InformationWeek: The Business Value of Technology

The company has invested heavily in business-intelligence tools as part of a philosophy of empowering users and helping to achieve key company goals such as improving time to market, Houk says. For instance, business intelligence can reduce the time it takes to access and analyze the results of clinical trials, cutting days from the development cycle. The goal is to use technology to "get people the information they need, without the need to call someone to get reports. It's had a substantial impact," Houk says.

The tools are used to access a series of data marts in marketing and manufacturing departments across the company. About two-thirds of the users use the tools simply to access canned reports created by IT specialists, Houk says.

For those people, there are several advantages in using the Web-enabled software. Because the Web-based application runs on a server and is accessed via a browser on the user's PC, moving to the Web version eliminates the need to install software. "There are various methods of installing software-but none is as easy as opening a browser and typing a Web address," Houk says.

That also saves on support costs. The trade-off is that, initially, there's an additional cost because additional server hardware is needed to run the Web-enabled application, and a company may also need to develop the expertise to install and operate that server. In the long term, that expense is likely to be recouped through lower support costs, Houk says.

Another advantage of the Web approach is that for occasional users, a browser-based tool is also more intuitive and therefore easier to learn, Houk says. That's because users are already familiar with browsers and can use the browser functions to navigate around the application. "When you get down into a client application, you also need to figure out how to get out. With a browser, you have a 'back' button," he says.

But the Web version won't suit everyone at Eli Lilly. There are about 200 power users who want to manipulate reports and do detailed data analysis. They are more satisfied with the functionality of the full client. And because they spend more time learning and using the software, the intuitiveness of the user interface isn't such an issue. Besides those power users, perhaps a third of Eli Lilly's users overall do some ad hoc reporting.

Analysts say that it's the most-specialized functions that probably will be the last to be replaced by Web-based products. Though suppliers are working to make the shift, Meta Group's Smith says it will take one to two years to bring Web-based products to the same level of functionality as client-server tools.

For very specialized functions-regulatory or statutory reporting it could take even longer. And none of the suppliers contacted say they have definite plans to phase out client-server products-there are simply too many users for whom client-server is still the best fit.