InformationWeek

May 3, 1999

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ERP Vendors Offer Integrated Analysis

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Oracle has unveiled a suite of analytical apps called the Strategic Enterprise Management suite. Available now is Balanced Scorecard, which helps organizations evaluate and develop strategic goals based on performance. The software lets companies define indicators that measure finances, customer relations, operations, and employee performance. The indicators are then set as parameters that can be compared to goals, such as increasing market share.

Oracle is also shipping Activity Based Management software that helps companies make decisions based on accurate cost information. Next year, Oracle plans to release Strategy Formulation, which lets companies craft their global strategies in the context of their competition; and Value Based Management, which will let a company view itself from the perspective of the investment community.

SAP hasn't released any performance-management or analytical applications yet, but the vendor is working on a Strategic Enterprise Management Suite that's slated to ship this year. SEM 1 will include several modules: Business Planner, Business Consolidation, and Management Cockpit. A later version will add Business Information Collector, Corporate Performance Monitor, and Balanced Scorecard.

Perhaps the most ambitious of SAP's plans is the Management Cockpit, which lets companies build a room in which monitors on all four walls present visual data on a company's performance. The goal is to let executives easily monitor indicators such as financial performance, customer relationships, and key success factors.

Phillips Petroleum's Hodges says his company is interested in SAP's forthcoming enterprise performance-management applications, particularly the sales-force automation, advanced planning and optimization, and Management Cockpit modules. "These will allow us to deliver to decision-makers the right information at the right time," Hodges says.

Analysts say it's still too early to tell which of the ERP vendors rates highest when it comes to business intelligence. While SAP is behind in shipping analytical applications, Greenbaum says the ERP leader is taking "the highest ground possible with Management Cockpit. They are doing that in part because they have a customer base that could potentially support that--large, centrally managed companies."

PeopleSoft may have an advantage because it is first to market with analytical apps. Customers who plan to implement ERP may find PeopleSoft's business-intelligence software an added value.

"The ERP vendors have to convince the world you don't have to be a huge enterprise to use their systems," says Schiff. "They can expand their customer base by selling into smaller companies and by trying to cover the end-to-end piece with business intelligence."

Then again, Oracle's heritage may give that vendor a leg up, analysts say. "Oracle's strength is its database and data warehouse pedigree," Greenbaum says. "It owns the lion's share of relational data in corporations, so access is immensely simplified."

At this point, however, the vendors' business-intelligence strategies have more similarities than differences. For companies looking to leverage their ERP data, the question of which business-intelligence vendor to choose could come down to which one best fits their ERP systems.