Idhasoft - Vision Packaged. Delivered

Idhasoft requirements workshop produces a number of business questions that either can't be currently answered or are difficult to answer. For example, the answer may take a number of days to collate and calculate. The resulting questions may be similar to the following:

• Why does this product sell to this customer but not that one?
• Which of our customers is the most profitable to us this year?
• Which sales person had the highest sales in the northwest last month?
• Did our last product promotion result in increased profit rather than just increased sales?
• What is our fastest selling product on the web and why?

From these questions we should be able determine the measures and dimensions of the possible BI solution or solutions. Having identified the dimensions and the measures we then make some business judgments about the feasibility of a BI solution or solutions. Here are some of the points to consider in this regard:

• Look for the easy wins, tactical solutions delivering business benefit that can be achieved quickly and cheaply
• Strategic, cross-departmental solutions will need board level sponsorship and support to be successful

For example the questions:

• Which of our customers is the most profitable to us this year?
• Measure: a calculated measure of profit (sales revenue - cost of sales)
• Dimensions:
  • Who - the customer
  • What - total product or service
  • When - this year to date
• Which sales person had the highest sales in the northwest last month?
• Measure: sales revenue
• Dimensions:
  • Who - the sales person
  • What - total product or service
  • When - last month
  • Where - North-West sales region

Having identified the dimensions and the measures, we then make some business judgments about the feasibility of a BI solution or solutions. Here are some of the points to consider in this regard:

• Look for the easy wins, tactical solutions delivering business benefit that can be achieved quickly and cheaply
• Strategic, cross-departmental solutions will need board level sponsorship and support to be successful