Beyond the Relationship-Based Enterprise - Implementing SAP CRM - page 462

◾ Supply-chain analysis applications that enable the enterprise to work with trading partners
in optimizing the product supply chain to match the demand for products sold especially
through the Internet
◾ A singular and integrated Web interface to give internal and external users and applications
a secure and managed access to enterprise application, services, and information
16.1.1 How Intelligent Is Your Enterprise?
Each piece of information in the enterprise, including that residing in the company's informa-
tion systems, has a value. This value is primarily associated with the manner in which this piece
of information is utilized by the enterprise for remaining competitive, providing good customer
service, and optimizing e-business operations.
In analogy with Metcalfe's Law for networks (see Chapter 1's note “Metcalfe's Law and
Network Effects”), the value of customer information can be assessed to be proportional to
n m × d
where
n is the average number of active users
m is the average number of employees involved in any business process from different
departments
d is the number of interacting departments involved in the primary business processes of the
enterprise
16.1.2 Decisions on Desktops (DoD)
Decisions on Desktops (DoD) is the twenty-first-century analog of Bill Gates' vision of PCs on
every desktop in the 1980s. The DoD vision in turn is dependent on the attainment of the Business
Intelligence (BI) on Desktops .
Amid the hypercompetitive environment of the Internet, the systems must enable users to tap
the intelligence latent in their data by integrating and analyzing raw data for insights into key
business metrics. Desktop-based BI tools should enable real term, interactive access, analysis, and
manipulation of mission-critical corporate information to provide user with valuable insight into
key indicators to identify business problems and opportunities.
End users from their desktops, especially those involved with customer-facing functions,
should be able to probe, slice, skewer, and dice data to assess trends and anomalies in various
departments:
◾ The finance department needs information on profitability in order to adapt cost structures
for maximizing value addition.
◾ The product plan department needs information on sales rates in order to optimally plan for
production and to negotiate the most advantageous contracts with vendors.
◾ The sales department needs information on which products are selling to which demo-
graphic population in which market spaces by which channel.
◾ The marketing department needs information on who is buying which products in order to
create intelligent marketing and advertising programs.