Third party logistics (3PL) providers are under pressure to cut costs and boost efficiencies due to thin margins in the logistics industry. Business intelligence (BI) tools can help 3PLs optimize supply chain operations and provide strategic value to customers. BI involves collecting, analyzing and reporting data to improve decision making. It allows 3PLs to monitor key performance indicators, identify trends, and predict future business behaviors to stay competitive in a changing market.
Call Center Automation- Provide intelligent automation across the entire cust...Kapture CRM
It is time to add the power of automation to your business. Here is Kapture CRM to ensure that your customers have a seamless, consistent and personalized journey using its machine learning enabled tools.
Sales Analytics is a pre-built BI Solution that helps user to make critical Sales decisions to drive profitable growth and be competitive in the market place. This solution is built using Jaspersoft BI tools for Pre-built Dashboard and reports, JasperETL for Data integration and Postgres database for hosting datawarehouse.
BrokerFabrik is an all-in-one software system for financial institutions that integrates a unique client stock trading experience with a robust operational backbone. It's all in one place, front-to-back: we call it broker in a box.
Many mid- to small-size insurance companies strive to run SAP
solutions in asset accounting and reporting (SAP CML, SAP
CFM) but are not ready to invest heavily in implementing and
running SAP. The cloud technology will allow these companies
to exploit the advantages of a SAP based solution without
major upfront investment in technical infrastructure, licensing
and consulting fees. A template based SAP CML/CFM run in
the Cloud will address this issue.
QlikView delivers answers for businesses of every size and kind, from one-person shops to multinational organizations. Some of the world’s largest institutions – with billions of records – rely on QlikView. QlikView accesses all your data, so your analysis is complete and thorough. No limits. No half-way answers. No blocked views. And it easily integrates with your existing systems. No need to rip or replace anything.
The low-interest period is forcing most insurers to control and monitor their financial investments. In contrast to a risk focused
approach seen in recent years, yield controlling and monitoring will have top priority. In order to reach this goal, many
insurers are modernizing and enhancing their data warehouses. BearingPoint is offering a predefined investment data warehouse comprising the most required KPIs, reports and the underlying data model.
CPQ - Configure, Price and Quoting ExcellenceBearingPoint
Realizing all potentials of the CPQ Excellence will lead to
reduced process complexity with direct impact on time,
cost and risk. Main key performance indicators will be
both higher win rates of your offers, as well as lower
quotation throughput times. CPQ Excellence takes
advantage of potentials in a systematic configuration,
pricing, and quotation process in a complex
business environment.
The spurt in logistics management organisations is affecting the bottom line of companies. In order to have a competitive edge over others, many logistics service providers are adopting business intelligence (BI) to improve their performance and meet the needs of their growing client base.
An article by Dhiren Gala in Smart Logistics, December 2010 issue.
Call Center Automation- Provide intelligent automation across the entire cust...Kapture CRM
It is time to add the power of automation to your business. Here is Kapture CRM to ensure that your customers have a seamless, consistent and personalized journey using its machine learning enabled tools.
Sales Analytics is a pre-built BI Solution that helps user to make critical Sales decisions to drive profitable growth and be competitive in the market place. This solution is built using Jaspersoft BI tools for Pre-built Dashboard and reports, JasperETL for Data integration and Postgres database for hosting datawarehouse.
BrokerFabrik is an all-in-one software system for financial institutions that integrates a unique client stock trading experience with a robust operational backbone. It's all in one place, front-to-back: we call it broker in a box.
Many mid- to small-size insurance companies strive to run SAP
solutions in asset accounting and reporting (SAP CML, SAP
CFM) but are not ready to invest heavily in implementing and
running SAP. The cloud technology will allow these companies
to exploit the advantages of a SAP based solution without
major upfront investment in technical infrastructure, licensing
and consulting fees. A template based SAP CML/CFM run in
the Cloud will address this issue.
