Monthly Archive for September, 2009

Free Products and Pirates

Published on September 24, 2009 in Kristian. 1 Comment

Hal Varian, Chief Economist at Google says it, Chris Anderson says it, too: Digital products like music, news articles or software will be free in the long term. This is because the cost of a digital product drops down to its incremental cost in the interest of competition. And the cost to provide an additional unit of a digital product through the internet is simply zero.

Not a threat to Open-Source companies and certainly not a threat to Palo, but most definitely a lesson still to be learned by many other software vendors in the world.

This weekend we have the parliamentary elections here in Germany. The Internet with its free digital products will create challenges for many vendors in the digital economy, but on Sunday I am most interested to see what challenges our established political parties will face from the new and internet minded Piratenpartei (Pirate Party).

The Pirates talk about reforming the copyright and patent law, ending the excessive surveillance, profiling, tracking and monitoring of innocent people conducted by Government and big businesses and they want to ensure that everyone has true freedom of speech, in the internet as well. Germany’s established parties don’t really have sufficient answers (or even awareness) of this problems. I would not be surprised if the Pirates became a political force in Germany, very much to the surprise of many people.

Controller and Business Intelligence – an upturn in the crisis

Published on September 10, 2009 in Jedox, Palo and Palo Suite. 0 Comments

Germany is experiencing the strongest setback in economic activity for decades. Assessments see economics in Germany diminish around 6%. Topics like controlling, risk management and liquidity planning move into the centre of management attention due to the crisis. Companies have no money to waste in time of crisis and need to use company data efficiently to make the right strategic decisions. Shortcomings in liquidity planning for example can drive a company into insolvency quickly. As analytical and planning processes today are run by IT-Systems in most middle-sized and major firms, vendors of business intelligence and performance management benefit from the growing importance of controlling. Currently the industrial association German Engineering Federation VDMA writes in a position paper for its membership titled “To act appropriate in difficult times”:  “… How costs within the firm develop entirely can be monitored by modern Business Intelligence solutions. To exploit the potential of using IT promises far more benefits for the companies than simple saving measures. “

The crisis improves the readiness to change

For sure, implementing a new business intelligence system won’t bail out companies which find out during a crisis that controlling works with wrong numbers, that data produced in different departments are contradictory or that key performance indicators have no significance. The critical view on company structures in periods like those however works in favour of business intelligence vendors. In a crisis the readiness to change in companies is bigger than ever. This applies also inside IT and controlling departments, where simplification of processes and cost efficiency are aimed at. Response time is another topic that comes to the centre of attention, as optimizing the response time allows downstream business processes like the adaption of product offering to market change to be accelerated. But not only crisis drives interest in business intelligence. Many middle-sized firms have been growing massively by global expansion in the last decade. Efficient communication with the new locations is crucial for these companies. Order inflow, stock on hand, liquidity, risks – all data have to be available as quickly as possible and in high quality in a central business intelligence tool.

Whether based on Open source or on proprietary software, due to the shortage of financial possibilities there is a growing influence of the controlling and planning process within an enterprise, and thus a growing interest in Business intelligence.

McKinsey Consulting claims Business Intelligence to be Competitive Intelligence and defines it to be the key information to success in a market situation.

Business intelligence proves the saying: every crisis opens up new chances, right. It can be applied for the former so called “digit douchbags” in controlling, who are gaining massive influence in companies, as well as to provider of Business intelligence Software, as their markets seem to explode.

Cost reduction in IT departments and evolving Company Structures have contributed their part to the rise of a new class of Business intelligence, the Open Source Business intelligence Software. Business intelligence was long ago controlled by the global Heavyweights like SAP, IBM or Oracle. Open source Business Intelligence premiered 2008 in the magical Quadrant of the renowned consulting firm Gartner- Consulting, as a result to fulfilling the same criteria of commercial Software. Open Source business intelligence products are often the favoured software products. They usually convince with higher usability, easy customisation by qualified Users in the departments and the lower prices.

How many CFOs are still relying on Excel only?

Published on September 3, 2009 in Palo and Palo for Excel. 1 Comment

In today’s fiercely competitive economy, business leaders are turning to the finance group to do a lot more than accounting. Yet despite the world of finance (and the role of the CFO) being turned on its head, spreadsheet functionality has remained basically the same for years. Today’s version of Excel would be instantly familiar to someone who hadn’t used it for a decade.

Whilst CFOs are being increasingly relied upon to turn companies around, how many are still only relying on a static, relatively unchanged formula – the good old electronic spreadsheet? Microsoft gauges the number of Excel users worldwide at more than 400 million, and Forrester Research estimates 50 to 80 percent of enterprises still rely on stand-alone spreadsheets for critical applications like financial reporting or budget forecasting.

Yet increasingly, a common lament for CFO users is that piecing together cash flow, profitability and operations data with Excel spreadsheets and static reports is inefficient and inadequate. Even within companies who have BI tools in-house and have spent significant money on this, when it comes to ad-hoc reports or shared forecast processes, the “last mile” will still be done from many CFOs with an Excel spreadsheet.

This tug-of-war between data consistency and flexibility will plague users of stand-alone spreadsheets for the foreseeable future. CFOs need to take aim squarely – or at least obliquely – at Excel. The answer lies in CPM and BI tools, like Palo, that are absolutely essential to optimize spreadsheets: online modules that are low or no cost, and truly Web-based allowing for file sharing on a global basis. Because, more than ever, companies compete based on the decisions they make.