Rebooting Operational intelligence - Sabisu · 2015-09-07 · Rebooting!Operational!Intelligence!...

Rebooting Operational Intelligence

6 common operational intelligence challenges and how to overcome them

White Paper By

Tim Sharpe CEO & co-‐founder

[email protected]

@timjsharpe

© 2012 Sabisu Ltd of 37

Rebooting Operational Intelligence White Paper

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Contents 1. INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................... 4 2. CHALLENGES ............................................................................................................... 5 2.1. COMPLEX BUSINESS PROCESSES .......................................................................................................................... 5 2.2. VENDOR PROTECTIONISM & THE PLATFORM APPROACH ................................................................................ 8 2.3. COMPLEX IT LANDSCAPES .................................................................................................................................... 9 2.4. MESSAGING <> COLLABORATION ...................................................................................................................... 10 2.5. GENUINE SELF-‐SERVICE IS RARELY DELIVERED ............................................................................................... 11 2.6. BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE SITS IN CHAIRS, NOT SPREADSHEETS .................................................................... 12

3. TOTAL INTEGRATION ................................................................................................ 13 3.1. SEAMLESS REAL-‐TIME CONNECTIVITY .............................................................................................................. 13 3.2. INTEGRATED USER EXPERIENCE ........................................................................................................................ 15 3.3. PERSONALISATION ................................................................................................................................................ 17 3.4. TOTAL INTEGRATION OIC REQUIREMENTS ..................................................................................................... 18

4. ENTERPRISE DATA CURATION ................................................................................... 19 4.1. SELF-‐SERVICE ........................................................................................................................................................ 19 4.2. USING EXPERTISE TO CURATE DATA ................................................................................................................. 20 4.3. USER COMMUNITY FOCUS ................................................................................................................................... 21 4.4. COMPLEX BUSINESS PROCESSES ........................................................................................................................ 22 4.5. CONTENT DISTRIBUTION ..................................................................................................................................... 23

5. TRUE COLLABORATION THROUGH SHARED EXPERIENCE ........................................... 24 5.1. TRUE COLLABORATION NEEDS A SHARED EXPERIENCE ................................................................................ 24 5.2. MULTIPLE COLLABORATION OPTIONS .............................................................................................................. 25 5.3. USER & COMMUNITY AUTONOMY ...................................................................................................................... 26

6. SOCIAL WORKPLACE ................................................................................................. 27 6.1. ENTERPRISE 2.0 ................................................................................................................................................... 27 6.2. A COMMON PURPOSE ........................................................................................................................................... 27 6.3. A SOCIAL PERSPECTIVE ....................................................................................................................................... 28

7. CLOUD: DESIGNED FOR YOU ..................................................................................... 29 7.1. WHAT IS THE ‘CLOUD’? ........................................................................................................................................ 29 7.2. WHY USE THE CLOUD? ......................................................................................................................................... 30 7.3. EXTERNAL COLLABORATION ............................................................................................................................... 31 7.4. TOTAL COST OF OWNERSHIP .............................................................................................................................. 31 7.5. ON-‐GOING SUPPORT ............................................................................................................................................. 31 7.6. KEY DESIGN CRITERIA ......................................................................................................................................... 32

8. EXTEND YOUR ENTERPRISE ....................................................................................... 33 8.1. BUSINESS WITHOUT BOUNDARIES .................................................................................................................... 33 8.2. EXCEPTIONAL SERVICE DELIVERY ..................................................................................................................... 34 8.3. SAY ‘GOODBYE’ TO VPN ...................................................................................................................................... 34 8.4. VALUE/SUPPLY CHAIN BENEFITS ...................................................................................................................... 35

9. SABISU ...................................................................................................................... 36 9.1. FUNCTIONAL FIT ................................................................................................................................................... 36 9.2. TYPICAL INDUSTRY SECTORS .............................................................................................................................. 36 9.3. CASE STUDIES ........................................................................................................................................................ 37



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Figures Figure 1. A Typical Business Process ......................................................................................... 5 Figure 2. Typical Systems Supporting A Business Process ............................................... 6 Figure 3. Daisy-‐chaining of Delays .............................................................................................. 7 Figure 4. Multiple Versions of the Truth ................................................................................... 9 Figure 5. Same Issue, Different Tools ...................................................................................... 10 Figure 6. Data Availability by Frequency of Use ................................................................. 11 Figure 7. Required OIC Integration Capability .................................................................... 13 Figure 8. An Integrated User Experience ............................................................................... 16 Figure 9. Finding Abstracted Data In A Menu ...................................................................... 19 Figure 10. Sharing Made Simple ................................................................................................ 22 Figure 11. Two Personalised Views of a Situation ............................................................ 24 Figure 12. In Platform Chat, Showing Community Focus ............................................... 25 Figure 13. A Social, Event Driven View ................................................................................... 28 Figure 14. The Ideal Architecture ............................................................................................. 30 Figure 15. The Bullwhip Effect ................................................................................................... 35



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1. Introduction Operational intelligence is often understood as an extension of business intelligence techniques to incorporate real-‐time analysis, with typical solutions including alerting or some degree of incident management. Until now, such solutions have had natural boundaries dictated by vendors or business processes, typically leading to a mix of operational, business and end-‐user developed intelligence solutions. The scope of existing solutions is further narrowed as the IT landscape becomes more complex, perhaps due to merger and acquisition activity, security concerns, regulation or evolving business processes. This white paper starts by looking at some common challenges that Operational Intelligence Centre (OIC) implementations should be able to address but typically don’t. This white paper then looks at six key new technology capabilities that are radically changing the reach and impact of operational intelligence solutions that incorporate them:

• Total Integration o Until now it’s been difficult to access proprietary format or legacy data

sources; new connectivity capabilities can present a consumer standard integrated user experience.

