipment data. What’s new is the higher
frequency and speed at which P&G gets that data, and the finer granularity. Passerini says
P&G has about two-thirds of the real-time data it needs.
Passerini talks about the what, why, and how of a problem. “What” is the problem itself
— is market share stable or has it shrunk two points? He thinks P&G has beaten the what
problem by giving 58,000 employees business intelligence “cockpits,” which are dashboards
that link to common data sources so people spend little time arguing over whose data to
use. “Why” is the cause of a problem — was it a bad TV ad, out-of-stock shelves, or a
competitor’s new product or price cut that caused a problem? Right now, the P&G IT team
is working on automating analysis of the why, so employees get alerts when key events
like a supply chain snafu or rival product launch happen.
If P&G can eliminate “what” discussions and some of the “why,” and decision-makers can
jump right to how to solve a problem, “that radically increases the pace at which they do
business,” Passerini says.
The final piece is bringing in that business analytics expertise. These are people “at the
intersection of business and IT,” Passerini says. They need to be as well versed in P&G
business issues as a marketing pro. And they need to be skilled in finding information,
Contd....

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