Archive for the ‘Financial Management’ category

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AutoTrader.com creates raving fans with financial data warehouse

February 19th, 2010

In an IMF web forum, Thursday, Erick Falthzik, Business Intelligence Delivery Manager for AutoTrader.com, discussed the attempts by the organization to create raving fans through their financial data warehouse.

 

Falthzik gave an overview of the organization and explained why it was necessary for the enterprise to build a financial data warehouse. He also provided insight into the technical challenges the organization faced, the solutions that they created, as well as the result of the solution implementation.

 

Company Overview

 

AutoTrader was created in 1997 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Ga. The organization is the “leading internet automotive classifieds’ marketplace.’  Currently there are over 2,000 employees nationwide and approximately half of those individuals work at the Atlanta headquarters while the rest make up the field sales force across the country. There are teams also stationed in Detroit and Los Angeles to be closer to manufacturing sites. There are currently about 20,000 customers nationwide and the website showcases 3 to 4 million listings. The website attracts, 14 million unique monthly visitors, and this past Monday the website had a record setting of almost 1 million visitors which was attributed to what Falthzik described as an advertising blitz during the NBA All-star weekend.

 

There are three different brands including: AutoTrader.com, AutoTrader Classics, and AutoTrader Latino.

 

Why Build a Financial Data Warehouse?

 

The organization had years of rapid growth and projected that there would be a continuation of this growth. The culture thrives on accurate, timely, and insightful information. At the time when the project was initiated, the current financial reporting application supporting revenue was costly to maintain, difficult for employees to navigate and understand, used an interface that had no ad hoc analytic capabilities, and was slow to change as the business changed. In addition, it was also providing multiple versions of the “truth.” As a result, the technical challenge became merging data from numerous systems including:

·        -M.A.T. (My AutoTrader)

·        -C.A.R.S. (CRM System)

·        -Kenan Accounts Receivable

·        -Dealer Community System

 

The business technology stack for the organization included an oracle database, Informatica-ETL (extract, transform, and load), and Reporting using MicroStrategy, Java, Crystal Reports, and SAS.

 

Technical Solutions

 

The organization decided to devise a technical solution which would create a financial data warehouse. The data marts that were created were aimed to serve two distribution methods which included:

 

1.      Utilizing MicroStrategy for power users (finance team, dealer sales business managers, and sales operations.)

 

2.      FastLane Portal written in JAVA was sent to sales reps,sales district managers, and sales regional managers/directors.

 

 

To view the powerpoint presentation please click here.

 

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IT Financial Management Predictions

February 11th, 2010

In an article for CIO.com, Brian Carson discussed his interview with Apptio CEO and co-founder Sunny Gupta who revealed his top five 2010 financial management predictions. As Carson indicates, based upon the idea that elements of the IT cost structure will be more discernible, Gupta’s predictions include:

 

1.      Adoption of greater financial management discipline by CIOs.

Cost cutting has made it even more of a realization that proper IT financial management cannot be achieved with implementation of certain disciplines. As a result, automated financial systems will be helping to manage IT for the enterprise.

 

2.      IT will be required to demonstrate value of services by CEOs.

IT organizations will be required to communicate the value of their services. As the article indicates, IT organizations track the cost of delivering goods and services in addition to having systems in place that analyze, allocate, and reduce costs. IT departments who are unable to explain total cost of their services will lose credibility with their organization leaders.

 

3.      The CIO role will shift to a service provider

Traditionally, CIOs’ focuses have been centered on technology. However, as the IT landscape evolves, CIO roles become modified to better suit the changes that IT organizations must adapt to. CIOs’ role will also include being a service provider and being able to pool IT resources for efficiency. Improvements must be made in processes that handle the supply and demand of IT services.  

 

4.      IT leaders must understand costs and benefits of cloud computing and software as a service (SaaS).

Some organizations choose to outsource IT services. Therefore it is important for leaders in the IT organization to understand their internal cost per service and to determine if cloud computing or Saas is beneficial for the enterprise. Cloud computing and SaaS will increasingly be adopted though there is still uncertainty about the full cost of cloud computing services.

 

5.      Virtualization drives the shared services model.

With the pairing of virtualization and the shared services environment, IT management systems that track cost and usage of IT services will become more sophisticated as there is increased adoption of these tools.  

 

What are your IT financial management predictions for 2010? Tell us on Twitter @ITInfoForum

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How IT spending is affected by President Obama’s 2011 budget proposal

February 8th, 2010

According to an article by Patrick Thibodeau from InfoWorld, President Obama’s budget for 2011 would flatten federal IT spending and would require consolidation of IT operations in federal agencies.

Thibodeau quotes in the article that “government IT operations have a history of not delivering the type of productivity and performance gains ‘that are found when IT is deployed effectively in the private sector.’”

As a result, federal agencies are being encouraged to implement strategies used by the private sector to cut costs and increase efficiency. In addition, the agencies are also advised to utilize Web 2.0 technology “to collaborate on best practices with experts in the private sector.” Overall the IT budget would boost spending to $79.4 million as compared to $45 billion in IT spend in 2001.

Part of the cost cutting strategy includes cutting the number of federal data centers. In addition, there is a proposal to centralize delivery of IT services to multiple agencies through cloud computing.

Click here to read Patrick Thibodeau’s article in its entirety.

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