QlikView delivers answers for businesses of every size and kind, from one-person shops to multinational organizations. Some of the world’s largest institutions – with billions of records – rely on QlikView. QlikView accesses all your data, so your analysis is complete and thorough. No limits. No half-way answers. No blocked views. And it easily integrates with your existing systems. No need to rip or replace anything.
The low-interest period is forcing most insurers to control and monitor their financial investments. In contrast to a risk focused
approach seen in recent years, yield controlling and monitoring will have top priority. In order to reach this goal, many
insurers are modernizing and enhancing their data warehouses. BearingPoint is offering a predefined investment data warehouse comprising the most required KPIs, reports and the underlying data model.
CPQ - Configure, Price and Quoting ExcellenceBearingPoint
Realizing all potentials of the CPQ Excellence will lead to
reduced process complexity with direct impact on time,
cost and risk. Main key performance indicators will be
both higher win rates of your offers, as well as lower
quotation throughput times. CPQ Excellence takes
advantage of potentials in a systematic configuration,
pricing, and quotation process in a complex
business environment.
The spurt in logistics management organisations is affecting the bottom line of companies. In order to have a competitive edge over others, many logistics service providers are adopting business intelligence (BI) to improve their performance and meet the needs of their growing client base.
An article by Dhiren Gala in Smart Logistics, December 2010 issue.
Business intelligence systems are also unable to deal with market volatiles. Infosys' business analytics offerings provide the processes, tools and expertise to extract the most from information investments description.
Analytics applications are designed to measure, predict, and optimize business performance; they are used to analyze specific data related to particular aspects of a business. This paper discusses how Pivotal CRM Analytics can help companies across a range of industries improve their effectiveness through practical, low-cost CRM analytics applications.
As organizations struggle to meet the demands of the global marketplace, a business intelligence competency center can provide the business with trustworthy, timely and actionable information.
Business Intelligence for Consumer Goods CompaniesCognizant
Despite the focus that the Consumer Goods industry places on business intelligence and data insights, not many companies are truly leveraging this valuable resource to its full potential.
Information management is key to business growth. It is a competitive advantage with the same merit as product knowledge and inventory availability. These once-held corporate competitive advantages are now considered “tickets to entry” and rather indistinguishable. Regulatory protections are largely gone, and when comparing your company’s features and functions, “demo parity” is the norm, especially within the larger industries.
Organizing to manage information assetsMark Albala
The presentation provides a new approach to managing and measuring the value of an organization's information assets, and gives a brief overview of the roles involved in this new management approach
The retail industry is at the forefront of the Big Data revolution, with every point-of-sale transaction, website click, or social media post potentially revealing an insight into the customer’s preferences and buying behaviour. The capability to harness this information effectively to provide optimal pricing and enhanced customer experience can be a game-changer for retailers.
MAIA Intelligence was invited to give a technical session on MS-SQL at Microsoft Dreamspark Yatra 2012 event in which around 300 budding techies learnt about the emerging technologies
MAIA Intelligence profiled on DQ Channel TreeDhiren Gala
MAIA Intelligence: Adding Social Media Benefits
While the concept and activity of partner-to-partner networking, reselling vendor products and adding services are not new; the evolution of social media technology has created new platforms and opportunities
- Hiten Rathod, Head - Strategic Alliances & Channels
Original article published in Cybermedia's DQ Channel, December 2011
postXBRL is an XBRL reporting offering from MAIA Intelligence available on both SaaS and On-Premise model. This presentation gives an glimpse of product on both models.
Sanjay Mehta, CEO of MAIA Intelligence, highlights
the barriers preventing IT managers from adopting business intelligence, while delving into its innovations and capabilities.
This is an excerpts from an interview taken by N. Geetha, Executive Editor, ITNext and published in October 2011 issue by 9Dot9 Media.
Compliance to Compete -
XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) & Analytics
Recent MCA (Ministry of Corporate Affairs) mandate for certain class of companies to file their balance sheet and profit & loss statements in XBRL format has now made it necessary for the corporates to understand the XBRL and its advantages and the process of converting their financial statements in the required format.
