Akili

White Paper Library

Enterprise Performance Management  |  Business Intelligence & Information Management

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Enterprise Performance Management White Papers

Driving Profitability in Turbulent Times - A report prepared by CFO Research Services in collaboration with SAP. As the demand outlook grows increasingly unpredictable, forecast horizons contract, accuracy declines, and new forecasts are required more often and more quickly.

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Making Strategy Real - by Don Tapscott and Paul Barter. In today’s competitive global business environment virtually all firms work diligently to analyze alternatives and to create a business strategy that enables competitive advantage. Once the strategy has been defined however, nine out of ten organizations fail to implement it effectively.

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Planning Under Conditions of Uncertainty - By George Rzevski. The paper provides a case for replacing conventional centralized planning with adaptive planning and proposes a planning method based on a number of principles, including Planned Options, Planned Redundancy, Event-Driven Continuous Planning, Planning by Self-organization, Emergent Plans and Multi-Criteria Planning.

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How Best-in-Class Plan, Budget and Forecast in Today's Dynamic World - Analyst Insight from the Aberdeen Group. Prospects for the global economy remain precarious. But highly effective financial planning, budgeting, and forecasting can successfully enable decision making even in periods of unprecedented change.

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A Complete View of the Enterprise - A report prepared by CFO Research Services in collaboration with SAP. Traditionally finance leaders have provided one view of the enterprise to their executive team and investors - the financial view - through familiar key performance indicators such as revenues, costs, cash or working capital. Financial indicators, while crucial of course, often describe reality as it was, a historic snapshot. Precise forecasting - explaining what is likely to happen and why - requires many different views from various departments or "lenses" within the business. Tracking non-financial operational indicators, from marketing, sales, HR or R&D, tells you what's coming around the corner.

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Enterprise Clarity and Efficiency Demonstrated by SAP running SAP - Software from SAP supports proven industry best practices, global information visibility, and the agility needed to quickly adapt and respond to market opportunities.  By running its own software, SAP has been able to reap the benefits of its own efforts - reducing costs, improving efficiencies, and increasing business performance for the organization as a whole.

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Business Intelligence & Information Management White Papers

Gaining Competitive Differentiation from Business Intelligence - IDC Analyst Connection by Dan Vesset. The healthy market growth rate of the business intelligence (BI) tools software market was another sign that organizations of all sizes continue to adopt BI and analytics solutions at a rapid pace. The fundamental drivers of BI and analytics solution adoption have not changed. They include the need to access and evaluate key performance indicators (KPIs) to enable revenue growth, cost cutting and containment, product and service innovation, and risk management. Broader access to BI and analytics solutions continues to drive the need for self-service functionality that provides controlled empowerment of business end users through a robust BI and analytics technology platform.

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The Business Value of Pervasive BI - Analyst Insight from the Aberdeen Group. As the landscape of business intelligence (BI) solutions has progressed and matured, more companies are finding analytical value for their workforce that reaches beyond the IT power user and other technical roles. Dashboard tools that generate intuitive graphical representations of business information are gaining traction in areas of the business that are traditionally underserved by analytical technology.

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Business Intelligence: A Guide for Mid-size Companies - An SAP White Paper by Michael A. Schiff. Evidence of the competitive value of business intelligence (BI) and analytics solutions is growing. Fact-based decision making is spreading throughout commercial, nonprofit, and public sector organizations. The economic downturn is spurring organizations to examine ways of retaining customers, spending capital and operating budgets, and complying with regulations. However, over the long term, BI solutions will continue to be applied to optimize a wide array of processes in an effort to improve performance management and organizational competitiveness.

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The Business Value of Business Intelligence - An SAP BusinessObjects White Paper by Mark Ritacco and Astrid Carver. In every organization, employees make hundreds of decisions each day. These decisions are sometimes based on facts, but mostly based on experience, accumulated knowledge, and rule of thumb. That poses a problem because experience, knowledge, and rule of thumb can take years to develop. Some employees never acquire them. Those who do may still fall prey to decision traps or biases in judgment. Improving the quality of business decisions has a direct impact on costs and revenue. For instance, giving a customer a discount may or may not help the bottom line, depending on the profitability of the client over the duration of the relationship.  

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Managing the Total Cost of Ownership of Business Intelligence - An SAP White Paper by Dr. Wayne Applebaum. A 360 Degree Perspective. If you don't meet your needs, cost doesn't matter. A major question that companies are asking BI providers is, "What is your total cost of ownership?" For many companies, total cost of ownership is out of control. And the problem is growing, fueled by every-increasing demands from the user community, massive new sources for data, new capabilities, shadow IT landscapes, and the cost of keeping people abreast of all the changes.

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Improving Organizational Performance Management Through Pervasive Business Intelligence - IDC White Paper sponsored by SAP AG.  By Dan Vesset and Brian McDonough. Evidence of the competitive value of business intelligence (BI) and analytics solutions is growing. Fact-based decision making is spreading throughout commercial, nonprofit, and public sector organizations. The economic downturn is spurring organizations to examine ways of retaining customers, spending capital and operating budgets, and complying with regulations. However, over the long term, BI solutions will continue to be applied to optimize a wide array of processes in an effort to improve performance management and organizational competitiveness.