• Enterprise Data Curation o With real-time, hierarchical or non-indexed data, enterprise search breaks

down – this is where user expertise is needed; users provide the ultimate filter for their communities by developing new insights and sharing them.

• Shared Experience o Collaboration is more than messages about Wikis; a truly collaborative

environment promotes team working – and eliminates lots of email. • Social Workplace

o A social capability can enhance operational effectiveness and agility – but those that align users around a common purpose can see an exponential return.

• Cloud o How intelligent use of cloud computing can deliver a value add architecture

that holds the key to inter-organisation collaboration, rather than just an outsourced infrastructure risk.

• The Extended Enterprise o Operational intelligence within an organisation has proven benefit –

extending it mto partners, suppliers and customers can benefit your whole value/supply chain.



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2. Challenges Some common challenges facing businesses that Operational Intelligence Centre (OIC) implementations should be able to address but typically don’t.

2.1. Complex Business Processes

Whilst every organisation has it’s own complexities, within the process industries the business processes can be unusually complicated given the nature of production, focus on health and safety and importance of regulatory compliance. A typical business process is captured in Fig.1, which shows at a high level the exchanges of information that occur when transferring a petrochemical product to a ship. Even this simple process shows how various communities of users both inside and outside the enterprise are involved; production planning, operations, mass balance, logistics, regulators and so on.

Figure 1. A Typical Business Process

Of course, third party organisations, represented in Fig.1 on the left within clouds, have no direct link to the source data. They rely on emailed copies of the data and any discussion is done via personal emails.



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As with any reasonably complex system, feedback loops, delayed response and out of date information are a fact of life. The systems architecture that supports this process is equally complex as can be seen by simply superimposing the data source for each key interaction onto the diagram; an example is shown in Fig.2.

Figure 2. Typical Systems Supporting A Business Process

It’s clear that users have to be familiar with many different systems in order to get the data they need. Once the user has the required data there is a significant amount of manipulation needed in order to make the data relevant, as is seen with the large quantity of MS Excel spreadsheet and MS Access database work. Once the data has been manipulated, the user has only email as a method of transfer – effectively a non-‐contemporaneous ‘snapshot’ has been taken. The data is already out of date. This process produces a large amount of end-‐user computing and duplication of data. It’s very difficult to find the accurate, current data unless the user who created it can direct others users to it.



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Each interaction – and therefore the business -‐ is slowed by a process of snapshot, process, email, await response and finally respond. The cycle runs something like this:

• Snapshot – extract the data required from the source system • Manipulate – import into spreadsheet/database, transform content as required • Email – attach spreadsheet/database to email • Wait • Process Response – discuss, re-snapshot, re-manipulate or otherwise act.

When the impact of this is considered across multiple actors within a business process as shown in Fig.3 below it’s easy to see the where delays are incurred.

Figure 3. Daisy chaining of Delays

Whilst a CIO will often rightly point to their ERP or MRP system as the tool of choice for all business processes, such systems usually do not cover ad hoc processes, or those perceived as low financial risk or financially irrelevant, e.g., providing data to regulators, shift management, production monitoring. An OIC that doesn’t address the way in which users exchange data should be regarded as basic; it’s simply BI over real-‐time data. Users remain stuck with email as their tool of choice – particularly if the users in question work for different organisations. Clearly, an OIC not addressing these problems is an OIC ignoring significant obstacles to increased operational efficiency.



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2.2. Vendor Protectionism & the Platform Approach

“A platform enables. It helps others build value... Platforms help users create products, businesses, communities and networks of their own.”

Jeff Jarvis, What Would Google Do? Many, if not all IT solutions are extensible provided sufficient funding is available – indeed, it’s a vendor strategy to provide the basics at a low cost then develop the revenue stream through services and add-‐ons. This can make an initially suitable solution unaffordable in the long term. A truly sustainable platform does not incur significant additional costs apart from perhaps those related to significant increases in usage, e.g., storage. The platform approach is easy extensibility – so easy in fact, that end-‐users can extend it themselves. This approach would promote open connectivity standards, APIs and flexibility. Unfortunately, history shows that this is counter-‐intuitive for most enterprise software vendors who insist on using proprietary formats. This limits the scope and ease of implementation of an operational intelligence system. Hence it’s common to find multiple operational intelligence systems in place as vendors seek to protect revenue stream; each system tends to require its own analysis platform, so most organisations have multiple analysis solutions depending on the nature of their operations, user communities and history. Vendor lock-‐in is expensive, risky and obstructs agility. Vendor agnostic solutions do exist but they are expensive and difficult to implement, usually involving the design and development of data dictionaries or translation tools. Ultimately, as implementation and ongoing maintenance are key revenue streams it’s in the vendor’s interests for these solutions to be difficult and costly implement.



