Continuity in BI Solutions – the User Perspective Revisited

Ever so often in BI development one must go a fair distance from A to B and has to draw up a roadmap for doing so. That plan should be agreed upon between Business and IT – between users and developers. And there are several pitfalls in the process.
Here I will discuss the case of continuity as experienced from a user perspective. In some cases it is evident that continuity must be preserved when moving from the old BI solution, A, to the new BI solution, B: continuity of the collected data, historical and new, - and continuity of presentation in that calculated KPI’s remain intact with effectively identical business definitions.
In other cases disenchantment with the existing, old solution may be such that it may be tempting to opt for a “revolutionary” new solution without regard for real cross-solution continuity. From an IT perspective this may seem the more attractive and easier way to go, and Business may be persuaded to go along. Or so it may seem. According to my experience, things are rarely as simple as that.
The problems are that initially Business may not fully comprehend and understand the scope of a new BI solution, and that the Business representatives at the defining stage may not really be representative of all Business users.
As an IT person one should ask the right questions and those questions are not always just the simple and direct questions. In this case it is important to know what triggered the need to go from A to B. Are we looking at a native and immediate desire for a new BI solution, or are we really handling a spinoff project from a change of ERP system, a merger or acquisition, or a high level policy change in the company? In any of the latter cases, even if Business superficially agrees to a whole new BI solution one should be quite wary of possible complications. After all, the existing solution has been and still is supporting business needs in the short term. Any excitement about a new solution may quickly disappear when faced with the challenges of implementing it. How deeply rooted is dissatisfaction with the current solution? It may actually prove quite shallow!The solution then, I propose to be, that IT should really probe the level of user dissatisfaction with the current solution before settling for taking off with both legs to leap into the future and construct an entirely new BI solution to replace the existing one. And unless completely satisfied that the old solution will be missed be no-one, the prudent thing to do is to dissect the old solution and to document any changes, especially where features may be discontinued. It may seem tedious at times, but it actually has a number of advantages for IT too. Any such documentation and understanding is useful as part of the specification of the new solution. It also helps to clearly define and emphasize what is actually new features in the solution to be. And eventually, any difference in data presentation between the old and the new solution is just a potential error as long as it remains unexplained, - once understood and explained it becomes an improvement and an extra feature! - Last, but not least, a thorough understanding of the old solution is an immense help when constructing and implementing the new. Contrary to the leap into the future described above, it is like a long walk where one foot always remain in contact with the ground. And after all, when literally going somewhere, I – as most people – do tend to arrive faster and in better shape after a steady walk than after a series of leaps and jumps. Agree? - Stay tuned here at morlin’s BI blog for more deliberations on both technical and organisational aspects of BI!

A Simple Business Proposition (Motor Insurance)

Less than a week ago Kim Rud-Petersen, Fair Forsikring’s [Insurance] executive of the Business division blogged [in Danish] on Borsen.dk: Kim Rud-Petersen’s subject was the extreme conservatism and very slow - even to the point of laziness - business development within the insurance industry at large. I used to work with DW/BI for an insurance company for several years, and I strongly agree with Kim Rud-Petersen. Let me give a simple example of what I mean; a case of how insurance companies might very usefully activate some of their more or less dormant data to the immediate mutual benefit of their private motoring customers - and themselves!
If I want to trade my car, papers and data are important. With a comprehensive service history and knowledge of accident repairs, trading the car is easier and the price is usually significantly higher, see e.g. www.bilpriser.dk. Of course, some information – e.g. about serious prior damages – will depress the price, but the trend is clear-cut and important: With less uncertainty, the risk premium is reduced and a better deal is possible for both an honest buyer and an honest seller. But when you’re a private trader there’s a snag. You have really no access to solid information about repaired damages, that is privileged information for the auto trade with their proprietary data bases and professional experience. [At least in Denmark; in Sweden a comprehensive and public database is maintained. In the US a less comprehensive privately organised database exists.]
Now enter the insurance industry: Suppose I wanted to sell my car and advertised it at e.g. www.bilbasen.dk. Wouldn’t it be nice to have the option of going to the website of my auto insurer and simply release for public showing the damage and repair history of my car? I could even link directly from my advertisement to my insurance company, and thus make my car more attractive with a more comprehensive description immediately available to prospective buyers. Perhaps I might even be willing to pay some small amount for the privilege of attracting viewers and generating traffic to my insurance company’s website!
But that is only one side of the coin. Try taking a look from the side of the insurance company. As it is now, the insurer hears nothing before the car is sold and the business of insuring it is discontinued. With the described feature, the insurance company gets early warning when a customer releases damage and repair history of his car for public viewing. The company is then able to proactively take steps towards protecting the business; ideally business may actually be increased – doubled - when the company is able to hold on to both the owner/seller (with a new car) and the traded car (with a new owner)!!
This was only an appetizer. Rest assured that serious money is involved overall, making it worthwhile for a progressive and competent insurance company to establish such a feature. It is not even particularly difficult to develop and calculate the idea as a business case. I once did it over 10 pages, but that is a story too long for a BI blog. I am personally convinced the idea will be realised; only question is when and by whom. It would have to be a company genuinely concerned with helping and empowering its private customers, even at the risk of annoying somewhat the auto trade by slightly infringing upon their perceived privileges. I hope some time to be able to tell that story. Stay tuned here at morlin’s BI blog for any possible developments.

