How to Say Goodbye to Spreadsheets

Want to trade in your company's ancient spreadsheets for more nimble business intelligence applications? We talk to CIOs who've done it.

By John Edwards

Mon, September 24, 2007CIO Janis O'Bryan views traditional spreadsheet applications in the same light as floppy drives, dial-up modems and other dusty IT relics. "In many respects, it's simply time to move on," says the CIO for Hudson Advisors, a global commercial mortgage brokerage and real estate asset management firm headquartered in Dallas.

By shifting her company's IT and global corporate accounting departments to a business intelligence (BI) application, O'Bryan is like many other CIOs who have transitioned employees away from traditional spreadsheets and toward sophisticated tools produced by vendors such as Oracle, Applix, Business Objects, Cognos, SAS and iDashboards. CIOs who have made the switch frequently cite benefits such as faster and more detailed analysis, better planning capabilities, consistent views between users, automated data inputs from multiple sources and increased data source accuracy.

Of course, no organization wants to get rid of its spreadsheet application just because it's an old technology. Most adopters turn to BI for help with solving strategic business problems, like digging out the hidden meanings buried inside sales statistics or spotting production bottlenecks. But there are other advantages to BI tools, such as how they help users make sense of data.

"BI has a nice way of standardizing how people perform calculations," says David O'Connell, a senior analyst at Nucleus Research. "It allows you to get to work, not to work the data."

The Analysis Problem
For O'Bryan, the decision to jump from Microsoft Excel to Oracle's Hyperion Planning was motivated mostly by a desire to bring consistency to her unit's budgeting and planning operations. "There was no workflow and we were juggling disparate spreadsheet information," she says. That's a big problem when you have a staff that's highly mobile and distributed across several countries.

The software's spreadsheetlike, Web-based interface was another important factor leading to its adoption, O'Bryan says.

"The familiar Excel format meant we didn't have to waste time and resources on end-user training," she notes. "We have centralized budgeting and forecasting, and the fact that it's Web-based means that users in all of the regions can access it remotely in exactly the same way."

O'Bryan feels that Hyperion Planning provides a wider and deeper array of analysis tools than Excel, such as a module that automates the planning of capital assets and capital asset-related expenses. This capability allows the IT group to analyze spending down to much finer levels of detail than would be possible with a spreadsheet. "We can now, for instance, determine whether we need to consolidate hardware purchases by region," she says.


Loading...
Applications MarketSpace
Exchange 2007 Risks and Mitigation Strategies
This whitepaper will review the strengths of Exchange 2007 and areas where CIOs should consider third party solutions. Learn more »
Solving On-premise Email Challenges
This white paper presents ten on-premise challenges and their on-demand services solutions. Learn more »
An Open Framework for Business Intelligence
Architecting Business Intelligence Applications for Change Learn more »
Adobe for Business Process Automation
Companies must be able to react to customer demands, competitive threats, and compliance requirements. Learn more »
Increase Customer Satisfaction and Lower TCO
With Adobe® LiveCycle® Enterprise Suite (ES2) software, organizations can easily deploy intuitive user experiences. Learn more »
Practical Approaches for Securing Web Applications
Enterprises understand the importance of securing web applications to protect critical corporate and customer data. What many don't understand, is how to implement a robust process for integrating security and risk management throughout the web application software development lifecycle. Learn more »
An Executive's Guide to Web Application Security
Since so many Web sites contain vulnerabilities, hackers can leverage a relatively simple exploit to gain access to a wealth of sensitive information, such as credit card data, social security numbers and health records. It's more important than ever to examine your Web application security, assess your vulnerability and take action to protect your business. Learn more »
 
SPONSORED LINKS
 

CRM Built for IT: The Executive Guide to Selecting CRM that Meets IT Needs

ROI of Application Delivery Controllers

White Paper: 4 Customer Service Myths

White Paper: Improve Agility with Operational Responsiveness

Removing the Barriers to IT Governance: How On-Demand Software Changes the Game

Cloud Computing--Latest Buzzword or a Glimpse of the Future?

A Balanced Approach to an Application Development Platform

Adobe® LiveCycle®solutions for intuitive user experience

10 Ways Excel Drives More Value from Your SAP Investment

What's New in SOA Suite 11g?

Unleash the Power of Java with Oracle JRockit Real Time

SOA Best Practices and Design Patterns

Application Grid: Ideal Platform for IT Consolidation

Ready to virtualize tier one applications? Check your virtualization maturity.

Learn how to provide complete Business Service Management.

Increase ROI of Your Application Portfolio

Return on Information: Google Enterprise Search pays you back. Get the facts.

VMware. The source for Business Infrastructure Virtualization.

ShoreTel tells businesses to untangle from competitors' complexity and turn to its brilliantly simple UC solution

See how AT&T can help protect your network.

Streamline IT Costs. Boost Performance with WAN Optimization.

Build your 1st app FREE with Force.com

TDWI checklist helps define data readiness for analytics. Download report.

eZine: A Roadmap to Reducing IT Complexity

Reduce risk, gain agility. See how Progress can help your business.

What's Next for Enterprise Resource Planning?

Gartner Magic Quadrant, Application Delivery Controllers 2009

White Paper: Managed Security for a Not-So-Secure World

SharePoint - Unchecked growth of content is unsustainable.

Focus Under Pressure: Why IT Governance Becomes Mission-Critical in a Down Economy

Should Your Email Live In The Cloud? A Comparative Cost Analysis

Adobe® LiveCycle® solutions for business process automation

Architecting Business Intelligence Applications for Change: The Open Solution

Increase UPS efficiency without sacrificing protection.

Unlocking the Mainframe: Modernizing Legacy System to SOA

State of the Data Integration Market

Enhance Customer Loyalty through Higher Responsiveness

Achieving Business Agility with Application Grid

Seven Ways ITIL Can Help You in an Economic Downturn

Four steps to populate your CMDB.

"Enterprise-Proven" is the Prerequisite for Enterprise SaaS Portal Solutions

AT&T Synaptic Storage as a Service. Expand on demand

Trend Micro ranked #1 against real-world malware. Read more.

Webinar: Jump-start your in-house e-discovery with Ringtail QuickCull from FTI Technology

Top Five CIO Challenges

Read the RSA report: Security for Business Innovation

64-page prescriptive guide to security, compliance, and IT operations.

A Clear View Toward Virtualization

Virtualization Technology as a Business Solution

The rules of infrastructure management just changed.

 
 
RESOURCE CENTER