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2.3. Complex IT Landscapes

Therefore any new system has to deal with a multiplicity of operational, business and end-‐user developed intelligence solutions, e.g.:

• Operational teams using vendor-specific analysis software due to difficulties integrating real-time data and/or proprietary systems into a common tool.

• Financial teams demanding reporting flexibility, availability of significant quantities of historical data and security, hence using expensive data warehouses.

• Many users across departments finding existing tools too complex or cumbersome and relying instead on end-user developed solutions (e.g., built in MS Excel or Access).

Merger and acquisition activity further complicates matters, leaving organisations with a complex IT landscape necessitating specific software tools or complex batch processes. In an effort to move data to a place where it’s accessible to a user community or persisted in a useable way, it falls to the IT department to interface systems, effectively duplicating data, e.g., DCS data may be batch copied to a data historian to make it available to a team without DCS access. Multiple data transfers between multiple systems inevitably lead to a complex environment, as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4. Multiple Versions of the Truth

Visibility is the aim, yet in every case users are prevented from easily seeing the full picture; the objective is to make data easily available. The aim should be to make the OIC deceptively simple. If data can be made easily available to anyone, the load on the IT department can be significantly reduced.



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2.4. Messaging <> Collaboration

New messaging systems arrive all the time; from postal mail through the telegraph, telephone, email, SMS and to today’s cross-‐platform instant messaging solutions such as Apple’s iMessage. These solutions allow a degree of collaboration but none meet the needs of an OIC – as described in the Complex Business Processes section above they’re slow and reactive. Collaboration needs to be more than just a message with a signpost to some relevant data – situations are seen to develop through changing data, so when the data changes all collaborators need to experience this in real-‐time. To disconnect the collaborators by providing a signpost from the messaging feature back to the developing data is unacceptable. Screen sharing doesn’t work either as it means all the collaborators ceding authority to one other. The shared screen might work for the sharer but it might not give the other collaborators the tools to contribute, e.g., even though they’re dealing with the same incident, a Shift Manager may want current production data on his screen whereas the Site Director wants to see historical production data, plus logistics and environmental data. As shown in Figure 4, it’s crucial that each user has the user experience and tools they require in order to deal with each situation.

Figure 5. Same Issue, Different Tools

Most existing solutions are designed to have all users experience the same data in the same way, ignoring the fact that users are individuals with differing needs, tools and expertise.



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2.5. Genuine self-‐service is rarely delivered

With complex business processes, a wide variety of often proprietary data sources, heavy use of IT expertise in integrating systems and the complexity that arises from these factors, organisations suffer from a lack of agility. It’s hard to respond to incipient situations when you have to wait on an IT release schedule. Some organisations provide pre-‐configured reports or reporting cubes built to a schedule. This works to a degree, but costs spiral as new requirements are added and often real-‐time data is not accommodated. Hence it’s a slow-‐moving BI solution rather than an OIC solution. The likelihood of tackling non-‐relational data or proprietary format manufacturing data is slight. The end-‐user experience can be sub-‐optimal even if the data warehouse is reliable. Reports generated by different users don't tie up because different fields from different systems are confused -‐ and implementing a data dictionary is often not viable, even if you can get cross-‐department agreement on a single version of the 'truth'. End users have to become proficient in what is, in effect, a development environment for building reports. Hence, most users don’t go beyond the published reports as shown in Fig.6, meaning they don’t have the opportunity to use their expertise to add value.

Figure 6. Data Availability by Frequency of Use

As shown in Fig.6, there are potentially an infinite number of queries that can be performed, any of which might add significant value to the business.



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2.6. Business Intelligence sits in chairs, not spreadsheets

Many organisations are asking how web 2.0 techniques of personalization and community working can be leveraged promote efficiency and innovation. As yet, this ‘social’ capability is not present in OIC solutions. Often social capability is added to the enterprise in a separate application so as to minimize risk, say by introducing Yammer, or Wiki-‐style databases. Though there are risks around long-‐term adoption, given a suitable culture this can work, producing a repository of ideas or other intellectual property. However, such social software lacks that which is most crucial to an OIC solution; data. Social capability really comes into it’s own when allowing user communities to focus on a developing situation, or working together towards better operational effectiveness. These scenarios require direct access to real-‐time data – anything else is simply a messaging system. Once a social capability has access to this data, user communities can be brought into problem resolution as required, or can rapidly define and propagate best practices. The inherently viral nature of a social network ensures rapid propagation to those who are needed or wish to be informed. This ensures that users with considerable expertise can bring it to bear on the problems of the day, or can use it to nominate unusual trends for discussion; their business intelligence can be actioned. Social capability then becomes of real value. A social network without a purpose is a talking shop. A social network with a purpose is a place to get work done.



