3

Chapter 3.

Business scenario and personas used in this book

This chapter describes the fictitious business scenario and personas that we use to demonstrate IBM Cognos Business Intelligence (BI) functions and use cases that we describe in this book.

In this chapter, we discuss the following topics:

򐂰

Business scenario overview

򐂰

Personas used in the scenarios in this book

© Copyright IBM Corp. 2010. All rights reserved.

21

3.1 Business scenario overview

Fictional company used for this scenario and samples: This book uses

the fictional

Great Outdoors

company, and IBM provided samples to describe business scenarios and product functionality. These samples are included with

IBM Cognos software and install with the IBM Cognos samples database. For more information about how to install IBM Cognos samples, refer to the IBM

Cognos Installation and Configuration Guide.

The fictional Great Outdoors company began in October 2004 as a business-to-business company. It does not manufacture its own products; rather, the products are manufactured by a third party and are sold to third-party retailers. The company built its business by selling products to other vendors.

Recently, the Great Outdoors company expanded its business by creating a website to sell products directly to consumers.

The Great Outdoors organization is made up of six companies. These companies are primarily geographically-based, with the exception of GO

Accessories, which sells to retailers from Geneva, Switzerland. Each of these countries has one or more branches.

The Great Outdoors company includes the following subsidiaries:

򐂰 GO Americas

򐂰 GO Asia Pacific

򐂰 GO Central Europe

򐂰 GO Northern Europe

򐂰 GO Southern Europe

򐂰 GO Accessories

Each of these subsidiaries sells camping equipment, golf equipment, mountaineering equipment, outdoor protection, and personal accessories. GO

Accessories sells only Personal Accessories.

Because the company has steadily grown into a worldwide operation over the last several years, it has been difficult for managers of the Great Outdoors company to run their branches and monitor only performance indicators based on sales. The Great Outdoors company executives need a clear view of where the pain points exist in the sales process.

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IBM Cognos Business Intelligence V10.1 Handbook

3.1.1 Business questions to address

Based on this scenario, chapters within this book focus on creating a dashboard that provides insight to address the following questions, helping the Great

Outdoors company sales executives to make better decisions:

򐂰

Are we selling the right products?

򐂰 Have we been growing our profit margin?

򐂰

Have we had a considerable number of returns?

򐂰 How many units of a product should we buy by each period of the year?

򐂰

How does the performance of our business compare to last year?

򐂰 How does the performance of our business compare to what we planned?

򐂰

Can we add meaningful information about our competitors?

򐂰 How successful are our promotions?

3.1.2 Information stored in the data warehouse of this company

The information management team of the Great Outdoors company created a data warehouse with information about sales targets, distribution, satisfaction

(customer, employee, and retailer), marketing (promotions, bundle sales, and item sales), and human resources to solve this information gap.

In this book, we focus on the Sales perspective in order to translate the data warehouse data into meaningful insights about the Great Outdoors company.

In our scenarios in this book, we focus on the following dimensions:

򐂰

Organization

򐂰 Product

򐂰

Retailer

򐂰 Order method

򐂰

Sales staff

򐂰 Purchase, charges and shipping from its warehouses

򐂰

Metrics, such as quantity, gross margin, revenue, gross profit, planned revenue, sales target and return quantity

Chapter 3. Business scenario and personas used in this book

23

3.2 Personas used in the scenarios in this book

To demonstrate the samples and business scenarios, this book refers to user roles, called

personas

, that represent people in a real Business Analytics deployment. We describe scenarios are that meet the business needs of these users. A user can take on the role of one or more personas (for example

Advanced Business Users and Professional Report Author).

The six personas are as follows:

򐂰

Advanced Business User

򐂰

Professional Report Author

򐂰

Modeler

򐂰

Administrator

򐂰

Analyst

򐂰

Business User

Each these personas has different needs and expectations that must be delivered by the Business Analytics platform. IBM Cognos BI addresses these business needs with a range of integrated tools, such as IBM Cognos Business

Insight and IBM Cognos Business Insight Advanced.

3.2.1 Advanced Business User

This persona has a deep understanding of the business needs and a good understanding of technology. The Advanced Business User leads the interpretation of business requirements and creates reports to answer business questions. In this book, the Advanced Business User’s name is

Lynn Cope

.