Pitfalls of CRM – the Case of Honda (Cars)

This weekend I found myself at the thin – receiving – end of a CRM customer satisfaction programme for Honda Motor Co. Now, that was not exactly surprising since I acquired a new ‘Honda Civic 1.8 Sport I-Shift’ some two months ago. On such an occasion, however, as a BI consultant I cannot help taking a professional stance and consider whether the questionnaire adequately measures what [I think] it should be designed to measure.

First, let me sketch the situation. My wife’s car suddenly quit in mid-May, and then she wanted to take over my VW Golf Tiptronic 6-12 months before planned and anticipated. For that to be possible, I would need to find another car at short notice. Now, being led by events and acting reactively rather than proactively, I did not want to commit myself for a very long time to some new car, I could not be sure would be just right for me. We like to buy new, or virtually new, cars and keep them for 10+ years, plus I enjoy a youngtimer 1995 Mercedes E220 (W124C) cabrio for sunshine driving. As it happened, the problem solved itself as quickly as it had appeared. I really, really like the design of the current Honda Civic, and just at the time Honda Denmark advertised a batch of leftover 2008 Hondas available for two-year leasing [hire-purchase] at very reasonable cost, manual and I-Shift automatics even being offered at the same price. In an MC accident in 1994, I lost almost half my left leg and now cannot operate a normal [in Europe] clutch for a stick shift. To lease a Civic I-Shift was a solution which was at the same time cautious and affordable and experimental and fashionable, considering how I-Shift can [optionally] be operated by hand from the steering wheel, and how car leasing is being discussed in [Danish] media as both modern and – in the right circumstances – economical. Furthermore, it is so fortunate and practical that although Honda dealerships are quite sparse, one small Honda dealer is situated just a little over 1 km from where we live. All in all, I had to go elsewhere to locate and try out a Civic I-Shift, but having done that, the acquisition of the car was really a formality associated with only minimal contact with the actual local dealer.

Now for the subject matter: How did I experience Honda’s CRM questionnaire?
On one hand, the questionnaire was brief, just 4 pages not very densely printed. It could easily be completed within 5 minutes. Credits to Honda for that! Working professionally with CRM and statistics, I also tend to oblige and answer more questionnaires than an average citizen, I think. Still, it is far from rare for me to decline, or simply break off, not being polite at any cost. I do that whenever I feel some company is transgressing either what is their reasonable interest in the subject matter, or my patience. And by experience, what is more often the critical point is clearly my patience rather than my privacy!
On the other hand, questionnaire focus was obviously the dealership rather than the car. The local Honda dealer being small and anything but sophisticated, there were few points I could reasonably award it. Now I feel just a little bad and sad about the whole thing. Perhaps my situation is a little special, but the questionnaire did nothing to disclose that. I required little, expected little, and got little from the dealer in connection with the deal.
But what I needed, I got, including a local point-of-service in the time to come. And location and distance was not even the subject of a CRM question, I had to make a separate note of it! – I just hope, Honda’s questionnaire is not “designed with a purpose” to provide a rationale for consolidating dealerships into a select few distant “temples of motoring” the way certain other makes have already done.

