Unlock Critical Data from Your ERP Software System with Data Marts – written by Jerry Hamner

>> Jerry Hamner, RapidDecisions

Today’s market is moving as fast as business users can access the data they need to make better, decisions.  Companies are trying every way to gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace. One of the trends that successful companies are using is finding easier ways to consume more accurate data that has been locked away in their ERP systems. The challenge lies in how to unlock that critical data.  No doubt, there is a treasure chest of data in these ERP systems. However, the ERP database design is architected for high speed data entry and validation and NOT for high speed retrieval and analysis. The data that is in your ERP production database is very cryptic and not understandable by most business users.  

Among some of these challenges faced when delivering this data to its end users are:

• Implementing a timely reporting/business intelligence platform that does not take months to years to get fully implemented
• Delivering the data to answer business questions today, while anticipating the data needs of the future
• Accessing up to the minute data- Not day old, week old  data
• Easy way to understand the ERP Production data without having to understand the interworking of the ERP
• Being able to drill down into the lower level transactions that lie behind summary data to answer the second and third-level questions
• Cross ERP subject area analysis
• Having a BI/reporting system that does not slow down the production ERP and the Network

Organizations that use ERP applications to run their operations understand that the native reporting capabilities that come with most ERP applications are weak and not easy to modify, making it difficult to effectively analyze the data that passes through them. Business Intelligence/reporting analysis tools are capable of performing sophisticated analysis, but they are ineffective when using data in the format that ERP applications present the data. That is why the industry best practice to solve this dilemma is to create a data warehouse/data mart environment. Such warehouses store data that has been transformed so that organizations can consume for detailed analysis. The professionals that are asked to create data analysis solutions accept the need for a data warehouse/data marts, while also understanding that they can be challenging to design and build. The cost, effort, time and expertise needed to create warehouses can be overwhelming. Many efforts to build them fail to reach their objectives because of the multitude of resources required, not to mention changing demands, & time to deliver. As a result, many organizations that could benefit greatly from a data warehouse do not yet have one. So more and more organization are turning to prebuilt data warehouse/data marts to solve these issues and to reduce the time and cost it takes to build.

RapidDecision is a pre-built data warehouse/mart solution that allows companies to perfect the connection between their Oracle ERP software like JD Edwards, PeopleSoft and e-Business Suite and their BI environment. The solution delivers real-time information access allowing companies to immediately perform simple queries, generate ad hoc reports, or develop robust dashboards and analytics, while also simplifying the process of getting information out of their Oracle ERP application and into the hands of key decision-makers, analysts and users who need to consume data to answer business questions.

RapidDecision clients understand the value:

• Near Real time data capture allows for continuously updated reporting and analysis 
• Fixed fee, guaranteed implementation
• Time to Value:  Each subject area mart deploys in 10 days or less  
• RapidDecision provides ERP upgrade protection.  Reduce your prospects ERP upgrade spend by 20% 
• RapidDecision has over 250 customers with 1100 installations

RapidDecision enables End-User Self Service by bringing meaning to Oracle ERP data as a result of the thousands of pre-built data transformations, date conversions, joins, etc., and turns cryptic data into valuable information in a format optimized for reporting, querying, and trend analysis. This added flexibility empowers end-users with the ability to do ad-hoc query & analysis without having to rely on IT. RapidDecision looks forward to assisting you and your company like we have so many others giving your business users the real time data access to data they need to drive and make better decisions.

To learn more about RapidDecision and how it can help your organization, visit us on the web:

1. www.rapiddecision.net