Persona’s needs

The Advanced Business User has the following business needs:

򐂰

Get the right advice to senior management

򐂰 Self-sufficiency

򐂰

Look at the problem from different angles

򐂰 Needs tools that integrate seamless and allow full collaboration with colleagues

򐂰

Get things done quickly

򐂰 Trust the data

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IBM Cognos Business Intelligence V10.1 Handbook

Solutions that can help this persona

The following solutions can help the Advanced Business User meet the business needs:

򐂰 IBM Cognos Business Insight

Create and change dashboards in order to organize the information; interactive exploration and analysis, apply filters, and sort and change the display type to discover meaningful details about the information and collaborate with insights about the business performance.

򐂰 IBM Cognos Business Insight Advanced

Easily create new reports, perform interactive exploration and analysis, apply filters, sort, group data, add calculation and statistics, add external data, and create additional objects to existent reports.

򐂰 IBM Cognos Query Studio

Easily create simple reports with relational and dimensional data models, using calculations, filters, groups, and sorting.

򐂰 IBM Cognos Report Studio

Create professional reports with advanced features, such as prompts, multiple objects, and advanced queries.

򐂰 IBM Cognos Analysis Studio

Easily perform interactive exploration and analysis on dimensional data models, slicing and dicing the information.

򐂰 IBM Cognos Analysis for Microsoft Excel

Perform flexible, interactive exploration and analysis of multidimensional data into Microsoft Excel.

򐂰 IBM Cognos Metric Studio

Align tactics with strategy and monitor performance with scorecards.

򐂰 IBM Cognos Mobile

Consume reports and dashboards from a friendly interface on mobile devices.

򐂰 IBM Cognos Planning

Insert and update plans and actual data.

򐂰 IBM Cognos TM1

Insert and update plans and actual data

Chapter 3. Business scenario and personas used in this book

25

3.2.2 Professional Report Author

This persona has a deep understanding of Cognos tools and creating reports based on business requirements. In this book, the Professional Report Author’s name is

Lynn Cope

.

Persona’s needs

The Professional Report Author has the following business needs:

򐂰 Scale to meet the needs of different types of users

򐂰 Quality content regardless of locale or environment

򐂰 Streamlined development environment

򐂰 Enhanced collaboration with business users

Solutions that can help this persona

The following solutions can help the Professional Report Author meet the business needs:

򐂰 IBM Cognos Business Insight

Create and change dashboards to organize the information. Apply filters and sort and change the display type to display meaningful details about the information.

򐂰 IBM Cognos Report Studio

Create professional reports with advanced features, such as prompts, multiple objects, HMTL, bursting, advanced queries, conditional behaviors, and multi-language support.

򐂰 IBM Cognos Event Studio

Create events to monitor business performance.

3.2.3 Modeler

This persona works closely with the Business Analyst to understand the business needs and to translate them in data models. The Modeler has a deep understanding of technology, databases, and leading practices of data modeling to deliver the best data models to be used in IBM Cognos solutions. In this book, the Modeler’s name is

John Walker

.

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IBM Cognos Business Intelligence V10.1 Handbook

Persona’s needs

The Modeler has the following business needs:

򐂰 Complete and consistent information

򐂰 Fewer iterations of models

򐂰 Ability to develop and change quickly

Solutions that can help this persona

The following solutions can help the Modeler meet the business needs:

򐂰 IBM Cognos Framework Manager

Rapidly create relational and dimensional models (Dimensionally Modeled

Relational) through a guided workflow-driven modeling process, check the execution path of the queries, define filters, configure data multi-language support and security filters.

򐂰 IBM Cognos Transformer

Create dimensional cubes with security filters to improve performance of the

Business Analytics solution.

򐂰 IBM Cognos Administration

Manage security of the packages and data sources.

򐂰 IBM Cognos PowerPlay® Studio

Perform interactive exploration and analysis on dimensional data models, slicing and dicing the information to check if the model is working as expected.

򐂰 IBM Cognos Report Studio

Create professional reports with advanced features, such as prompts, multiple objects, and advanced queries.

򐂰 IBM Cognos Data Manager

Create jobs to Extract, Transform, and Load data to the database data model.

򐂰 IBM Cognos Connection

Add data sources and connections to databases to be used with IBM Cognos

Framework Manager and IBM Cognos Transformer.

򐂰 IBM Cognos Query Studio

Create simple queries to check if the model is working as expected.

򐂰 IBM Cognos Planning

Create dimensional cubes (OLAP) for planning purposes.

