Not surprisingly then, performance management dashboard development has been the rage in BI, in some cases letting organizations dust off shelfware and finally apply the tools effectively. A dashboard, frequently in tandem with business-scorecard applications, presents information in a visually powerful way, often with gauges, metrics and graphs. The interface draws on more comprehensive performance-management engines that link into underlying applications, BI systems, data warehouses and other sources. Performance management has established a foothold in the CFO's office, where it aids in planning, budgeting, forecasting and consolidation.
All major BI and ERP players, plus specialists such as OutlookSoft and Spotfire, are chasing this market. However, none has achieved breakout success in making performance management essential to operational activities beyond finance. Some BI vendors are focusing on making performance management part of robust analytical applications specialized for certain industries or functions. However, as Cognos' Celequest acquisition shows, BI vendors realize it will take more than what they have in their traditional technology bases to succeed. Operational dashboards must tap timely information drawn directly from processes and event streams to be fully relevant. And for that, we need BAM.
Up A Real-time Notch
BPM (business process management) vendors such as BEA with Fuego, IBM with Filenet, MetaStorm, Oracle and Savvion have long provided BAM functionality as a way of enabling continuous improvement of processes, often to meet Six Sigma or other best-practices requirements. As automated processes proliferate, it takes BAM and BI functionality to help companies stay ahead of the complexity they're busily creating and be able to monitor and measure whether their processes are fulfilling strategic business objectives.
Many organizations would love to bring together real-time BAM capabilities with their enterprise BI platform's facilities for long-range planning and analysis. It's the best of both worlds: Processes could be optimized continuously, with input coming from throughout the enterprise through operational BI systems. Linked more tightly with processes, conventional BI analysis and reporting won't lag so far behind--a situation that prevents companies from recognizing trends and patterns indicating problems in customer processes or supply chains until it's too late. Through dashboards and mobile devices, alerts and BAM notification systems can enable key personnel and systems to take action.
