Information Builders has announced the availability of
its business performance management (BPM) framework, formally
marking the company's entry to providing what it calls an orthodox
BPM balanced-scorecard approach.
IBI president and chief executive officer Gerald Cohen told an
audience at the company's Summit 2004 user conference that the
"organically" developed solution - as opposed to a patchwork of
products added via acquisition - is designed to shorten business
cycles and features enterprise-wide scorecarding, financial
reporting, performance metrics and dashboards.
The WebFocus Performance Management Framework, available now, is
standards-based and features analysis of staged or real-time data
across a data access architecture, according to need.
IBI also unveiled new report enhancements to its real-time
WebFocus enterprise BI suite, including integrated Microsoft
PowerPoint reporting and scalable vector graphics (SVG).
In addition, WebFocus graphs can new be produced in Portable
Network Graphics (PNG) format. The enhancements allow the ability
of save an active dashboard as a PowerPoint slide.
Industry observers note that the rise of BPM offerings can be
attributed to enterprise demands for higher return on investment,
as well as the need for better customer service delivery and
business efficiency. According to industry research firm
International Data, the $12.5b BI and BPM market is a bright spot
in an otherwise stagnant enterprise business software space.
Within the next five years the market is expected to grow 7%.
According to Dan Vesset, senior analyst and research manager of
analytics and data warehousing for IDC, enterprises can gain a
competitive edge from improving the accuracy and speed of critical
decision making. Vesset added that in an era of compliance
regulations and increased CIO accountability, BPM technology is
looking very attractive to organisations.
Certain BI trends are emerging, added Vesset. These include
advanced data visualisation, event-based analytics, business
activity monitoring, and the increased role of web services.
Also at Summit 2004, through its subsidiary, adapter supplier
iWay Software, IBI announced Data Migrator RT (real-time) and Data
Migrator integration products.
Data Migrator RT provides a "drag-and-drop" real-time message
capture, transformation and data movement, which enables
enterprises to capture front-end data, IBI's Cohen said, adding
that Data Migrator enables the batch movement of data. Pricing is
$25,000 and $15,000 respectively.
Ryan B Patrick writes for ITWorldCanada.com