| Yakko | I really don’t know why we’re here. Spend Analysis is so yesterday, all the analysts say so. I think the doctor needs to give himself a check-up for recommending it to us. |
| Wakko | Really? |
| Yakko | Anyone can build a Spend Analysis system, all you have to do is follow the old Frictionless Commerce strategy from 2002, and grab technologies off the shelf. You take an OLAP database… |
| Wakko | Like Microsoft SQL Server or Oracle? |
| Yakko | Right. Then you slap on a front-end OLAP viewer… |
| Wakko | Like Databeacon or Business Objects? |
| Yakko | Yes, exactly. Then you find someone to family and map your A/P transactions… |
| Wakko | Like Grihasoft or Spend Radar? |
| Dot | Yup. Then, ta da! |
| Wakko | Ta da? |
| Yakko | Ta da! |
| Dot | That’s all there is to it! |
| Yakko | Right! sound of crickets chirping |
| Wakko | I don’t get it. |
| Dot | What’s not to get? You’re done! |
| Wakko | Why? |
| Yakko | Why not? You can drill around your spend! You can even run some canned reports! |
| Dot | Yippee! Drill, drill, drill! Report, report, report! |
| Wakko | I still don’t get it. |
| Yakko | OK, I’ll explain it slowly. You’ve never had this view of your spending before. You were never sure whether all of your IBM spend was really being counted, because there were lots of different entries for IBM in the Vendor Master. Plus, you weren’t really sure what commodities you were actually buying, because the GL code didn’t tell you, and the vendor alone wasn’t good enough. Now you can see, pretty accurately, exactly what you spent with whomever on equipment, on consulting, on maintenance, and so on. And, you can see who spent it, by cost center. And when. And how it was booked to the GL. |
| Wakko | So what? |
| Yakko | What do you mean, so what? |
| Wakko | So what do I do with the Spend Analysis system once I can see all that? |
| Yakko | You take action! You source some categories! You fix process mistakes! |
| Wakko | No, no, what do I do with the Spend Analysis system next? |
| Yakko | With the Spend Analysis system? |
| Wakko | Yes. |
| Yakko | Next? |
| Wakko | Yes, next. |
| Yakko | Well, you… um… |
| Dot | You refresh your data every month, and… |
| Yakko | and… well, you can see how your initiatives are progressing… |
| Dot | and… um… |
| Yakko | er… well… sound of crickets chirping |
| Dot | Maybe we better ask BIQ (acquired by Opera Solutions, rebranded ElectrifAI) after all! |
| Yakko | We’re here … I think. |
| Dot | Are you sure? All I see is a house on a hill. Where’s the big corporate headquarters? The parking lot? The sign on the door? |
| Yakko | the doctor did say that BIQ was, in Ariba terms, a micro-operation organized as a virtual organization. Yakko knocks on the door |
| Eric Strovink | Uh-oh! Here comes trouble. What do you guys want? |
| Dot | Define Spend Analysis! |
| Yakko | In twenty-five words or less! |
| Wakko | And then get us some baloney sandwiches! I’m hungry! |
| Eric | OK, let’s start with the basics. Where’s the data? |
| Yakko | In the accounting systems! In payables! |
| Eric | Well, that’s one place. But what about PxQ data on invoices, by vendor, by commodity? How about cell phone usage? Facilities? Fleet vehicles? Equipment repair records? Contract labor detail? HR salary and benefits data? T&E? How about the revenue side? Sales, leases, loans, mortgage data? Insurance claims? Web clicks? Medical records? |
| Dot | That’s a lot of data. |
| Eric | Yes, it is. That’s why BIQ customers typically build dozens of datasets, not just one “A/P dataset.” |
| Yakko | Wait, they build them themselves? |
| Eric | Of course. If you had to pay a third-party services organization to build 75 datasets, could you afford it? |
| Dot | 75?? |
| Eric | That’s at just one company. |
| Yakko | But I thought it was hard to build datasets and map data. |
| Eric | There are plenty of reasons to pay someone to build and map datasets, but you should always have the option to build and map them yourself, and it should be easy. |
| Dot | Do people build datasets frequently? |
| Eric | Yes, and they change them all the time, too. Serious data analysis requires flexibility. You need to be able to build datasets quickly — in minutes — and you need to be able to modify them in real time. You need to change their structure on the fly, map them on the fly, and whip them into whatever shape you need for the analysis that you have in mind. And then you need to do the same thing for the next analysis. |
| Yakko | But how can you make those kinds of changes if the dataset is shared by hundreds of users? |
| Eric | You can’t. That’s why sharing a dataset across hundreds of users that’s supposedly going to be used for ad hoc analysis just doesn’t work. |
| Yakko | So much for my off-the-shelf technology idea. |
| Dot | But where’s the server? |
| Eric | There doesn’t need to be one. BIQ runs perfectly well on your laptop, supporting very large datasets — on an airplane, on a desert island, wherever. Or you can connect to a server. Or both. |
| Dot | What about reports? |
| Eric | BIQ populates your own Excel models with OLAP data, then books them by dimension. It’s a much more powerful paradigm than static reporting. And furthermore… |
| Wakko | interrupting Wait a minute, I think I get it! |
| Eric | Get what? |
| Wakko | I get what you do with the Spend Analysis system next, after you build an A/P dataset! You build more datasets, lots of them. And you modify the ones you have. You keep learning from your data by looking at more and more of it, in new and different ways. everyone stares at Wakko for a moment |
| Yakko | I can’t believe it! He actually uttered a coherent thought. |
| Dot | I’m stunned. |
| Wakko | I’m hungry. |
| Eric | And I’m going back to work. Eric Strovink disappears back into BIQ headquarters. |
Sourcing Innovation
Next Generation Supply Management Defined
