Fresh thinking and advice on business intelligence and enterprise performance management.
Collaborate 08 was truly a great conference. We were proud to be a part of it. Click here for a copy of our well-attended presentation on business intelligence strategies for public sector entities. It also has some great ideas for commercial entities as well.
The Irus SeaPort-e contract has been bolstered by the addition of five major industry leaders over the past few months. Industry leading systems integrators AT&T Government Solutions (Vienna, VA), BAE Systems (Bethesda, MD), BearingPoint (McLean, VA), CSC (El Segundo, CA), and General Dynamics Information Technology (Fairfax, VA) are now part of the Irus Group SeaPort-e team. SeaPort-e provides engineering, financial, and program management contractor support services at the Navy Virtual SYSCOM, which includes NAVSEA, NAVAIR, NAVSUP, SPAWAR, Strategic Systems Program (SSP), and NAVFAC, as well as Commander, Naval Installations (CNI) and the US Marine Corps.
Chris D’Ascenzo, BAE Systems Vice President, Defense Solutions, said, “Joining the Irus Group team as part of the SeaPort-e contract is another way for BAE Systems to provide critical IT assistance to the Department of the Navy. We’ve been providing mission-critical services to the Navy for decades and look forward to servicing Navy Virtual SYSCOM through the Irus Group SeaPort-e contract.”
Click here to see the complete press release.
Vijay Suri headlined a breakout session at the upcoming Oracle Business Intelligence, Warehousing and Analytics (BIWA) Special Interest Group Summit Conference in Reston on October 2 and 3. Suri’s presentation was entitled “Strategies for Helping Federal Agencies Optimize Oracle BI Tools and Processes.” It was the only presentation at the conference that focused specifically on the business intelligence needs of Federal Government agencies. The presentation cited real examples of where business intelligence processes are in use at Federal agencies including two case studies where Irus Group consultants have significantly assisted Federal agencies in solving complex business problems using BI tools and processes. Request a copy of the presentation.
We look forward to attending the Oracle Federal Forum at the Ronald Reagan Building on October 11. Among the technical sessions we’re looking forward to is “Federal Financials Customer Panel” which will feature Lawrence I. Neff, Deputy CFO, at the Department of Transportation and Terry Hurst, Deputy Assistant Secretary at Department of Health & Human Services.
Budgeting and planning is essentially the same across vertical markets, however, in the public sector there are distinct differences that only a firm intimate with the process can understand. If I have a certain amount of money left to spend through the end of the year, and my spending curve is such that I will run out of money in the tenth month, I know that I need to do something now so that I don’t run out of money in the tenth month. This may sound like a simple challenge, however, it’s not. It requires a sound and diligent process to ensure that the right data has been utilized to get the information and turn it into the knowledge to make the right business decisions.
The problem is that the government must have money available, so they need to find funds from other places to cover shortfalls. An example is the Iraq war. The amount allocated to the war initially was quickly used up so money had to be found in other parts of the government to fund the war. The impact of these decisions trickles down to the lowest level. For example, how easy is it to move the money allocated for upgrading base facilities to support soldiers on the ground?
Here’s the big issue. The good thing is that Government captures most of the information that they need. The bad thing is that they capture it in legacy systems that don’t talk to each other. What we see so often is the classic situation when someone gets information out of one system, then keys it in the second system, and then re-keys it in the third system and so on and so forth. Government understands that this is their system and has to deal with it, but they also know that there are smarter, more efficient ways to get to the data and make sense of it.
Unfortunately, the government has to make decisions based on data housed in multiple silos strewn across multiple data sources that don’t talk to one another. For instance, we had a government client who wanted to see budget vs. actuals reports at a glance, but couldn’t because the data was in two different data sites. It was nearly impossible for them to access the data and put into one report, until we built a new system for them that brought everything together.
Budgeting and planning is essentially the same across vertical markets, however, in the public sector there are distinct differences that only a firm intimate with the process can understand. If I have a certain amount of money left to spend through the end of the year, and my spending curve is such that I will run out of money in the tenth month, I know that I need to do something now so that I don’t run out of money in the tenth month.
This may sound like a simple challenge, however, it’s not. It requires a sound and diligent process to ensure that the right data has been utilized to get the information and turn it into the knowledge to make the right business decisions.
The problem is that the government must have money available, so they need to find funds from other places to cover shortfalls. An example is the Iraq war. The amount allocated to the war initially was quickly used up so money had to be found in other parts of the government to fund the war. The impact of these decisions trickles down to the lowest level. For example, how easy is it to move the money allocated for upgrading base facilities to support soldiers on the ground?
Here’s the big issue. The good thing is that Government captures most of the information that they need. The bad thing is that they capture it in legacy systems that don’t talk to each other. What we see so often is the classic situation when someone gets information out of one system, then keys it in the second system, and then re-keys it in the third system and so on and so forth. Government understands that this is their system and has to deal with it, but they also know that there are smarter, more efficient ways to get to the data and make sense of it.
Unfortunately, the government has to make decisions based on data housed in multiple silos strewn across multiple data sources that don’t talk to one another. For instance, we had a government client who wanted to see budget vs. actuals reports at a glance, but couldn’t because the data was in two different data sites. It was nearly impossible for them to access the data and put into one report, until we built a new system for them that brought everything together.
Good article posted this week in Government Computer News by IDC Government Senior Analyst Shawn McCarthy. He writes about some of the ways that government would utilize business intelligence systems such as:
Check out the article at http://www.gcn.com/print/26_15/44541-1.html.
Government prime contractors often look to Irus Group as a key subcontractor due to our functional and technical expertise. Few consulting companies have the expertise in Federal and commercial budgeting and planning that our consultants have. We’ve been building and developing solutions using technologies from Oracle, Hyperion and Cognos for a long time and have continued to be a valuable partner for our government customers who use the systems. Our consultants always sit at the table when our customers are strategizing on ways to put better budgeting and planning processes in place. All of our teaming partners view us as more than an Oracle DBA or applications shop and value our expertise in Business Intelligence and implementing Corporate Performance Management (CPM) solutions.
On the technical side, we have some of the smartest Oracle Business Intelligence consultants in the industry working for the company. Our clients reap the rewards of having consultants on the team who are excited about the technology, are certified in its use, and appreciate how it helps them solve their business problems. The primes that bring us onto their team know that their Federal end user customers will benefit from a first-class solution.