CHAPTER 10: IMPROVING DECISION MAKING AND MANAGING KNOWLEDGE

CHAPTER 10: IMPROVING DECISION MAKING AND MANAGING KNOWLEDGE

COLGATE-PALMOLIVE KEEPS MANAGERS SMILING WITH EXECUTIVE DASHBOARDS

1.    Describe the different types of business intelligence users at Colgate-Palmolive.

Colgate had been a global SAP user since the early 1990s, but it was running five separate ERP systems to serve its different geographic regions. Over a period of time, disparities in the data developed between different geographic regions, and between the data used at the corporate level and the data used by an individual region or business unit.

Colgate chooses a single global data repository using SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse, SAP’s analytical, reporting and data warehousing solution. Colgate’s regional ERP systems feed their data to the warehouse, were the data are standardized and formatted for enterprise-wide reporting and analysis. This eliminates differences in data across the enterprise.

Colgate’s information systems specialist then implemented SAP NetWeaver BW Accelerator to speed up data loads and improve user perception and adoption, and they implemented SAP Business Object Web Intelligence provides a powerful, intuitive interface that enables business professionals to ask spontaneous questions about their data.

2.       Describe the “people” issues that were affecting Colgate’s ability to use business intelligence.

The “people” issues that were affecting Colgate’s ability to use business intelligence for example, every time a sales report was run, it should different number for orders and shipments Colgate wanted more useable data to drive business decisions and all of its managers and business units worldwide to work with the same version of data and also for one of the output of the warehouse for senior manager is daily HTML table that showing series of financial and operational metrics for the day compared to the previous month and quarter. However the data were not being used enough employees in their decision making to have an impact on business benefit. Eventually Colgate’s senior managers and other casual users began requesting deeper access to the warehouse data in a more timely and user-friendly format. They wanted reports that were easier to run where the data could be interpreted faster. Senior management requested customizable. 

 3.      What people, organization, and technology factors had to be addressed in providing business           intelligence capabilities for each type of user?

Colgate’s senior managers and other casual users on the other hand, did not feel comfortable running ad hoc reports or drilling down into the layers of data to answer questions the data brought to light.

Eventually Colgate’s senior managers and other casual users began requesting deeper access to the warehouse data in a more timely and user-friendly format. They wanted reports that were easier to run where the data could be interpreted faster. Senior management requested customizable, real-time dashboards that could be more easily used to drive performance improvement. Colgate’s information systems specialist then implemented SAP NetWeaver BW Accelerator to speed up data loads and improve user perception and adoption and they implemented SAP Business Object Web Intelligence to build customized reports.

 4.      What kind of decisions does Colgate’s new business intelligence capability support? Give                 three examples. What is their potential business impact?

For Colgate’s, better reporting tools that can support different kinds of users have greatly expanded the use of business intelligence throughout the company currently about 400 users interact with Colgate’s SAP system daily, but this number is expected to expand to 15,000 or 20,000 users in the future. People who are accustomed to seeing reports stuffed with numbers are finding that they can use the information presented in dashboards to make faster decisions.

For example, managers can determine positive or negative financial conditions by simply looking for where dashboard reports use the color green, which reflects improvements in Colgate’s financial position.