|
When BI turns BI-lateral
Date published: CFO, August 2004
By Roger Hogan
Managing editor's letter
As Bernard Kellerman points out in this month's CFO special report on mergers and acquisitions, the chief financial officer's role in M&A continues to focus on due diligence and post-merger integration. This issue of eCFO focuses on business intelligence (BI) and, in part, on the challenges and opportunities that BI presents when two companies merge.
The $8-billion bid by Victoria's Tabcorp for New South Wales-based TAB provides a case in point. The nature of both companies' business, gaming, places BI at the core of their respective operations, with a very real and direct influence on day-to-day activities, risk management and, ultimately, profit.
It may not be too much of an exaggeration to say that integration risk is a priority on this deal, and that the overall result will be to a large extent determined by how successfully the companies' BI systems are joined as one.
Neither company was prepared to say much on this matter as eCFO went to press. This was understandable given the sensitive stage that the deal had reached at the time. However, Keith Power pulls together a useful guide for CFOs who are contemplating mergers - either externally (between companies) or internally (between departments) - and who are trying to get a handle on the potential BI-related risks, and how to manage them. A few useful pointers can be distilled:
• Do your homework - SAP's leader of technology strategy and execution, Shai Agassi, believes organisations need a clear pre-merger idea of where the two companies' data lies. They should also think of the BI strategy not in isolation, but as part of a complete enterprise application plan.
• Look for ease of integration - TAB's BI manager, Paul Ormonde-James, says scalability and flexibility are the beauty of his company's system. These are qualities that will make life much easier after the merger, for both Tabcorp and TAB.
• Appoint the right leaders - Brenton Smith, managing director of Business Objects in Australia and New Zealand, claims the main challenge on BI integration projects are the same as on other projects: politics and people's affiliation for existing systems. He recommends appointing a leader who has the authority to do the job, and who has no emotional attachment to a particular product.
Also in this issue, Keith Power looks at the latest thinking around the use of BI as a regulatory compliance tool, and at changes taking place in the BI industry that promise to affect the way your business selects, buys and implements its BI solutions.
|
