Given below are some guidelines for the implementation of successful business intelligence front end to an ERP solution:
1. Clarify your business objectives and obtain executive sponsorship: Be clear about what you want to accomplish and at what level you will influence the organization. Then, win the support of management to the level of the data warehouse, whether that is the department level or enterprise level. Sponsorship is crucial for success.
2. Begin with a reasonable scope and ensure you have adequate resources: Clear business objectives will help determine the scope of your project. It is highly advisable to start with a single business area so that you can quickly demonstrate a return on investment. Team members need to understand the data structures and the data in the ERP systems and the data warehouse. Depending on your resources, you will either deploy the ERP and business intelligence systems in parallel or wait until the ERP system is in production, before beginning work on the business intelligence system.
3. Choose a vendor with industry expertise in both data warehousing and ERP: The complexity of the data warehousing and ERP is multiplied when the two are combined. A vendor with experience in both disciplines will deploy the solution more quickly and will help you develop an architecture that meets your current needs and accommodates your future requirements.
4. Choose a data warehouse platform that delivers high availability: Many business intelligence systems become mission critical, which raises the stakes for availability. For example, a stock exchange might use its business intelligence system to store all stock news or stock information, both for trading and supply to a national news channel. A call center might use the business intelligence system as the database of record when customers call.
5. Select tool that speed implementation and reduce cost: Several third-party vendors provide data extraction tools that support the major ERP applications (SAP, PeopleSoft, Oracle, Baan and J. D. Edwards). The data definitions in the ERP System become a foundation for the business intelligence system.
6. Increase the velocity of information: The trend is toward real-time updates. Telephone companies that maintain call-detail records, typically, must extract
the details of the each minute because of the performance penalty imposed. by the huge transmission volumes on the servers.. Banks that maintain: portfolio records also tend to update the business intelligence system each minute.
7. Plan for performance and growth: The more data you retain on the business intelligence system, the more trend managers can observe and analyze. However, more data usually requires more performance power. Therefore, most companies seek a balance. Some companies decide to store all open
items, retain closed items for one quarter and retain financial information for six months after end-of-year processing. Companies that want perform trend analyses keep closed items for longer periods.
8. Close the loop for continual improvement: The ultimate in 'business intelligence for ERP is a closed-loop system, which updates the EFW system with information discovered through business intelligence or from outside sources. Building a closed-loop system usually requires custom programming, but the increase in market velocity is well worth the investment.