Fri, 7 May 2010
Delivering Data Analytics Through Workday SaaS ERP Applications Empowers Business Managers at Actual Decision Points
Can software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications actually accelerate the use and power of business analytics?

We're going to help answer that by examining a human capital management (HCM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) SaaS provider, Workday, and show how easily customizable views on data and analytics can have a big impact on how managers and knowledge workers operate.

Historically, the back office business applications that support companies have been distinct from the category of business intelligence (BI). Certainly, applications have had certain ways of extracting analytics, but the interfaces were often complex, unique, and infrequently used.

By using SaaS applications and rich Internet technologies that create different interface capabilities -- as well as a wellspring of integration and governance on the back-end of these business applications (built on a common architecture) -- more actionable data gets to those who can use it best. They get to use it on their terms, as our case today will show, for HCM or human resources managers in large enterprises.

The trick to making this work is to balance the needs that govern and control the data and analytics, but also opening up the insights to more users in a flexible, intuitive way. The ability to identify, gather, and manipulate data for business analysis on the terms of the end-user has huge benefits. As we enter what I like to call the data-driven decade, I think nearly all business decisions are going to need more data from now on.

To learn more about how the application and interfaces are the analytics please join me in welcoming Stan Swete, Vice President of Product Strategy and the CTO at Workday; Jim Kobielus, Senior Analyst for BI and Analytics at Forrester Research, and Seth Grimes, Principal Consultant at Alta Plana Corp., and a contributing editor at TechWeb's Intelligent Enterprise. The discussion is moderated by me, BriefingsDirect's Dana Gardner, principal analyst at Interarbor Solutions.

Read a full transcript or download a copy. Sponsor: Workday.
Direct download: BriefingsDirect-Workday_Brings_Power_of_BI_to_SaaS_ERP_Apps_Users.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 12:49pm EDT