XBRL stands for eXtensible Business Reporting Language - an language for the electronic communication of business and financial data which provides major benefits in the preparation, analysis and communication of business information and offers cost savings, greater efficiency and improved accuracy and reliability to all those involved in supplying or using financial data; now being put to practical use in a number of countries including India
XBRL stands for eXtensible Business Reporting Language. It is one of a family of "XML" languages which is becoming a standard means of communicating information between businesses and on the internet.
eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) is an extended XML, a tagged data (meta-data) which is machine readable and a standard way to communicate business & financial info.
This presentation introduces XBRL & MAIA Intelligence's postXBRL solution with BI for financial reporting.
For the last 20 years, organisations have invested into transformation of the entire financial consolidation process from ERP accounting systems to financial consolidation software in order to improve the way of tackling the challenge of Financial Close & Balance Sheet Consolidation with modern software solutions. Despite these
investments, more than 90 per cent of organisations still rely on spreadsheets to gather information from disparate financial systems and perform variance analysis on financial statements, compiling information from multiple sources. The requirement for transparency in financial statements is non-negotiable, and this starts with the financial close and reporting process. Financial consolidation software solutions have certainly
improved the process, driving organisations towards a more consistent chart of accounts, and supporting the period end processes, such as allocations and inter-company eliminations. However, when looking at the actual activities that finance employees perform each month, it is clear that there are still significant gaps. This article provides a realistic view of the use of technology to improve the financial close and reporting process
and achieve increased quality, accountability, auditability, efficiency and ultimately, regulatory compliance.
Sanjay Mehta, CEO, MAIA Intelligence Pvt. Ltd. authored this article for The Chartered Accountant (CA) Journal, March 2011.
Experiments with Social Media & NetworkingDhiren Gala
Mr. Sanjay Mehta, CEO, MAIA Intelligence was invited for speaking at the Computer Society of India, Nashik Chapter's FutureNet - The Future of Internet conference on February 6, 2011.
Sanjay shares his experience on experimenting with the social media and how social networking helped him leverage the MAIA 1KEY & personal brand.
Best Deployment: Raymond opts for 1KEY FCM - Financial ConsolidationDhiren Gala
The Perfect man becomes more intelligent
Mumbai-based Raymond needed a solution which could satisfy the functionality and ability to get all financial data on a single platform. MAIA Intelligence along with Mondial IT Consultants helped meet their expectations.
Minakshi Shetty of DQ Channels (Cybermedia) speaks to Sanjay Mehta, CEO, MAIA Intelligence, Vivek Kale, CIO, Raymond Limited and Sharad Kumar Agarwal, Director, Mondial IT Consultants
Business Intelligence (BI) in Pharmaceuticals - An aid in informed decision making
Currently, the demand for BI solutions is largely driven by MNCs & large enterprises. BI solutions seem to have gained more acceptance and significance in pharma industry where time plays a pivotal role in the future of the company. The article from Modern Pharmaceuticals, reviews the importance of BI solutions to the
Indian pharma industry.
- Sanjay Mehta, CEO, MAIA Intelligence Pvt. Ltd.
Business Intelligence addresses the challenges
faced by ports and terminals by providing comprehensive solutions for real-time planning,
management and control of operations.
Confluent - Monthly magazine by Symbiosis Centre for IT - September 2010Dhiren Gala
What the next generation will expect of BI applications? How generational shift will drive changes in BI tools and technology? How the roles of BI professionals will be transformed? How the uses of BI systems will grow and change?
Data Visualization with Dashboard & KPI
India's first Business Intelligence (BI)Dhiren Gala
India's first Business Intelligence (BI) Reporting Analytics Software for MIS, KPI, Dashboard.
1KEY Dashboard and 1KEY KPI are some of the many modules of 1KEY Business Intelligence (BI) Reporting Analytics Software which connects to multiple applications, multiple database to give a comprehensive data analysis, data mining, and multi-dimensional visual reporting solution, able to slice and dice information efficiently providing an extremely intuitive experience. 1KEY BI is powerful enough & conceived to help the business user to understand their data, to compare and contrast scenarios, and to deliver this information inside and outside of their organization which helps make informed decisions at all levels in an organization.
Business Intelligence (BI) for ManufacturingDhiren Gala
Business Intelligence (BI) for Manufacturing - Plastics are no different
BI is very effective for all types of manufacturing, be it process, discrete or automatic. BI can close the ‘fact gap’ by improving the availability and delivery of actionable data with minimal IT
involvement.
Business Intelligence (BI) for Construction IndustryDhiren Gala
Business Intelligence (BI) for Construction Industry
Construction industry today has undergone lots of transformation in their operational methodologies and processes. It is becoming ever more competitive and complex. More businesses now need to rely on fact-based decision making and analytics to get ahead.
GDG Cloud Southlake #33: Boule & Rebala: Effective AppSec in SDLC using Deplo...James Anderson
Effective Application Security in Software Delivery lifecycle using Deployment Firewall and DBOM
The modern software delivery process (or the CI/CD process) includes many tools, distributed teams, open-source code, and cloud platforms. Constant focus on speed to release software to market, along with the traditional slow and manual security checks has caused gaps in continuous security as an important piece in the software supply chain. Today organizations feel more susceptible to external and internal cyber threats due to the vast attack surface in their applications supply chain and the lack of end-to-end governance and risk management.
The software team must secure its software delivery process to avoid vulnerability and security breaches. This needs to be achieved with existing tool chains and without extensive rework of the delivery processes. This talk will present strategies and techniques for providing visibility into the true risk of the existing vulnerabilities, preventing the introduction of security issues in the software, resolving vulnerabilities in production environments quickly, and capturing the deployment bill of materials (DBOM).
Speakers:
Bob Boule
Robert Boule is a technology enthusiast with PASSION for technology and making things work along with a knack for helping others understand how things work. He comes with around 20 years of solution engineering experience in application security, software continuous delivery, and SaaS platforms. He is known for his dynamic presentations in CI/CD and application security integrated in software delivery lifecycle.
Gopinath Rebala
Gopinath Rebala is the CTO of OpsMx, where he has overall responsibility for the machine learning and data processing architectures for Secure Software Delivery. Gopi also has a strong connection with our customers, leading design and architecture for strategic implementations. Gopi is a frequent speaker and well-known leader in continuous delivery and integrating security into software delivery.
Epistemic Interaction - tuning interfaces to provide information for AI supportAlan Dix
Paper presented at SYNERGY workshop at AVI 2024, Genoa, Italy. 3rd June 2024
https://alandix.com/academic/papers/synergy2024-epistemic/
As machine learning integrates deeper into human-computer interactions, the concept of epistemic interaction emerges, aiming to refine these interactions to enhance system adaptability. This approach encourages minor, intentional adjustments in user behaviour to enrich the data available for system learning. This paper introduces epistemic interaction within the context of human-system communication, illustrating how deliberate interaction design can improve system understanding and adaptation. Through concrete examples, we demonstrate the potential of epistemic interaction to significantly advance human-computer interaction by leveraging intuitive human communication strategies to inform system design and functionality, offering a novel pathway for enriching user-system engagements.
Communications Mining Series - Zero to Hero - Session 1DianaGray10
This session provides introduction to UiPath Communication Mining, importance and platform overview. You will acquire a good understand of the phases in Communication Mining as we go over the platform with you. Topics covered:
• Communication Mining Overview
• Why is it important?
• How can it help today’s business and the benefits
• Phases in Communication Mining
• Demo on Platform overview
• Q/A
GraphRAG is All You need? LLM & Knowledge GraphGuy Korland
Guy Korland, CEO and Co-founder of FalkorDB, will review two articles on the integration of language models with knowledge graphs.
1. Unifying Large Language Models and Knowledge Graphs: A Roadmap.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.08302
2. Microsoft Research's GraphRAG paper and a review paper on various uses of knowledge graphs:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/graphrag-unlocking-llm-discovery-on-narrative-private-data/
A tale of scale & speed: How the US Navy is enabling software delivery from l...sonjaschweigert1
Rapid and secure feature delivery is a goal across every application team and every branch of the DoD. The Navy’s DevSecOps platform, Party Barge, has achieved:
- Reduction in onboarding time from 5 weeks to 1 day
- Improved developer experience and productivity through actionable findings and reduction of false positives
- Maintenance of superior security standards and inherent policy enforcement with Authorization to Operate (ATO)
Development teams can ship efficiently and ensure applications are cyber ready for Navy Authorizing Officials (AOs). In this webinar, Sigma Defense and Anchore will give attendees a look behind the scenes and demo secure pipeline automation and security artifacts that speed up application ATO and time to production.
We will cover:
- How to remove silos in DevSecOps
- How to build efficient development pipeline roles and component templates
- How to deliver security artifacts that matter for ATO’s (SBOMs, vulnerability reports, and policy evidence)
- How to streamline operations with automated policy checks on container images
State of ICS and IoT Cyber Threat Landscape Report 2024 previewPrayukth K V
The IoT and OT threat landscape report has been prepared by the Threat Research Team at Sectrio using data from Sectrio, cyber threat intelligence farming facilities spread across over 85 cities around the world. In addition, Sectrio also runs AI-based advanced threat and payload engagement facilities that serve as sinks to attract and engage sophisticated threat actors, and newer malware including new variants and latent threats that are at an earlier stage of development.
The latest edition of the OT/ICS and IoT security Threat Landscape Report 2024 also covers:
State of global ICS asset and network exposure
Sectoral targets and attacks as well as the cost of ransom
Global APT activity, AI usage, actor and tactic profiles, and implications
Rise in volumes of AI-powered cyberattacks
Major cyber events in 2024
Malware and malicious payload trends
Cyberattack types and targets
Vulnerability exploit attempts on CVEs
Attacks on counties – USA
Expansion of bot farms – how, where, and why
In-depth analysis of the cyber threat landscape across North America, South America, Europe, APAC, and the Middle East
Why are attacks on smart factories rising?
Cyber risk predictions
Axis of attacks – Europe
Systemic attacks in the Middle East
Download the full report from here:
https://sectrio.com/resources/ot-threat-landscape-reports/sectrio-releases-ot-ics-and-iot-security-threat-landscape-report-2024/
Pushing the limits of ePRTC: 100ns holdover for 100 daysAdtran
At WSTS 2024, Alon Stern explored the topic of parametric holdover and explained how recent research findings can be implemented in real-world PNT networks to achieve 100 nanoseconds of accuracy for up to 100 days.
LF Energy Webinar: Electrical Grid Modelling and Simulation Through PowSyBl -...DanBrown980551
Do you want to learn how to model and simulate an electrical network from scratch in under an hour?
Then welcome to this PowSyBl workshop, hosted by Rte, the French Transmission System Operator (TSO)!
During the webinar, you will discover the PowSyBl ecosystem as well as handle and study an electrical network through an interactive Python notebook.
PowSyBl is an open source project hosted by LF Energy, which offers a comprehensive set of features for electrical grid modelling and simulation. Among other advanced features, PowSyBl provides:
- A fully editable and extendable library for grid component modelling;
- Visualization tools to display your network;
- Grid simulation tools, such as power flows, security analyses (with or without remedial actions) and sensitivity analyses;
The framework is mostly written in Java, with a Python binding so that Python developers can access PowSyBl functionalities as well.
What you will learn during the webinar:
- For beginners: discover PowSyBl's functionalities through a quick general presentation and the notebook, without needing any expert coding skills;
- For advanced developers: master the skills to efficiently apply PowSyBl functionalities to your real-world scenarios.
Why You Should Replace Windows 11 with Nitrux Linux 3.5.0 for enhanced perfor...SOFTTECHHUB
The choice of an operating system plays a pivotal role in shaping our computing experience. For decades, Microsoft's Windows has dominated the market, offering a familiar and widely adopted platform for personal and professional use. However, as technological advancements continue to push the boundaries of innovation, alternative operating systems have emerged, challenging the status quo and offering users a fresh perspective on computing.
One such alternative that has garnered significant attention and acclaim is Nitrux Linux 3.5.0, a sleek, powerful, and user-friendly Linux distribution that promises to redefine the way we interact with our devices. With its focus on performance, security, and customization, Nitrux Linux presents a compelling case for those seeking to break free from the constraints of proprietary software and embrace the freedom and flexibility of open-source computing.
GridMate - End to end testing is a critical piece to ensure quality and avoid...ThomasParaiso2
End to end testing is a critical piece to ensure quality and avoid regressions. In this session, we share our journey building an E2E testing pipeline for GridMate components (LWC and Aura) using Cypress, JSForce, FakerJS…
Securing your Kubernetes cluster_ a step-by-step guide to success !KatiaHIMEUR1
Today, after several years of existence, an extremely active community and an ultra-dynamic ecosystem, Kubernetes has established itself as the de facto standard in container orchestration. Thanks to a wide range of managed services, it has never been so easy to set up a ready-to-use Kubernetes cluster.
However, this ease of use means that the subject of security in Kubernetes is often left for later, or even neglected. This exposes companies to significant risks.
In this talk, I'll show you step-by-step how to secure your Kubernetes cluster for greater peace of mind and reliability.
GraphSummit Singapore | The Art of the Possible with Graph - Q2 2024Neo4j
Neha Bajwa, Vice President of Product Marketing, Neo4j
Join us as we explore breakthrough innovations enabled by interconnected data and AI. Discover firsthand how organizations use relationships in data to uncover contextual insights and solve our most pressing challenges – from optimizing supply chains, detecting fraud, and improving customer experiences to accelerating drug discoveries.
GraphSummit Singapore | The Art of the Possible with Graph - Q2 2024
Shifting Trends - BI for Logistics Industry
1. < FEATURE
Shifting
Trends
With wafer thin margins, corporates are introducing business intelligence to
boost efficiencies reports Sanjay Mehta, CEO, MAIA Intelligence Pvt. Ltd
L
ogistics is an important controlling an organization’s value Analyzing Data
component of economic added activities. It is a paradigm To effectively manage the supply
development. Increasing shift in the way organizations chains of their customers, 3PLs need
competitiveness, however, respond to change in the market. to constantly analyze data collected
has led to wafer thin margins Over the last few decades the from various sources and convert it
which have affected the bottom role of logistics management has into actionable information. Busi-
line of various organizations. The undergone a paradigm shift. It is ness intelligence (BI) tools like data
increasing number of players in widely recognized as an extremely warehousing and OLAP (Online An-
the industry is one of the major important aspect of overall business alytical Processing) can significantly
reasons that one can attribute to strategy. At the same time, a number help 3PLs in achieving this objec-
this situation. These organizations of factors have increased the tive. By providing a unified view of
are leaving no stone unturned to complexity of logistics management. the entire supply chain, these tools
cut costs and boost efficiencies. This has led many companies to can help improve the functioning
They have brought in huge outsource their logistics activities of basic 3PL services like transpor-
automation into their operations to Third Party Logistics (3PL) tation management, warehousing,
ranging from ERP to TMS systems. providers. Today, 3PLs play a critical and inventory management. 3PLs
While these new systems will help role in the supply chains of their can leverage BI tools to provide their
organizations to improve, they will customers. They are increasingly clients with information specific to
not be able to monitor and control viewed as strategic partners who can their supply chain, thereby increas-
business activities. On the other play a pivotal role in optimizing the ing their market responsiveness.
hand, business intelligence is an supply chain and thereby providing BI tools can also help 3PLs improve
excellent means of monitoring and sustained competitive advantage. their own internal organizational
53 INDIA | October 2010 | www.logisticsweek.com 53
2. Multidimensional Analysis
Key Performance Indicators for 3PL Providers Multidimensional analysis is the
3PL process Key performance indicators “slicing and dicing” of data. It of-
Order receipt Total order receipt time, order information accuracy, fers good insight into numbers at a
revenue per order more granular level. This requires a
Vehicle load planning Planning accuracy, capacity utilization, resource utiliza- solid data warehousing / data mart
tion, load balancing backend, as well as business-savvy
Vehicle routing and scheduling Route utilization, scheduling accuracy, rate of route addi- analysts to extract the necessary in-
tion / removal, vehicle availability formation.
Dispatch operations Vehicle loading time, on time vehicle dispatch, order
dispatch accuracy Finding Correlation Among
Goods in transit Rate of update of location information, average transit Different Factors
time, cost of transportation per ton This is in effect analyzing business
Receiving operations On time vehicle arrival, vehicle unloading time, order intelligence deeply. The questions
receipt accuracy, percentage of goods damage asked are, “How do different factors
Order delivery Total order delivery time, on time deliveries, goods deliv- correlate to one another?” and “Are
ery error rate there significant time trends that
can be leveraged/anticipated?” Data
eliminate bottlenecks, the ability to is seen as a wealth of information by
analyze all activities in the logistics most IT enabled organizations. Cor-
The fundamental purpose of process is vital.
The fundamental purpose of
porates, in fact, are adopting BI to
receive accurate information regard-
business intelligence (BI) is to business intelligence (BI) is to deliver ing its various stakeholders. Thus
deliver fact-based information fact-based information to improve BI can be applied in the day-to-day
to improve the efficiency and the efficiency and effectiveness of
business. To better understand their
activities of an organization, for it to
extract the most from the data gen-
effectiveness of business. business, organizations need intuitive erated by the organization’s various
query and reporting tools for advanced OLTP (Online Transaction Process-
and consumer-level users to obtain ing) systems.
access to critical business information
functions like human resources and that supports strategic and tactical Providing Tools
financial management. decision making. BI can be classified Business intelligence (BI) provides
into the following categories: tools that enable the delivery of in-
Aiding 3PLs formation to decision makers. The
The 3PL industry is in a state of tran- Business Operations information delivered comes from
sition. Logistics providers are add- Reporting relational data sources or enterprise
ing more and more services to their The most common form of business applications (e.g., enterprise re-
portfolios as customers demand intelligence is business operations source planning, customer relation-
more integrated solutions. 3PLs are reporting. This includes the actuals ship management and supply chain).
viewed as strategic partners who can and how the actuals stack up against Business intelligence includes:
optimize the supply chain, reduce goals. This type of business intel-
the cycle time, and provide unprec- ligence often manifests itself in the Query Tools
edented customer responsiveness. standard weekly or monthly reports Standard query tools allow the users
One method to effectively provide that need to be produced. to view information by answering a
such services is information tech- series of predefined questions. The
nology. The more sophisticated 3PLs Dashboard business problem that query tools
have quickly embraced IT to enable The primary purpose of a dashboard resolve is the need for users to com-
better coordination of activities by is to convey information at a glance. bine, analyze and export information
providing tracing and tracking fa- For this audience, there is little, if from several sources using a static
cilities to its customers. But this is any, need to study data deeply. At the format. The standard query tool is an
hardly enough to ensure sustained same time, presentation and ease of excellent mechanism for segment-
competitive advantage. For total effi- use are very important for a dash- ing the user population into groups:
ciency in the supply chain and also to board to be useful. users who need ad hoc query
54 INDIA | October 2010 | www.logisticsweek.com
3. capabilities, prompted query capa- portant to any BI implementation, so strategies for the organization.