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3. Total Integration Until now it’s been difficult to access proprietary format or legacy data sources; new connectivity capabilities can present a consumer standard integrated user experience.

3.1. Seamless Real-‐time Connectivity

The OIC needs connectivity to the systems that power your business. As a minimum this needs to cover ERP, MES, data historians, document management and database platforms. This connectivity allows the OIC to be a single point of reference for all and eliminates the system complexity shown previously in Fig.4. Vendor protectionism has no place here. Indeed, vendors of older systems may find that the upgrades or replacements can be delayed; as long as data integrity is preserved, the application itself isn’t so important if the OIC is acting as the user interface. Significant savings can be made as a result.

Figure 7. Required OIC Integration Capability

Existing MIS and BI provisions may well be in place; the role of the operational intelligence system is to exploit these often considerable investments through intelligent integration. The ideal OIC shouldn’t need significant additional IT architecture and shouldn’t require significant additional maintenance.



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The OIC requires real-‐time connectivity; it must aggregate and deliver information on-‐demand immediately from enterprise systems, updating users as to the current situation. OICs that do not provide this functionality are really BI systems. The platform should use open standards throughout, providing easy API access in order to extend platform functionality or to leverage it to access other platforms and data sources. This then allows integration of almost any data source, including office applications such as email and calendar or web-‐based sources, allowing links to be developed between these data sources so as to provide a truly holistic view and integrated experience.



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3.2. Integrated User Experience

Every enterprise has the same problems; complex business processes, a wide variety of often proprietary data sources, heavy use of IT expertise in integrating systems so that end users have the data where they want it. These problems result in duplication of data and a dependency on IT that destroys agility. How can you respond to incipient situations when you have to wait on an IT release schedule? The answer is to shift capability out to end-‐users -‐ to empower end-‐users with a genuine self-‐service solution. By bringing data from disparate systems together into a single application with a simple, useable interface, self-‐service can be a reality – and significant IT cost savings can be made as users need less support. Fortunately, data has never been so accessible. New techniques and standards arrive daily which promise to make this a continuing trend, starting with XML in the late ‘90s, through Web Services to JSON and beyond; the trend is towards openness at all levels. However, this has to be presented to users who are expert in their business processes, but possibly inexpert with IT; if it’s not easy to use, the enterprise can’t leverage the expertise in the wider user base. Fortunately modern browsers such as Google Chrome and Internet Explorer 9 make it possible to build a simple user interface that abstracts the end-‐user from the complexity of accessing the data. The focus should be on providing a configurable user interface, which allows the user to decide what makes it onto their screen and how data should be compared and contrasted -‐ effectively this is client-‐side application integration. The user experience should be beyond that of a dashboard; more a next generation portal; a gateway for everyone to get to the content or solution they need without concern for it’s location. Examples can be seen in Fig.8 below; beyond the traditional dashboard the user could have content of all kinds, including in this case geographic data.



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Figure 8. An Integrated User Experience



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3.3. Personalisation

As the aim is to deliver a holistic view of the business the OIC needs a way to represent data from multiple sources on the same dashboard. The OIC should permit users to compile dashboards showing data from any source – each element on the dashboard is effectively a window onto a third party data source in itself. This can be seen in Fig.7 above. The exact arrangement of these elements is best left to the end-‐user; it is the end-‐user who is the business process expert and is therefore best positioned to construct the required dashboard. As shown in Fig.5, this allows each end-‐user to define their own view of the business and be in the best position to react as appropriate. The functionality of these dashboard elements should not stop there. In order to truly integrate with third party applications the interface should be bi-‐directional, writing to as well as reading from all data sources. This allows a consistent user experience to be guaranteed even if the target application has a proprietary UI or database format. It also allows users to deal with incipient situations without switching environments. Effectively, this allows application functionality to be delivered to all users in a consistent fashion. This is true integration.



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3.4. Total Integration OIC Requirements

In summary OIC systems should be offering as standard:

• End user driven platforms requiring no IT involvement • Genuine end-‐user driven data access built around modern user

experience principles • Real-‐time, or as near as makes no difference • Simultaneous direct access to source data for all, so as to provide a

platform for collaboration • Some way to action the intelligence; to curate it for a community, make it

actionable, or start collaborating with others. • Controllable expense -‐ there's no way the enterprise should be penalised

with increased expense or complexity for a user wanting to extract or share data



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4. Enterprise Data Curation With real-‐time, hierarchical or non-‐indexed data, enterprise search breaks down – this is where user expertise is needed; users provide the ultimate filter for their communities by developing new insights and sharing them.

4.1. Self-‐service

As shown in Fig.6, there are potentially an infinite number of questions end-‐users can ask of enterprise systems and any one of them may unlock hidden value, or provide a solution to a problem. The role of the OIC is to empower users to ask those questions – to provide a genuine self-‐service environment. Such an environment reduces reliance on IT resource and release schedules making the business more responsive. While a menu of prepared reports works for an offline, non-‐real-‐time BI solution, an OIC solution needs self-‐service capability to permit rapid, ad-‐hoc analysis of different data types side by side.

