Business Intelligence Case Studies (Sample of work done in HLL) Single Stream Reporting (SSR) System

OBJECTIVE: The objectives of the project were: Speed up the closure of Financial Accounts at the end of accounting periods. Enable near real-time loading of Unit Trial Balances to the Datawarehouse as they are consolidated in MfgPro. Provide single view of information to arrive at results or affix responsibility. Tracking of key performance indicators comparison of Actual data with Annual and Latest (Revised) Budgets. SOLUTION: For the early closure of central financial accounts, corporate accounts users need a consolidated view of Trial Balances of all remote Group units as soon as possible. This is because Reconciliation entries have to be passed by central accounts and thats when accounts are treated closed. At a month end closing, TBs typically trickle in over a period of 12 hours and get automatically imported into the central Group Financial Consolidation (GFC) Module of MfgPro. Using near real-time ETL implemented using Ascentials DataStage, the SSR system extracts TBs as soon as they are uploaded into GFC and after appropriate transformations, loads it into the OLAP database. Users can immediately start work on the Financial Reconciliation instead of waiting for all the data to arrive and be loaded together. In the second part, once accounts have been reconciled in the OLAP database, the reconciliation entries written back to the transaction database in Mfg-Pro. The entire process is automated and executes automatically on the night of the last accounting day of the month. Tools used SSR Oracle 8i, Oracle Express Server 11i (RAA & RAM), Oracle Sales Analyzer, Ascentials Datastage Reconciliation Entry Module ASP, VB Scripts, PL/SQL Stored Procedures

Central Sales Information System (CSIS)

OBJECTIVE: The objectives of the project were: Enable centralized maintenance of BI system to eliminate issues arising due to multiple point maintenance Provide single view of information to analytical users at the branch, and head office Enable information access to field force through the Internet Reduce administration overhead of software and hardware at all the Branches Reduce Costs direct and indirect

SOLUTION: Business analysis needs vary depending on the level at which analysis is required. An OLAP database typically contains data at the lowest level of granularity. Top level managers view all the data but not at the same granularity but aggregated high level data. Also, they require time-series analysis, forecasting and what if analysis. This type of querying is more ad-hoc with no predictable pattern. Thick client access was given to top management to enable ad-hoc and multivariate analysis. Middle managers reporting is more predictable and they require fixed format reports at fixed points of time. For such users thin client access through a web-enabled client was provided. Accessible through a standard Internet browser, distribution and maintenance bottlenecks are eliminated on a wide scale. This client embedded in an enterprise portal allows a single sign on, also reducing user maintenance. For users at more operational levels, exception and abnormal variance queries to the OLAP database are embedded in the portal as graphs and alerts providing a ready reckoner of key health indicators. Tools Used Oracle 8i, Oracle Express Server 11i (RAA & RAM), Oracle Sales Analyzer

Capital Expenses Monitoring System (CapEx)

Sonata provided a solution on Capital Expenses & Asset Management, by the power of which the finance department has been able to monitor the life of the company assets. This customer has multiple Units/Factories & each of these plants could be doing work for more than one profit center (product grouping). These Units raise budgets or are allocated budgets, on the basis of which Capital Proposals are then raised. The developed system collected the budgetary information from all the Units/Factories at regular time interval with proper validation & checking. These data are then stored centrally using MOLAP architecture, from which access is permitted to the distributed set of interested users. A number of reports are generated from the database at fixed time interval to monitor the Capital Proposals (CP) and Asset Management.

Net Proceedings from Sales (NPS)

The various Business Groups of the customer are in the business of producing and marketing different brands of products in the marketplace. The products are manufactured in their factories and then sold to the Re-distribution Stockist (RS) through the Buffer Depot and the C&FA. The Business Group would like to analyze data to keep close track on and thereby maximize net proceedings from sales. The data is to be calculated & analyzed at the following levels Week Product SKU Depot Sales Area (State)

An Oracle Financial Analyzer based solution has been implemented for different profit centres by which data from the various sources are integrated and specific models are run for calculating the Net proceedings from Sales.

Detergents OFA (Dets OFA)

This is the largest Profit Centre in the company. The PC Accountants required a system through which they would be able to arrive at a faster monthly closing as well as be able to analyze their

performance across various key parameters. Please click this link to see a presentation of the same.