@ Solvay … using MicroStrategy - …download.minoc.com/2012/04/20120626_mbit_hetnieuwewerken_fgaran… · @ Solvay … using MicroStrategy ... « Add a user-friendly presentation

François Garang Solvay Information Services

Executive Committee Dashboards on iPad @ Solvay … using MicroStrategy Business meets IT 21/06/2012

http://www.solvay.com/

© 2010, SOLVAY S.A.

SIS / FGG / Mars 2012 "Executive Dashboards on iPad using MicroStrategy" - 2 -

AGENDA

"Cheops" Application context

Project Birth

Overview – the Proof Of Concept

Project Youth

Architecture / Organizations Choices : "Yes we can !"

Development Phase

Overview - what result ?

On going further steps

Lessons Learned

Q & A



Solvay and the new “Rhodia Integration” context

3 25/06/2012

Two sectors … becoming Three : SOLVAY Chemicals, SOLVAY Plastics and Rhodia’s activities

Global leader in :

specialty polymers, vinyls, essential chemicals like soda ash, caustic soda, hydrogen peroxide,

special chemicals like fluorinated products and high-purity grades …

… and now in polyamids, sustainable development products

15,000 people in 40 countries … becoming 29,000 in 55 countries

Confirmed growing presence in Asia, Americas and Eastern Europe

Solvay in figures :

Consolidated sales in 2011 of EUR 12.7 billion

Operating profits of EUR 2.1 billion

90 % turnover on product for which Solvay is in Top Three

Cheops




Application Context

"Cheops" is Solvay's financial reporting application

Client-Server application - MS SQL Server database (# 1 TB, 700 M records)

> 350 users, > 200 consolidated companies, > 100 M updates / months, # 10.000 calculations / month

Home-made application ! 25 years financial reporting experience Cheops is 12 years old : 6 main versions released so far

A CPM (Corporate Performance Management) and a BI application together



Cheops, a CPM Application …

Budgeting, Planning and Forecasting

Strategy Management

Profitability Modeling and Optimization

Financial Consolidation

Financial Statutory & Management reporting

Extended Management Board - 1 -



Cheops, a CPM Application …

Totally Covered

Partially Covered


Strategy Management







… and a BI Tool together

+


Strategy Management




BI Tool Iris




A Clear and Strong request from Solvay "Group Accounting" to the IT Cheops Team :

« Add a user-friendly presentation layer to Cheops / Iris environment ! » Meaning :

simplified User Interface = hide Cheops database complexity

aimed at managers / non-financial users

available on mobile devices (tablets, smart phones)


Project Birth



Quick focus on BI @ Solvay

Solvay is a big SAP customer naturally developped

usage of BW in both ERP and HR domains

Bex usage mainly for ERP users (Sales, Logistics …)

BI on demand for HR from SAP Portal : all managers

For the financial scope : home made Iris within Cheops environment : standard requests execution + on demand

New organization context at Solvay

Management initiative on Global Reporting Optimization

One output will be the agreed creation of a BI CC



Quick focus on Mobility @ Solvay

Long history of Windows Mobile support

First developped IT Service for mobile devices : Blackberry in 2007 (630)

"Light" It Service for iPhone in 2010 (200)

New service for Android to come

IT Innovation Challenge on iPads …

… and finally this Executive Committee initiative on iPad ! "… it is not a gadget, it is the future ! …"



Project merged within a more comprehensive study lead by Solvay IT BI Team, aiming at :

answering similar requests (for example as

a complementary tool on top of SAP BW systems …)

more generally : establish a selection of tools to address

a typology of different needs arising within Solvay

Project Youth



Project Youth

Large range of BI Tools evaluated

Proofs Of Concept run on a short list of pre-selected Tools :

SAP Business Objects' "Web Intelligence"

MicroStrategy's "MicroStrategy"

QlikTech's "QlikView"

Overall Study Report submitted to IT Entreprise Architects for decisions …

And for the Financial scope, the winner was …

= "BI Stack Player"

= "BI Pure Player"

= "BI Niche Player"



Project Youth

Why MicroStrategy ?

Best Tool tested for financial field to be integrated on top of

Cheops / Iris !

Meta-data configuration : to hide the Cheops database

structure complexity

The "Mobile« offer : still not perfect however improving

quite fast and more advanced than its competitors

Market Leader / Features richness / visualization quality

/ Competitive commercial offer



Proof Of Concept Overview

DEMO











Architecture Choices : "Yes we can !"

Context @ Solvay : weather trend is … Cloudy !

Decision to move to Gmail

Significant Salesforce customer

Increased hosting on the Cloud

As a consequence :

Cheops environment moves to the Cloud

MicroStrategy Plateform moves to the Cloud as well



"Yes we can !"

Ambitious choices ! Fortunately, Cheops has supporters …

… all around the world !






First Project identification

Context @ Solvay

New Solvay Organization New Reporting Structure definition

"Reporting Factory" creation for the Finance scope within

Shared Services entity

First Reporing achievement identified :

Executive Committee dashboards on iPad using MicroStrategy !

and planned : June 2011 closing !



Who are our mobile users here ?

Senior Management

Management Dashboards &

Reports

Mobile Employees

Sales, Services, …

Customers of our

Customers

Customer Services

Apps



Project development

Source data preparation according to new financial reporting specifications

MicroStrategy platform installation on the Cloud

Help requested from MicroStrategy consulting services : on-going for :

system implementation

data modelization

reports / documents / application creation



The Executive Dashboards Dream Team

Eddy (MSTR) Bertrand (MSTR) Jakub (MSTR) Katarzina (MSTR) Olivier (Solvay) Marcin (MSTR) Mateusz (MSTR) Kamil (MSTR) Not to forget Yves, Patrick, Sandro and Mario (all MSTR)!



What was the result - Overview

DEMO



Before …







… After !





Before …





… After !

















What’s going on, what’s coming next ?

Management Report current application to be converted to its web version

to be adapted for Business Units

merge Solvay and Rhodia Dashboards applications

Management Reports to Management Dashboards no more reports : real dashboards !

wider usage of MicroStrategy’s visualization capabilities







iPad expected advantages …

Foreseen advantages were mainly related to the delivered application : “MicroStrategy dashboards on the iPad”

a huge PDF report of more than 100 pages (not always printed in both sides !)

replaced by a single iPad application …

… with an overall 30 screens …

… in 16 MIcroStrategy documents

information availability on the device :

as soon as published following the monthly closing, thanks to “subscription”

configuration in MicroStrategy, which automates the refresh

from inside and outside Solvay (hosted on the cloud !)

reachable even when no connection available, thanks to the local cache

user-friendliness and new visualizations opportunities

easy navigation within the application (in comparaison with printed pdf)

application esthetic

wide range of efficient visualizations … even if not much used yet



… and iPad less expected advantages !

Un-foreseen advantages were mainly related to an immediate demand for a much wider usage of the iPad from the top management !

Management Report additional requests :

have the pdf version ”on board” the iPads

have “refreshed” for information not related to closing

be able to put comments on Dashboards

Other Documents management requests :

be able to access all Executive Committee notes from the iPad

be able to annotate PDF documents on the iPad : using the keyboard or the

touch screen (finger …)

Extended usage of the iPad requests, making it a “all day companion” !

banking applications

stock exchange applications

news applications



Lessons learned

Positive attitude is to start something ! In our case : basic BI, more reporting than dashboarding light mobile deployment

Tool selection is still quite important

Mobile devices management not to be forgotten !

If you can have more time than what we have for this project, do not hesitate : Take it !



Q & A