򐂰 IBM Cognos TM1

Create dimensional cubes (in memory OLAP) for planning purposes.

Chapter 3. Business scenario and personas used in this book

27

3.2.4 Administrator

This persona is responsible for installing the overall IBM Cognos solution, configuring it, and assuring that the IBM Cognos services running and performing properly. In this book, the Administrator’s name is

Sam Carter

.

Persona’s needs

The Administrator has the following business needs:

򐂰 Application installation, configuration, and life cycle

򐂰 Manage complex environments

򐂰 Visibility into processes and activities

򐂰 Limit costly maintenance, upgrades, and downtime

Solutions that can help this persona

The following solutions can help the Administrator meet the business needs:

򐂰 IBM Cognos Administration

Monitor server resources, manage content, security, data sources, distribution lists, printers, styles, portlets, dispatchers, and set search indexes.

򐂰 IBM Cognos Configuration

Set server URLs, ports, content store database connection, LDAP preferences and start the services to run IBM Cognos.

򐂰 IBM Cognos Lifecycle Manager

Manage and make the transition from prior versions of IBM Cognos to the latest version.

Remaining personas: The remaining personas are not advanced users.

They are consumers of reports and dashboards that were created by an

Advanced Business User or a Professional Report Author. The personas described here might also perform ad-hoc analysis.

3.2.5 Analyst

This persona uses dashboards and reports when connected to the network

(mobile computer or mobile phone) or when not able to access the network to provide consolidated, detailed reports and statistical analysis to support management decisions. The Analyst also collaborates with colleagues to provide insight about Great Outdoors business performance. In this book, the Analyst is named

Ben Hall

.

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IBM Cognos Business Intelligence V10.1 Handbook

Persona’s needs

The Analyst has the following business needs:

򐂰 Analyze large or complex data sets

򐂰 Explore data from new perspectives and dimensions

򐂰 Identify relationships and trends

򐂰 Freedom to apply specific styles and formatting to results

Solutions that can help this persona

The following solutions can help the Analyst meet the business needs:

򐂰 IBM Cognos Business Insight

Create and change dashboards to organize the information. Use the dashboards for interactive exploration and analysis, to apply filters, and to sort and change the display type to discover meaningful details about the information. Collaborate with insights.

򐂰 IBM Cognos Business Insight Advanced

Easily create new reports, perform interactive exploration and analysis, apply filters, sort, group data, add calculation and statistics, add external data, and create additional objects to existent reports.

򐂰 IBM Cognos Query Studio

Easily create simple reports with relational and dimensional data models, using calculations, filters, groups, and sorting.

򐂰 IBM Cognos Report Studio

Create professional reports with advanced features, such as prompts, multiple objects and advanced queries.

򐂰 IBM Cognos Analysis Studio

Easily perform interactive exploration and analysis on dimensional data models, slicing and dicing the information.

򐂰 IBM Cognos Statistics

Perform three different kinds of statistical calculations—Distribution of Data,

Data Analysis, and Testing and Statistical Process Control—to display the best insights about the business performance.

򐂰 IBM Cognos Analysis for Microsoft Excel

Perform flexible, interactive exploration and analysis of multidimensional data into Microsoft Excel.

Chapter 3. Business scenario and personas used in this book

29

򐂰 IBM Cognos Mobile

Consume reports and dashboards from a friendly interface on mobile devices.

򐂰 IBM Cognos Planning

Insert and update plans and actual data.

򐂰 IBM Cognos TM1

Insert and update plans and actual data.

3.2.6 Business User

This persona uses dashboards and reports that have been created specifically for this persona to understand aspects of the performance for this persona’s area of the Great Outdoors company. In this book, the Business User is named

Betty

Black

.

Persona’s needs

The Business User has the following business needs:

򐂰

Access anywhere

򐂰

No investment in training or software

򐂰

Simple and intuitive interface

Solutions that can help this persona

The following solutions can help the Business User meet the business needs:

򐂰

IBM Cognos Business Insight

Consume dashboards and reports to help her to make decisions and take actions based on accurate analytical data.

򐂰

IBM Cognos Connection

Receive scheduled reports.

򐂰

My Inbox of IBM Cognos Connection

Store and open report views from previous executions of a report.

򐂰

IBM Cognos Planning

Insert and update plans and actual data.

򐂰

IBM Cognos TM1

Insert and update plans and actual data

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IBM Cognos Business Intelligence V10.1 Handbook