EPM Enables More Effective Use of BI Tools

January 12, 2009

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Every investment in enterprise software was made on the promise of improving business performance — driving more revenue, retaining customers longer, eliminating costs, or enabling growth.

Sadly, the software industry is littered with stories about expensive software projects not delivering on that promise — falling far short of expectations for the business return on the investment made. But it’s not the software; it’s not the technology; it’s not even the business process that deliver on that promise. It’s the people–the end-users–who use the tools those software products provide to do their jobs.

When the achieved business results are not on plan, business intelligence systems often fall short of providing answers because there is no real intelligence about the performance of these end-users. Even the most robust business intelligence or business performance management systems do not have effective measurements of adoption, efficient use, and effective use of the application by the end-users. Without these measurements, companies are unable to identify and resolve critical issues that impact the user’s ability to effectively execute.

Are employees actually using the right transactions to execute the business process? Are they using them in the right way? Are the employees efficient, or are they making significant errors? Are the transactions effective, or are they cumbersome, requiring employee-invented workarounds?

A new category of software tools can give you those answers and not leave your CEO hanging: end-user experience and performance management (EPM). EPM solutions give organizations a new focus on end-user adoption, utilization and performance, uniquely capturing a complete picture of the end-user experience and behavior, including:

Comprehensive application utilization metrics: which transactions are used, in what sequence and for how long?
Actual user-experienced response time metrics: which transactions are slow and inefficient leading to unproductive employees?
Comprehensive system, application and end-user error metrics: What critical errors do users encounter?
Where are users having specific issues, and what training is required? Which individual users need specific assistance?

It’s more important than ever that companies get maximum value out of their existing assets and investments. Real end-user intelligence that EPM tools deliver provide comprehensive metrics–real data–that can show what is happening as your people use enterprise software technologies to execute the processes that drive the business. That can show where it’s working well, and where it’s not. This enables the company to take the right remedial actions. No business intelligence system is complete if it doesn’t include end-user intelligence – because it’s the people that make the business happen. That’s the kind of insight that end-user management solutions provide – real end-user intelligence.

Lori Wizdo is the Vice President of Marketing for KNOA Software.

Posted by Carl · Filed Under Interviews, jobs