Figure 9. Finding Abstracted Data In A Menu



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4.2. Using Expertise to Curate Data

An end-‐user generated ad hoc view of the business will include data from different sources; documents, ERP data, manufacturing data and so on. All of this data is obtained and stored by systems with their own priorities; system and process integrity in the case of ERP data, data integrity and efficiency in the case of manufacturing data. Yet the value of all this data is when it is linked together into a coherent story – when it is placed in the context of what’s happening operationally. This is where users are significantly more efficient than machines; end-‐users have expertise and knowledge. So the end-‐user’s holistic view of a business allows users to develop new insights algorithmic search engines would miss; an expert user is ideally positioned to identify correlations between trends that might not otherwise be discovered. These identified causal relationships are what drive effective decisions -‐ decisions that may require considering ERP data alongside manufacturing data alongside operational documentation. The OIC needs to ensure that these decisions can then be auctioned and the first action should always be team focused; the insight should be shared with those who care – a wider community of interested users. So a genuine, next generation OIC solution will allow expert users to filter and organize operational data so as to make it useful; to catalogue, annotate and make it available for collaboration. This is Enterprise Data Curation. As this is an OIC, this process has to happen quickly, in a single, unified user interface. The process of finding the required data, observing a trend, noting and sharing it with the wider team must be fluid.



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4.3. User Community Focus

User communities come in all shapes and sizes, both internal and external to the enterprise. The enterprise is full of communities, some of which mirror the organisation structure and some, which don’t. Communities are reliable, robust and inclusive; they lead to better decisions and by their very nature engage users and ensure that the relevant data gets to interested parties. OIC needs to be intuitive so that communities can organically grow as needed; no training should be required as it’s impossible to be certain that everyone who’s needed to contribute to an operational situation can be trained ahead of the time they need to do so. Filtering and making data directly available to a community kills any reliance on email, or any other form of serial information delivery. It also opens the door for streamlining complex business process and breaking the behaviours that introduce delay.



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4.4. Complex Business Processes

As can be seen in Figs.1 & 2, a key element in many business processes is the sharing of data. The direct access to data is dealt with in the Total Integration section above; the OIC has a significant role to play in increasing operational efficiency by simplifying the sharing of data. Where users might be sharing operational data relating to a developing issue in the manufacturing process, they might just as easily share data to ensure a business process can be executed in a timely fashion. There’s no need to extract, manipulate, attach and email data if it can simply be shared in a single action. In fact, there’s no need for email at all; the cycle shown in Fig.2 can be remade as shown below in Fig.10:

Figure 10. Sharing Made Simple

Thus the OIC provides a step change in business process efficiency. It is therefore essential that the OIC have an architecture that supports seamless integration of third parties into business processes. Not only is direct third party involvement a clear advantage when dealing with a developing issue; day-‐to-‐day processes will benefit also.



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4.5. Content Distribution

With the user/community relationship established, the OIC is uniquely positioned to ensure that users are provided with relevant content. This content is important to the business in terms of ensuring operational efficiency and consistency, but is also important to the OIC as users will require it as a key data source for understanding trends or developing new insights. The OIC has a role in terms of propagating best practice; as the platform bringing communities of users together around business processes and issues, it is the ideal place for determining, making available and ensuring compliance with revisions to best practices. As the amount of data available to users in the enterprise increases, they face the same challenges as internet users; enterprise search begins to become less valuable. Where internet search engines have other challenges, enterprise search engine challenges are mainly around the impact versioning and duplication have on results. Again, this is where user curation becomes valuable. By highlighting the most valuable version of content, or collaborating to produce new versions, users identify the most relevant content. Allowing users to then share the data with their communities then ensures that valid content is made available. In this way, the OIC can add value to existing document or content management systems, such as SharePoint or Open Text Livelink. The OIC must have at least rudimentary link to permit the sharing and hence propagation across the social network of content from these sources.



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5. True Collaboration Through Shared Experience Collaboration is more than messages about Wikis; a truly collaborative environment promotes team working – and eliminates lots of email.

5.1. True Collaboration Needs A Shared Experience

As discussed above in the Messaging<>Collaboration section, all users of the OIC must see the same developing situation in real-‐time. This isn’t simply a one size fits all dashboard; this is an individual, yet shared, experience of the situation. The community of collaborators have communal control and responsibility for resolution. Thus all collaborators need access to the data that describes the situation or business process. However, just because the problem is shared doesn’t mean personalized environment each user has created should be compromised. The OIC has to ensure that each individual has to access to this data on their own terms, i.e., alongside other data, documents and tools they need to contextualize the situation or move the process forward.

Figure 11. Two Personalised Views of a Situation

The role of the OIC is therefore one of facilitating the shared experience; creating an environment where data is easily accessible – even if some collaborators are outside the corporate network.