And the Civic is great, by the way. It is no Super car, of course, but a superb value for money proposition with a highly distinctive design plus some interesting features. I just hope, probably in vain, that when another Civic is released in a couple of years, it will not be a totally different design but retain a certain familiarity with its predecessor, as is usual by European car manufacturers.

Applied Microsoft Analysis Services 2005, by Teo Lachev

There are BI books - and then there are BI Books. In this posting I will name one from the latter category: ‘Applied Microsoft Analysis Services 2005, and the Microsoft Business Intelligence Platform’, by Teo Lachev. It is no easy read, and it is hardly possible to read cover to cover, - but it is the type of book which provides background and understanding rather than “only” quick fixes to immediate problems. It is the type of book one can always delve into and find a section to broaden ones understanding of some topic. Let me give just two examples:
(1) I used to wonder, now and then, whether plain dimensions or parent-child dimensions should be preferred when both was an option. I could not really get it right, since different cases flipped the coin to either side and neither choice was always quite satisfactory. Given the desire for conformity and parsimony in model formulation, it did not occur to me that both might be required for an optimal solution. Then I chanced upon part of a sentence in TL’s book (p.77) explaining that a [single] Parent-Child dimension may not be enough for every need. If that is fine with TL then it is fine with me! Now I no longer worry about that question. If I can satisfy myself that different needs are best served with different – but not duplicate – views of the same dimension, then I do not hesitate long to produce them.
(2) As a newcomer to MDX, I stumbled upon a problem where results consistently appeared to be twice what I knew them to be. Somehow I solved the problem without really understanding what had happened. My various MDX sources at the time did not seem to provide an explanation. Only later did I read TL (p.309) detailing a case where [Reseller].[Reseller].Members is twice that of [Reseller].[Reseller].[Reseller].Members, because the former includes the [All] member for a doubling of the actual value! - Quite simple really, once you think of it, but nowhere else have I found such an explanation of the most likely reason for spurious double-counting in MDX.
I’m sorry for a few days delay with this posting. Stay tuned here at morlin’s BI blog for the August mid-month posting!

What’s in a Word – the Catch ?!

If you try to google the phrase “Putting the I back in IT” you’ll get quite a few hits. In Denmark it has been employed extensively by major BI consultancy firm Platon A/S, and in 2005 they applied to have it as a trademark. Today, however, I do not see it on Platon’s homepage.
How can that be? Well, the I means, of course, Info[rmation], and that definitely should be part of IT. If it went missing, it would certainly need to be put back! But is that really where we want mission critical information to be? No, it is not! And should it be the goal for IT and BI to put it there? In all likelihood not!
Mission critical information derives from Business and should be collected and kept by IT, but that is not all. It should also be managed, made available and returned to Business as it is needed again later.
Can that mission for IT and BI be summed up as succinctly in a catchy phrase? I think it can! Try:
“IT - Serving the I back to Business to a T”!
(The phrase is absolutely open source, un-patented and un-trademarked. See also www.designedtoaT.com/.)
Stay tuned here at morlin’s BI blog for a longer and more technical posting tomorrow!

MDX ParallelPeriod vs NON_EMPTY_BEHAVIOR

This one is a quick one:
In MS SQL Server Analysis Services the MDX function ParallelPeriod and the NON_EMPTY_BEHAVIOR setting are both important and useful. But together they can be just too much of a good thing and cause confusion. Here's a bit of intelligence I have obtained the hard way and haven't seen documented elsewhere.
Suppose for a simplistic example that this year you sell 1 unit to A Co. and 1 unit to B Co. And last year you sold 1 unit to A Co. and 1 unit to C Co.
Now you may usefully define an MDX variable called SalesLY based on the ParallelPeriod function and your regular Sales variable. All very well, you can now compare Sales (this year) with SalesLY (last year).
Then if you know your Analysis Services well - but not quite well enough - you may observe that SalesLY derives from Sales and set the NON_EMPTY_BEHAVIOR of SalesLY to Sales.
And then what happen?
Sales.[All] and SalesLY.[All] both correctly remain at 2. SSAS will not make any calculation error, but the presentation is not likely to be what you want:
A Co. Sales=1, SalesLY=1
B Co. Sales=1, SalesLY=
All : Sales=2, SalesLY=2
The SalesLY column no longer add up! What happened to last year's sale to C Co.? It's quite simple really: Since (this year's) Sales is empty (non-existent) for C Co. and the behavior of SalesLY is now explicitly linked to that, there is now no way last year's sales to C Co. will show up in a listing of SalesLY, except - fortunately - in the [All] aggregation.
So, beware of concurrent use in SSAS of the ParallelPeriod MDX function and the NON_EMPTY_BEHAVIOR setting!

