If you are considering an online analytical processing product,
a close look at the results of the survey conducted last year into
Olap could pay dividends, writes Nigel Pendse
It is 10 years since Ted Codd, often called the father of
relational databases, redefined the world of decision support
systems by publishing his 12 laws for online analytical processing
and coining the term Olap. The concepts behind Olap go back three
decades, so the idea obviously has sticking power.
The aim of last year's Olap Survey 2, published by Survey.com, was
to find out what the benefits of Olap really are. You might even
have been one of the 2,236 people from 49 countries who
participated in the survey.
About 60% of the respondents to the survey were interested in Olap,
but were not yet users, and another 10% were actively looking, but
had not yet bought. The remaining 30% were existing Olap users, and
they each answered dozens of questions about how they chose and
used the products they did. They were also asked about the rate at
which business goals were met and the extent to which eight
possible business benefits were achieved.
Not surprisingly, "soft" benefits, such as faster, more accurate
reporting were much more likely to be achieved than "hard"
benefits, such as increased revenues or headcount savings,
particularly in IT. Almost 70% of respondents said improved
reporting was a proven benefit, while only 23% had proven revenue
increases through better sales and marketing analysis; and just 19%
had saved IT headcount (5% said it had actually increased).
Respondents in the UK appear more sceptical than those in other
countries because they generally reported lower benefit achievement
levels, while those in the US were more likely than average to be
pleased.
But the benefits measurement had a more subtle use: an average
benefits achievement index was calculated based on the scores for
all eight benefits, and this was used to calibrate many of the
other results. This was thought to be a better, if more indirect,
way of finding out how success rates varied, depending on how
organisations chose products, which products they chose and how
they implemented them. And this was where some real surprises
emerged.
This is not just academic: if you are one of those who is
interested but has not yet started with an Olap project, you can
take advantage of knowing what does, or does not, seem to be
associated with projects that delivered the most benefits.
The first surprise was to discover that conducting a formal,
multi-product evaluation really pays. Only half of the sample did
this, with the rest either evaluating just a single product, or
simply buying an Olap add-on from an incumbent supplier. But those
who conducted a proper competitive evaluation were not only more
likely to have met their business goals, but also scored higher on
every one of the eight possible business benefits. Perhaps this was
because they found a more appropriate product, or perhaps the
process itself was educational, but either way, make sure you do
not skip this important step.
Probably not coincidentally, the product whose buyers were least
likely to have performed a formal evaluation on was SAP Business
Information Warehouse (BW) - and this also was the product with the
lowest benefits achievement index, as well as the second-lowest
goals achievement rate. Paradoxically, despite achieving the worst
results, SAP customers still proclaimed the highest loyalty in the
survey.
At the other extreme, despite achieving the highest benefits,
ungrateful customers from business performance software solutions
provider Brio were relatively disloyal. Predictably, the few
Computer Associates Olap customers were by far the most disloyal in
their response.
The differences in benefit achievement rates are even more striking
among implementers. Many sites did all the implementation work
in-house, but they had a lower success rate than sites that also
used some external help, even when spending only a modest £10,000
on third-party consulting. But spending more than £300,000 seemed
to lead to a declining success rate.
The consultants who performed by far the best were the specialist
business intelligence/Olap consulting firms; much the worst were
the large, general-purpose consulting firms, including the big
five. The big firms were reported to cost more, took longer and
apparently delivered less successful projects.
When it comes to choosing products, buyers put the greatest
emphasis on product functionality and ease of use for end-users;
query performance is regarded as only half as important. But when
it comes to their real-world deployments, poor query performance is
by far the most commonly reported technical problem, so perhaps
businesses should be paying more attention to that aspect from the
start.
Because it is an area with so many user complaints, the survey
analysed performance intensively, with no fewer than 24 of its 226
pages devoted to the subject. There are many ways of measuring
performance, but Microsoft Analysis Services and Hyperion Essbase
scored best overall, while Brio, BusinessObjects, MicroStrategy and
SAP BW were much worse than average.
Curiously, though Relational Olaps (Rolaps) are normally expected
to be better on build/load/calculate times than Multidimensional
databases (Molaps), none of the Rolaps came close to challenging
the leading Molap performer, Microsoft Analysis Services. There was
no significant difference in the performance of Unix and Windows
servers with comparable data volumes and product mixes, perhaps
because Unix servers typically support more concurrent users.
Olap sales are continuing to do well even in today's slow market,
so many new sites must be buying and deploying it. The benefits are
indeed proven, but you can maximise your chances of achieving them
if you learn from the experiences of the large number of people who
took the trouble to participate in the Olap Survey 2.
Goals and benefits
- When it comes to choosing products, buyers put the greatest
emphasis on product functionality and ease of use for end-users;
query performance is regarded as only half as important
- When it comes to real-world deployments, poor query performance
compared to other product-related problems is by far the most
commonly reported technical problem. So perhaps you should be
paying more attention to that aspect up front
- Olap sales are continuing to do well even in today's slow
market, so many new sites must be buying and deploying it. The
benefits are proven, but you can maximise your chances of achieving
them if you learn from the experiences of the large number of
people who participated in the Olap Survey 2.
Olap survey details
The Olap Survey 2 is published by Survey.com
(www.survey.com/products/olap2/)
and is also available in the UK from Business Intelligence
(www.business-intelligence.co.uk/re/os2).
Nigel Pendse is the author of The Olap Survey and The Olap
Report
(www.olapreport.com
). He has almost 30 years' experience of the business intelligence
industry, as a user, supplier and, since 1994, as an independent
industry analyst and consultant