Users Want to Improve Use of Business Intelligence on Net

Computerworld - Orlando

Many of the 600-plus people attending the Information Builders Inc. user conference here last week were seeking ways to enhance the Web capabilities of their business-intelligence applications. But although migrating the software to the Internet can save time and money, such a move comes with a host of challenges, including reluctant end users and limited resources, according to users.

Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Illinois, which sends printed claims reports to providers, could dramatically save time and money by moving its business-intelligence applications to the Internet, said Mithlesh Sharma, senior provider auditor at Blue Cross.

Although no final decisions have been made, Sharma said he expects that by year's end, the company's 32 business-intelligence users will migrate from Focus, New York-based Information Builders' mainframe product, to WebFocus, Information Builders' Web-based product. Business intelligence involves using tools that perform tasks such as query and reporting, online analytical processing and data mining to analyze figures in financials, sales, inventory and other applications to identify business trends.

WebFocus would allow hospitals that use Blue Cross and are on virtual private networks to make queries over the Internet and receive reports electronically as soon as they're completed, rather than waiting days for postal deliveries. Because some providers receive hundreds or thousands of report pages every month, Sharma estimated that in a year's time, the company could save hundreds of thousands of dollars in printing costs.

But some providers don't want to go to the Internet because they don't have the infrastructure or staff to train employees to use the Web, said Sharma.

This is especially the case for small providers.

"You might be surprised that there are many people today who are still afraid to lay their hands on a computer," said Sharma.

As more employees become familiar with using the Web, business-intelligence software accessed via the Internet puts data in the hands of decision-makers, not just a select group of technologists, said Henry Morris, a vice president at IDC in Framingham, Mass.

But as more people use the Internet, their expectations of what they should be able to do online using business intelligence also rise, said David Hall, assistant director for the Office of Planning and Institutional Effectiveness at Florida International University in Miami. For the past year, Hall's department has been training students and faculty to run some reports themselves to get information online. It now receives 800 Web requests a day.

As more users become accustomed to getting any type of information they need on the Internet, technologists are forcedto keep up with these demands by adding new capabilities, said Hall. This is particularly challenging in a tough economic climate, when firms are forced to do more with fewer resources.

Another challenge is money, said Marilyn Minor, an advanced technology analyst at Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corp. in Milwaukee. Minor said she would like the company to purchase a Web-based business-intelligence product but that the 2001 fiscal budget lacked the required $300,000 investment.

She said that while the Internet can put data into the hands of more users, some managers "just want to be handed results."

Read more about financial in Computerworld's Financial Knowledge Center.