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5.2. Multiple Collaboration Options

The shared experience described above allows messaging features to become collaboration options and it’s important the OIC offers a selection. Users find instant messaging or ‘chat’ applications increasingly acceptable and in the context of a shared experience, a useful collaboration tool. It has the advantages of being immediate whilst having just the right level of intrusion; like a ringing telephone, it’s possible to ignore an inbound chat message but most likely the recipient’ll pick it up. Given the importance of curating content for communities as detailed above, any messaging mechanism should respect the user community concept in order to exploit collaboration capabilities to the full. If a user can bring an entire community into a real-‐time, shared, collaborative environment then there can be no quicker way of exposing insights, resolving incipient situations, or expediting business processes.

Figure 12. In Platform Chat, Showing Community Focus

Perhaps more intrusive but likely to gain in acceptability is video chat; face to face discussion via a webcam. High-‐resolution web conferencing capability is not the aim here – more a rapidly accessed collaboration facility. Often preferable to text only messaging as interpersonal and environmental considerations can be made, it’s a welcome development provided the collaborative environment of the OIC is not compromised; if the user has to drop out of the situation or process to get the video chat software initialized, then its non-‐optimal. Obviously the above solutions depend on the collaborating team being online and this is not always the case. Therefore the OIC has to include options for offline communications, which should still be data-‐centric in their use. Indeed, some sort of notification process is essential so that users can be brought up to speed.



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5.3. User & Community Autonomy

Giving each user a personal perspective on a shared experience means substantial complexity; each user needs a personalized environment. Some degree of assistance in determining this environment is right and proper. As communities of users cluster around common interests, it seems logical that the OIC provides the facility for communities to determine a default dashboard that can then be developed by individual users if required. These community pages will themselves evolve over time as data sources evolve, merge or are superseded. As the OIC is an enterprise platform, care should be taken around administration of communities, their proliferation and their protection. In particular, the following considerations should be made:

• Administration has to be an end-user responsibility; awaiting IT involvement every time a user needs to be added to a community will lead to delays.

• End-users should be able to create communities as situations require, yet with some oversight from a corporate administrator.

• Communities must have some sort of privacy structure to ensure they stay relevant, corporate intellectual property is protected and confidentiality respected.



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6. Social Workplace Social capability can enhance operational effectiveness and agility – but those that align users around a common purpose can see an exponential return.

6.1. Enterprise 2.0

The OIC as discussed so far has many Enterprise 2.0, or enterprise social software, properties:

• As discussed in all the previous sections, personalization is crucial to the success of an OIC solution; the end-user’s autonomy must be respected. This is also a crucial tenet of Enterprise 2.0, or enterprise social software.

• The platform as described also has significant communication features which support its unique, genuine collaboration capability.

• The platform has an appreciation of which users are linked thanks to the community model, which also gives it a method for growth within the enterprise.

• The ease with which users can share data and content makes user links and communities useful and therefore likely to be used, so all the ingredients for a successful enterprise social network are in place.

• The ease with which new users can be added to communities allows for viral growth, whilst the implementation of a corporate administrator allows this growth to be managed.

However, it also has the potential to be much more: a social workplace.

6.2. A Common Purpose

Building an OIC that reflects user communities and promotes the sharing of data is a step towards an enterprise social network with a crucial differentiator; a purpose. The purpose of every community in the OIC can be roughly considered to be a ‘business initiative’; perhaps an increase in efficiency of a business process, or resolution of a production issue, or monitoring of a live situation. Ultimately these are all business focused and hence this is not just a social network, but also a social workplace. This shared purpose is seen in action in the finding, sharing and collaborating around the key ingredient to which only the OIC has access; enterprise data, presented in a shared environment. Organisations adopting an OIC solution with these properties can at last leverage personalization, community working, enterprise data and social networking to produce genuine improvements in efficiency.



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6.3. A Social Perspective

The traditional OIC dashboard view of a business assumes that the user will be monitoring it constantly, whereas the enterprise software solution does not; it accepts that users will drift away for good reason and therefore provides an event driven, or timeline view. Therefore the next generation OIC needs to present activity in a timeline view. Doing so will kick start collaboration and allow offline users to be brought up to date – provided of course that the timeline is relevant. Fortunately there is a way to ensure relevancy and it’s covered above; curation. When a user nominates data as relevant to their community or communities, they are filtering out all the irrelevant data and thus ensuring the timeline remains useful. Building on the concepts in the Total Integration section above, the vast connectivity and self-‐service capabilities of the OIC allows the user to nominate data from virtually anywhere in the enterprise. As the ideal OIC provides a wealth of collaboration options, it is also ideally situated to update the timeline with the latest discussions. This means that an offline user can get the full picture from the OIC and be ready to contribute. This is truly a social platform. As discussed in the Complex Business Processes section, no organisation exists in isolation and communities should be regarded as including users outside the corporate network. So the timeline facility has added value to both the corporate and third party end-‐user as it promotes transparency and rapid response – further breaking the delaying cycles shown in Fig.3.

Figure 13. A Social, Event Driven View



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7. Cloud: Designed for You How intelligent use of cloud computing can deliver a value add architecture, rather than just an outsourced infrastructure risk.