This was a very technical posting to contrast the previous philosophical postings. It was also a quick way to get started again after spending the first half of July in the Scottish Highlands and, notably, Orkney! - A wonderful place for a vacation when it almost only rains during the nights (luckily!) and you dislike crowded areas and take a real interest in history and pre-history.

Ancient Greece and modern DW, BI, and PM. - Is there a connection? (2/2)

The posting one month ago discussed the characteristics of DW, BI, and PM, and it mentioned a possible connection to the three top-level components of Aristotle’s modes of persuasion: Logos, Pathos, and Ethos. Time to follow up with the sequel to that!
Here are the main characteristics of each mode of persuasion, listed in direction of increasing impact:

• Logos - is logical appeal. Normally used to describe facts and figures that support the speaker's topic. Since data is difficult to manipulate, logos may sway cynical listeners. Having a logos appeal also enhances ethos (below) because information makes the speaker look knowledgeable and prepared to his or her audience. However, data can be confusing and thus confuse the audience. Logos can also be misleading or inaccurate,
• Pathos - is an appeal to the audience’s emotions. It can be in the form of metaphor, simile, a passionate delivery, or even a simple claim that a matter is unjust. Pathos can be particularly powerful if used well, but most speeches do not rely solely on pathos,
• Ethos - is an appeal to the authority or honesty of the speaker. He, or she, may be a notable figure in the field in question, have a special relation to it, be demonstrably and impressively knowledgeable, or be able to plead moral and ethical integrity and superiority.

Clearly, establishing an Enterprise DW is a basic appeal to business logic. But just as traditional logos is weak on persuasion, an EDW is by itself weak on execution on the revealed business logic, - the problem typically being that much logic is only implied, and emphasis and prioritization may be lacking between subject areas with different importance and urgency.
Similarly, a BI initiative is about directing attention towards a particular subject area and making the members of an organization collectively feel the importance and urgency of that relative to other issues.
Finally, formalized Performance Management is about determining and defining what is good and bad within an organization and a business, and about projecting these definitions onto actual events through KPI’s, scorecards and dashboards. Clearly, for that to work out presupposes a high degree of universal recognition and accept of those controlling a PM initiative, that is: PM by definition relies on ethos for persuasion.

If we accept the parallel between logos-pathos-ethos and DW-BI-PM, what does that tell us about modern business intelligence. To me the central issue is the question of balance. Ethos may be the strongest mode of persuasion, but too much ethos in a speech just produces pharisaism and self-righteousness. Pathos may also have a very strong impact, but excess pathos is the hallmark of political demagogues and business charlatans. Logos may formally be completely correct and superficially sufficient, but too strong a reliance on logos is self-defeating and may expose an inclination towards self-victimization and hindsight. A good speech should rely on all three modes of persuasion and keep a balance between them!

Today, a balance is also needed between DW, BI and PM - and modern businesses should accept that they need to develop a mixed presence of all three. A preference and a focus on just one approach is likely to be insufficient. An EDW ensures preparedness for unforeseen developments, which will certainly occur. But by itself an EDW may produce only that preparedness and very little action. BI initiatives may represent proactive actions vital to developing the business. But such initiatives need a solid foundation on data, or they may be just self-delusion. PM is essentially a reactive approach, which is necessary to control most businesses, but if applied pervasively and in too much detail, it will turn into a straightjacket that strangles innovation and forward-looking initiatives.
In conclusion then, proper management should seek to promote a balanced presence of both DW, BI and PM in the business – not to favor and choose one approach over the other two!

That’s all for now. July’s mid-month posting is likely to be just as deeply technical as this posting has been purely philosophical. Unless actual events intervene, that is, as they ever so often may do... Stay tuned here at morlin's BI blog!