Interview
“With BI, make
one can analyse different parameters
of this data to capture details like:
intelligent decisions
the quarters when payments are not
flowing in; the top ten customers
whose outstanding is the highest;
on-the-fly!”
the top ten customers with whom
payments are always stuck; the season
or quarter when the payments usually
get delayed, etc. One can also compare
Louis Pasteur—the famous French chemist and data across branches, products,
microbiologist once affirmed: “Chance favours only the employees, etc. The analysis is
reflected in the form of graphs, cubes,
prepared mind.” In business scenarios too, it is crucial to pyramids, and dashboard feeds.
be ‘prepared’. To achieve this preparedness, business heads, Based on the insights that the
team leaders or managers need to adopt tools that could tool unravels, decision makers can
enable them to mine relevant bits of information from formulate future strategies.
So, basically, BI serves as a
the sea of organisational data and do a multi-dimensional compass that gives you a direction
comparative analysis to make informed decisions. And and enables prompt and wise decision
all this, instantaneously! A business intelligence (BI) tool making—on-the-fly!
addresses this very requirement of decision makers and
How different is a BI
empowers them with business insights, on-the-go, avers solution/software from a
Sanjay Mehta, CEO, MAIA Intelligence. conventional ERP (enterprise
Vandana Sharma of BenefIT bureau resource planning) system,
caught up with him to understand the which also generates MIS
(management information
efficiencies that a BI tool can bring to system) reports, etc?
a firm’s business processes. Standard ERP packages do come
MAIA Intelligence is a company packed with standard reporting and
analysis modules. But the kind of
that is emerging as a force to
decision making that is facilitated
reckon with in developing powerful using a BI tool is something that
Business Intelligence reporting and this kind of reporting module can
analysis products. never match.
Suppose a firm is using some ERP
accounting module, the business head
would still need some tool to generate
>> Key BenefITs comparative analytical reports, a
 Know why a BI tool is a MUST for
functionality that the conventional
your business ERP software doesn’t allow.
Sanjay Mehta, Comparative study, where one
CEO, MAIA  Use BI to make prompt, intelligent,
Intelligence information-based decisions is able to analyse the results of one
quarter against that of another; the
same against the yearly data and
Why should a firm deploy a BI data and make intelligent, against the data of the last five years;
solution? What functionalities information-based decisions. And or that of the first quarter data of the
does it offer? that too, without the need of any last two years—product-wise, sales
We can chart our future clearly special computing expertise. person wise, branch-wise, etc, can
and wisely only when we are The uniqueness and efficacy of not be generated using a regular ERP
factually abreast with the latest a BI tool can be explained further software accounting module.
information and are capable of by visualising a business scenario. To do this kind of comparison,
deriving inferences from those Consider this—every firm prepares an either someone needs to write a
facts. A BI tool empowers business outstanding report based on which it program or export all data on to an
heads to analyse organisational does an aging analysis. Using a BI tool, Excel sheet and then work on it. But
BenefIT / November 2008 / 51

Interview
by using BI, you can do many kinds of
analysis on diverse data fields, using A BI tool empowers business heads
heterogeneous data sources, in the
flick of a second.
to analyse organisational data and
make intelligent, information-based
Are BI solutions customised
to suit the requirements of decisions. And that too, without
different business verticals? the need of any special computing
It is important to understand that a
BI tool is basically a data visualisation expertise.
tool that showcases reports or outputs, form of spreadsheet analytic reports, allocated each month/quarter for
post data analysis. This is a platform are sufficient. For the managerial the same.
that sits on top of the transaction level, modules that generate cubes, Besides, when it comes to
system that captures organisational graphs and pyramids to reflect BI adoption, so far, most of
data. This transaction system could different analysis can be deployed. the standard products from
be a CRM (customer relationship For the CEO level, modules that multinationals are being offered
management) solution, HR (human offer functionalities such as key at a per-user-seat pricing model,
resource) tool, ERP or Tally software. It performance indicators, multi-field i.e., if you want to have the BI
is the transactional system that needs analyses modules, dashboards, etc can functionality on ten computers,
to be modeled to suit a particular be deployed. you will have to pay for ten users.
industry format and not the BI tool. This is something that irks the
What are the pain points small-time firms, and even the big
How different would the or glitches in the way of IT players when they scale up and
requirements of a small adoption that you may have their user requirement goes up.
organisation be from that of a observed of late, especially But we have tried to change
bigger one, when it comes to amongst small firms? this scenario in order to increase BI
the application and use of BI? I feel that the key to any IT adoption. We offer a server-based
Both small and large organisations implementation lies in the digitisation deployment pricing model that
face similar decision making of organisational data, across the allows unlimited users to access
challenges but in large organisations board. We are still at a very nascent the functionality. This way, the total
there are IT teams to support and stage of IT adoption in the country and cost of ownership never goes up and
facilitate data analysis programmes digitisation is not happening to the there is more return on investment
and functionalities. But in small and fullest in most organisations. In many too. Also, businesses don’t feel the
mid-sized organisations, usually such firms, it is a very common practice to pinch when they are scaling up and
support is not there. So there’s a lot of automate a few key processes while offering the BI functionality to more
value offered to the user if such a tool some functions, like timekeeping and users. We are hopeful that this will
comes bundled with an ERP solution. attendance records, are still being result in increased proliferation of
In fact we are following the same maintained manually. the BI adoption.
model and have bundled our solution Most small businesses are meeting
with the ERP software of many a firm, the statutory needs with IT. They Do you see the situation
especially in Tier II and Tier III cities are still not getting the competitive improving in the coming
so as to enable customers to buy advantage of analytics to take fact- years? If yes, how?
solutions off the shelf. based decisions and conduct business. The SaaS (software as a service)
model may give a lot of push to
Is such a tool useful for only Is cost a deterrent to the IT adoption as it doesn’t need a
CEOs or to employees across adoption of BI tools? lot of capex. Besides, there is no
the organisation? Yes cost plays a major role in any maintenance required at the users’
A BI tool is useful for employees IT adoption, especially in the case of end. Understanding the scope and
across the organisation. These small firms. These firms usually have potential in this domain, more and
days BI tools come sliced into small capex (capital expenditure) more solution providers are making
many presentation modules to suit budgets and consider investing in IT a shift towards this model. IT
the requirements of different job infrastructure as a one time activity. adoption will surely get a boost once
functions. But IT software require regular most of the management software
For the bottom of the pyramid, upgrades and the business heads need becomes available under the
the basic analysis modules in the to understand that budgets need to be SaaS model. 
52 / November 2008 / BenefIT