Page 210 - DCAP307_PLANNING_AND_MANAGING_IT_INFRASTRUCTURE

Planning and Managing IT Infrastructure

Notes Integration of manufacturing and logistics with financials and costing also enables the
company to quickly and accurately identify and assess true product costs. Where necessary,
V-Guard can adjust pricing to ensure that margin is maintained, helping to drive total
profitability by product, business unit and enterprise.
On the sales front, SAP applications provide an availability check, which considers the
stock-in-transit and stock-in-purchasing along with the stock-on-hand when predicting
availability. Robin Joy explains: “This feature indirectly helps us to identify our constraints
in supply chain and efficiencies. By proper monitoring it should be possible to improve
our inventory cycle time and enable better servicing of orders.”

Enhanced Analysis and Reporting
IBM Global Business Services also built an analytics dashboard using the SAP
BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) platform, which presents previously unavailable
business data to senior managers. For example, executives are able to see current sales and
purchase orders, track the number, value and progress of contracts, and use the information
to obtain better prices, terms or delivery schedules from suppliers. Similarly, the dashboard
shows immediate profitability analysis by product, which enables executives to identify
and correct business challenges early and improve company performance.
V-Guard is using SAP NetWeaver Portal to provide a single point of access to reports and
dashboards created using SAP BusinessObjects BI, as well as to employee self-service
applications.
IBM is also working on newer initiatives to develop a new set of Key Performance Indicators
(KPIs) and develop extensive SAP Business Objects BI reports. The SAP solution will allow
users to generate more accurate reports that support better performance analysis and
management, helping to drive smarter decision-making.
Better Business Control
V-Guard can manage its business in ways that were simply not possible before, and grow
within India and internationally without a corresponding rise in administration costs.
For example, more than 20 people were previously involved in generating month-end
closing figures that took more than ten days to deliver. Now just three people can produce
the figures in less than three days, a 70 percent improvement and a productivity gain of
85 percent.
Moreover, V-Guard is listed on the Indian Stock Exchange, which requires quarterly reports.
Previously these reports took up to 12 days to create, whereas the new solution generates
them in five days, a 58 percent improvement
Robin Joy concludes: “The IBM and SAP solution makes validated, accurate information
available more rapidly than ever before. Even as our company grows at a breakneck rate
of 40 percent annually, the solution is designed to keep pace, helping V-Guard to reach its
ambitious expansion targets.”
Question
According to you, what challenges IBM faced in implementing Business Intelligence (BI)
platform?

Source: http://www-01.ibm.com/software/success/cssdb.nsf/CS/STRD-93SL92?OpenDocument&
Site=default&cty=en_us

204 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY