DecisionPoint Solves Imations ERP Reporting Problems
Imation Corp. is a recognized global technology leader in removable data storage offerings. The company's story of repeated struggles with inadequate results from its ERP applications is a familiar one among today's big corporations. Large amounts of time and money are invested in the applications, but the promise — more and better-organized corporate data — goes undelivered. Instead of empowering executives, controllers, and managers to make critical business decisions quickly with current, accurate information, ERP systems often deliver less information than the system they replaced.
The same was true with Imation Corp. until they reached DecisionPoint. Imation has had overwhelming success using DecisionPoint's Active Decision Support solution to effectively and confidently manage its financial performance. DecisionPoint's business suite has delivered comprehensive information to decision-makers when and how it's needed, generated answers to mission-critical business questions, and delivered a substantial ROI.
The Challenge
• Improve reporting time from a poorly performing ERP system requiring
high maintenance.
• Lower costs with a solution that integrates with pre-existing tools and
infrastructure.
• Avoid risks by maintaining historical company data and moving it off
the ERP system.
Imation transitioned to Oracle's eBusiness Suite expecting to capitalize on
increased knowledge from information that would now be intelligently stored
and available for analysis. But Imation quickly discovered that the process
of switching was not an easy one. Performance issues on the ERP system necessitated
the need to move to an alternative reporting solution, and it was apparent there
would soon be a need to purge ERP data from the ERP system and keep it available
for reporting. Typical ERP systems have very few ways to purge information.
The more company data that accumulates, the longer it takes for the ERP to run
reports. This means important questions go unanswered or get delayed, and a
company's performance suffers.
Furthermore, the standard reports delivered with Oracle were not very flexible.
Imation could get answers about specific work orders, but couldn't do any cross-analysis.
For example, it couldn't compare errant work orders, filter them by status or
organization, or group variances by resource, item, or department. Accessing
that information (changing the reports) was a painstaking process for the IT
department, which decided to attack the problem by building a homegrown data
warehouse solution. But it proved difficult both to maintain and support over
time, and its performance was still inadequate.
Imation needed a Unix- and Oracle-based solution that would integrate with the
ERP system and possibly replace the high-maintenance off-the-shelf tools being
used in Imation's existing data warehouse, as well as supporting all of the
Oracle Applications modules. The goal was threefold: buy a product that would
minimize administration overhead; simultaneously integrate with tools in which
lots of time and money had been invested; and deliver on the original promise
of enabling better business through comprehensive, accurate insight into the
company's own information.
The Solution
• Complete auto-configured data warehouse and decision support system
implemented and functional in eight weeks.
• Business data, metrics, and reports mirroring Imation's business immediately
available in usable, customized forms.
• Easily extendable solution grows with Imation, including legacy and SCM
applications for a comprehensive end-to-end company view.
Imation previously spent a lot of time building and maintaining a data warehouse
with homegrown and off-the-shelf tools, requiring a lot of time and money to
build, integrate, and maintain. It was apparent that growing the data warehouse
thusly would be prohibitively expensive and labor intensive. Imation simply
couldn't afford it. Convinced the company could operate on a packaged ERP system,
it decided on an active decision-support system with a packaged data warehouse
to solve its reporting and analysis problems.
Imation turned to DecisionPoint and purchased an auto-configured data warehouse
for Oracle Applications. The DecisionPoint warehouse also integrated Imation's
other apps: Manugistics for supply chain planning, NextLinx for import/export
issues, and lots of EDI data for purchase orders, shipping, and the like. The
versatility of the solution allows for extraction and integration from multiple
sources and enables unique drill-down and drill-across capabilities to all levels
of detail. The General Ledger group, for example, can drill across into the
subledger domains for Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, and Project Accounting
information, meaning the solution easily extends across Imation's entire enterprise,
allowing cross-sectional analysis for maximum business performance.
The technical aspects of the Active Decision Support solution included predefined
analytics (star schemas), the associated source mappings for Oracle Applications,
and a Source Expert that automatically reads setup information from the ERP
system and tailors the data warehouse accordingly. Flexible, easily customized,
and intuitive, the star schemas anchor the DecisionPoint platform. While IT
professionals at customer sites spend anywhere from nine to 18 months designing
a data warehouse, DecisionPoint's predesigned schemas let end users look at
their data within days, rather than months. The solution also includes a data
warehouse server for security, data management, and customization.
The Results
• $3 million in savings in the first year alone
• Eliminated at minimum 7,000 man hours per year
• 100 percent accuracy in generated metrics cut five days off DSO closing
times
Imation is saving millions of dollars a year. Every year. The estimated savings
from eliminating or reducing the need to develop new custom reports on the ERP
system or upgrade ERP servers (reports offloaded to the DecisionPoint warehouse)
is $450,000 a year, minimum. Eliminating or reducing report administration saves
at least 7,000 hours a year. Eliminating the need to buy or develop an archival
system to keep ERP data online once it is purged from the ERP systems saved
$200,000 to $300,000. Reducing nonworking and nonreconcilable inventory, facilitating
cash forecasting, and improving cash management saves another estimated $400,000
year. And the added visibility into spending information and leveraging that
to rationalize supply base reduces expenditures 3 to 5 percent.
DecisionPoint also uncovered problem data and inaccurate reports from Imation's
ERP system. As a result of this expanded visibility and increased accuracy,
Imation's users now feel more confident in their generated metrics and reports,
which are distributed globally across all divisions and departments. With new
levels of insight, DSO's were reduced by five days. Instead of waiting to figure
out how much money it is owed, Imation now collects on receivables much faster,
increasing cash on hand.
Imation also avoided many customizations to its ERP system, a crucial, money-saving
advantage when it upgraded to Oracle 11i. The company eliminated some custom
business processes required for Oracle reporting, and data granularity is two
orders of magnitude better than it was with Oracle. Tracking and capturing detail
for calculating royalties, rebates, and required information enabled lucrative
agreements with new partners, and faster access to customer information has
improved customer service.
DecisionPoint's Active Decision Support solution gave Imation increased visibility
into its operations at all levels, and the business processes are accordingly
much more efficient, intuitive, and proactive. The solution has been easily
scaled and customized to meet Imation's growing needs, and as the company expands,
DecisionPoint's solution expands with it. It is a remarkable success for both
sides, illuminating the benefits that can be had from supporting the ERP investment.