7.1. What is the ‘cloud’?

The term ‘cloud’ is often appropriated to mean a number of different things. For the purposes of this document it will help to define the ‘cloud’ as server resource which is:

• Off-site o Centralised application deployment to clients and servers at all customers,

minimising deployment costs both for vendor and customer. • Scalable on-demand

o To permit new collaboration partners and meet data exchange requirements. • Virtualised

o Spread across multiple hardware platforms to minimise risk • Private

o Limited to enterprise customers with appropriate provisions for data security • Dedicated

o Uncontended, multi-tenant but single use. This clearly differentiates this usage of ‘cloud’ from other solutions that may be some or none of the above.



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7.2. Why use the cloud?

An OIC with a cloud component has three key advantages; external collaboration and low Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). However, given the need to interface with a wide range of enterprise systems the OIC requires some sort of on-‐premise component; an entirely cloud-‐based solution is unlikely to succeed because either:

• I/O requirements will be unsustainable, or • Customer will have to move substantial quantities of enterprise data to the cloud,

relinquishing control, or • Vendor servers will have to be included into the enterprise network through VPN, thus

transferring enterprise data outside physical control. Therefore the preferred architecture is:

• An on-premise component which connects to enterprise systems, authenticates users, aggregates and serves data and manages communications to the cloud servers.

• A cloud component which permits centralised delivery of client and server updates and manages communications with external users and on-premise servers.

Figure 14. The Ideal Architecture

You can find a more detailed architecture diagram at http://www.sabisu.co/_artifact/sabisu-‐architecture.pdf .



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7.3. External Collaboration

A cloud component facilitates the exchange of data between organisations without the need for email. Not only does this reduce the risk of data being distributed outside the intended audience, but it increases the speed of data exchange with third parties – an essential property of an OIC solution. This in turn reduces the amount of end-‐user data manipulation required, reducing duplication and increasing the relevance of the data. Instead of exchanging non-‐contemporaneous snapshots, users can share real-‐time data.

7.4. Total Cost of Ownership

An OIC with a cloud component should allow central management of updates and new features, giving the platform all the benefits of a cloud based, device independent, software-‐as-‐a-‐service implementation:

• Low cost of deployment, particularly reducing initial capital expenditure. • Fast deployment through browsers only. • Reduction in reliance on local IT infrastructure.

The deployment of an OIC with a cloud component differs from a conventional SaaS deployment in the following respects:

• Applications and data should stay local; the OIC solution should not mandate that these are moved to the cloud.

• Given the need to interface with back end solutions, on-premise server components should be brought up to date with new functionality and defect fixes automatically.

Therefore the OIC SaaS model differs; it can be thought of as SaaS+.

7.5. On-‐going Support

It’s important that OIC software is built on a standard application stack, i.e., an operating system, database management system, middleware and web server that is common and well understood. The risks of deploying proprietary platforms are well understood; expertise may become hard to find, integrating into the rest of the IT architecture can be difficult and it can be hard to exit from the solution. Therefore an OIC built on Microsoft Windows 2008 Server R2, incorporating IIS as a web server would suitable; it’s stable, secure and easy for an organisation to manage as part of the existing infrastructure. It also securely integrates into most enterprise IT infrastructures using Windows Integrated Authentication.



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7.6. Key Design Criteria

When choosing an OIC the following should be key criteria:

1. No line of business data should be persisted outside the corporate network.

2. No corporate data is transmitted outside the corporate network unless external users are specifically authorized to access it.

3. Corporate data should be provided to end-users in real-time on demand, i.e., without

caching.

4. Design for the thinnest possible client; smallest footprint, lowest cost – ideally through standard browsers without reliance on plug-ins.

The ideal OIC should be proven with a small pilot deployment, which will show how it:

• Adapts to your business processes and end-user requirements without requiring significant development work or configuration.

• Delivers significant business benefit even from a deployment to a niche business function or limited number of users.



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8. Extend Your Enterprise Operational intelligence within an organisation has proven benefit – extending it to partners, suppliers and customers can benefit your whole value/supply chain.

8.1. Business Without Boundaries

As discussed in Complex Business Processes and External Collaboration sections above and highlighted in Fig.10, a correctly architected OIC is perfectly positioned to enable collaboration with third parties. This leads to seamless collaboration and an increase in accurate data exchange without a corresponding increase in data manipulation or email. Though financially and operationally important business processes are often covered by ERP/MRP systems, there are plenty of undocumented business processes that involve third parties. The OIC must support the evolution of these processes if operational efficiency gains are to be realized; new communities can be created to include third parties and appropriate data can be shared. Indeed, when it comes to a temporary partnership with other enterprises with a common objective, sometimes referred to as a ‘virtual enterprise network’, the OIC that has a cloud component provides a common collaboration centre; a permanently available, zero configuration, on-‐demand facility for cross-‐enterprise working. Not every partner is of equal size. Every enterprise uses independent consultants, SMEs and contractors, sometimes based on-‐site within the enterprise network and often provided with corporate IT support, effectively treating the third party as an employee. With a well-‐architected OIC this is unnecessary; the third party can be included as an external third party and provided with access to the data that they require. This allows the enterprise to save costs and ensure third parties are kept out of the corporate network. Studies are beginning to show the benefits of deploying Enterprise 2.0 technology; the emphasis in ‘social business software’ is now starting to shift towards ‘business’. A McKinsey study (http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Organization/Strategic_Organization/The_rise_of_the_networked_enterprise_Web_20_finds_its_payday_2716) found that externally networked organisations were in the top 3% of their sectors. As discussed in Complex Business Processes above, organisations often have significant regulatory requirements. Providing regulators with direct access to data and expertise within the organisation promotes transparency and builds trust, leading to a more effective regulator and a compliant organisation.



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8.2. Exceptional Service Delivery

Whilst the focus of the OIC solution is on the enterprise looking out to partners, it should be acknowledged that external service providers could use the same properly architected OIC solution to deliver significant benefit for both parties. Beyond the improved inter-‐organisation collaboration described in the Business Without Boundaries section above, service providers can look forward to early inclusion in developing operational situations allowing earlier and lower cost resolution to issues. Such an involvement is ideal for third party consultants and knowledge workers. Service providers are already using this cloud-‐based OIC collaboration capability to differentiate themselves from competitors, providing on-‐demand access for customers to key data and instant, pro-‐active collaboration. Service providers also find that new customers can commission their services more easily; it’s simply a case of creating a new community to accommodate the new customer, making appropriate provisions for storing the new customer’s data and allowing appropriate access. The service provider also benefits from a robust, scalable computing resource which would be cost prohibitive for the service provide to implement themselves.

8.3. Say ‘Goodbye’ to VPN

The cloud component described in this document gives the OIC another capability; just as data can be shared with third parties directly, external access can be given to anyone within the enterprise. Therefore the OIC should permit data of any kind from any enterprise system to be accessed from any device, particularly mobile or personal devices, instead of needing VPN tokens or corporate machines. For the particularly security conscious multi-‐factor authentication will be a requirement. The availability of corporate data on personal hardware makes deperimiterisation possible. Where success in deperimiterising has been seen with users who need only cloud-‐based email and office productivity applications, the OIC makes it possible to offer corporate processes and data on personal hardware – all the enterprise has to do is ensure that the end-‐user has a browser. This could result in significant cost savings as the organisation has fewer support requirements.



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8.4. Value/Supply Chain Benefits

The case for collaboration between enterprises is well understood, particularly in terms of the supply/value chain. The OIC can make data available to third parties throughout the supply/value chain resulting in increased efficiency and transparency, ultimately building partnership and trust. Perhaps the most obvious example is that of supply chain visibility; the instant visibility of customer demand all the way down the supply chain can reduce the ‘bullwhip’ effect, where a minor change in customer demand produces increasingly significant impacts in terms of production and inventory as each supplier in the chain meets perceived demand.

Figure 15. The Bullwhip Effect

(from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bulwhip_efect.jpg) However, there is clear benefit in terms of quality assurance, where the provenance of a product can be traced back through the manufacturing process, or product/service development, where a collaborative approach can bring enterprises together to innovate. With access to supporting source data, the OIC is uniquely positioned to inform such collaboration.



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9. Sabisu There wasn’t an OIC on the market that could achieve genuine improvements in efficiency or collaboration, or extend the enterprise. So we built it.

9.1. Functional Fit

With Sabisu, we believe we’ve built the ultimate OIC, focusing on integration, curation, collaboration, enterprise social and the extended enterprise. Other solutions may meet some requirements but no others meet all. Sabisu delivers all the functionality outlined in this document. All of the practices and impacts have been proven within existing customers, e.g.,

• Users migrating from email to chat • Improvements in business process execution efficiency • Identification of operations cost savings • Improved service delivery from and to third parties • Reduction in IT expenditure, particularly around meeting new information

presentation requirements Sabisu is finding use in all manner of applications; digital signage, control rooms as well as the expected executive reporting and day-‐to-‐day business process execution. Sabisu is also in constant use by those who create and maintain it; it’s used to monitor the various production environments and service our customers.

9.2. Typical Industry Sectors

Designed in partnership with leading petrochemicals and refining companies, Sabisu is a perfect fit for the oil & gas downstream sector. It’s been designed and built with the resilience, security, quality and system integrity that this market demands. Therefore Sabisu will bring benefits to any large-‐scale manufacturing and process industry operation, with compelling success stories in chemicals & biofuels in particular. With it’s extended enterprise capability Sabisu is also the delivery platform of choice for service providers as it enables the customer to digitally commission easily and provides excellent collaborative features to ensure optimal delivery.



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9.3. Case Studies

Construction of Sabisu was started in mid-‐2010. Whilst the company and all intellectual property continue to be privately held, the solution was designed and built with help from leading petrochemical manufacturers and process industry figures. Hence you can have confidence that this is a well-‐designed enterprise ready solution. At http://www.sabisu.co/CaseStudies.aspx you’ll find case studies including petrochemicals companies and service providers.

Rebooting Operational intelligence - Sabisu · 2015-09-07 · Rebooting!Operational!Intelligence!...

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