bilities and static query capabilities. the KPI defined for the various proc- The industry’s 3PL providers who
esses would enable the data to be an- adopt BI solutions which exhibit
Reporting Tools alyzed and presented to the user. BI only behavior would get solutions
Reporting tools provide the capabil- uses KPI to present in a dashboard. in BI analytics space. Such solu-
ity for presenting information in a Further, 3PL players can use OLAP tions would not only show present or
visually appealing format. The busi- tools for generating MIS reports for market behaviour and other related
ness problem that reporting tools ad- evaluating the operations performed activities, but also predict future be-
dress is the need for organizations to in the organization. Reporting tools havior and suggestions. This is also
create permanent records represent- would be of significant use for mak- the future of BI in transportation.
ing the business at a specific point in ing daily operational decisions for Thus 3PL providers should embrace
time that can be easily disseminated managing a 3PL’s daily operations. A BI to stay competitive and be suc-
to others. Due to the formal nature of 3PL can also use data mining tools cessful in the race for market leader-
the information that reporting tools to evaluate strategic factors both ship and customer satisfaction.
represent, it is important to develop internal and external to the organi- The 3PL industry is in a state
procedures for maintaining and up- zation and identify patterns of busi- of flux. The internet, supply chain
dating the data that they present. ness and operational behavior. A 3PL management and globalization have
can then take decisions which are made sweeping changes in the ex-
OLAP Tools strategic or tactical in nature using
Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) data mining tools.
tools are for users who require inten- The direct benefits of the usage
sive data analysis capabilities. The of a BI solution are reduction in the BI solutions are seen as more
business problem that OLAP tools turnaround time for preparation
solve is the need for users to “drill” of reports, direct and faster access
of a need than a luxury. 3PLs
seamlessly into information when to data needed to support decision can implement BI solutions
additional details are required. OLAP making, analyzing the ebb and covering either key operations
tools provide users with ad hoc access flow of businesses across services,
to data on an as-needed basis. These regions, clients, pricing, currencies,
or the operations covering their
tools insulate users from the details and market factors in time etc. entire organization.
surrounding the retrieval of informa- The indirect benefits are improved
tion from the data warehouse. sales performance, data quality,
productivity etc. This KPI is just a
Data Visualization Tools drop in the ocean and there can be isting business models of 3PLs. To
Data Visualization tools help in the various KPI which can be defined by compete in this market, a 3PL has
visual interpretation of complex rela- an organization in conjunction with to continuously improve its existing
tionships in multidimensional data. its BI consultants to capitalize on services, add new services based on
Graphics tools are used to illustrate and make the best of BI technologies technology and make its internal
data relationships. Dashboards and available in the market. functions more effective. BI tools
scorecards have emerged as a means BI solutions are seen as more like data warehousing can signifi-
of helping organizations do just that of a need than a luxury. 3PLs can cantly help a 3PL provider achieve
by providing instruments for mak- implement BI solutions covering these objectives.
ing decisions, delivering long-term either key operations or the Recognizing the need for an effec-
plans, responding quickly to market operations covering their entire tive business intelligence solution is
changes, providing greater control organization. BI is here to stay as just the first step. The real challenge
over the execution of strategy and the rate of adoption is increasing is to make it an integral part of the
promoting accountability. Both are because organizations are looking decision making process and to set
dynamic tools that make it possible towards data as one of the key assets clear objectives for business intel-
for organizations to respond to short- of the organization. Leveraging data ligence solutions with management
term market changes, support tactical means that it needs to be harvested in support so that the company achieves
decisions and keep strategy on track. a beneficial manner. Harvesting data complete success.
to gain an edge over the competition
Key Performance Indicators can be done with ease by using well- The author can be reached at sanjaymehta@
Key Performance Indicators are im- qualified BI solutions with unique BI maia-intelligence.com
INDIA | October 2010 | www.logisticsweek.com 55