Alexey Yudin: Future BI – intelligent systems for all

: Alexey, according to reports of the leading analytical agencies, BI systems are at the peak of demand in a segment of business applications now, and crisis years helped to rise to this class of systems. Why so occurred?

Alexey Yudin: Crisis placed priorities in a new way. To the forefront there were tasks connected with identification weak and strengths of business, rational resource allocation, search of possible points of growth. The unstable economic situation demanded from heads of speed of reaction, capability to make management decisions even more quickly.

BI provides efficiency of receipt of the data necessary for assessment of a status of the company, the external environment provides means for the analysis and modeling of a situation, control of achievement of goals and efficiency of divisions.

In new conditions BI systems for solving of tasks of modeling, scenario and target forecasting, optimization, risk management and high-level support of management decisions became more demanded.

TAdviser: Whether the average portrait of the consumer of BI solutions changes now? Whether the business intelligence in a segment of medium and small business and in what type reached?

Alexey Yudin: According to the researches Gartner, the companies of medium and small business since 2007 become one of key vectors of development for world vendors of BI. Functional requirements at the sector of SMB are identical to requirements of large enterprises, but their budgets on development of IT it is much less. With respect thereto the largest suppliers of BI solutions among whom and Prognoz company, modify today and expand product lines, creating inexpensive and easy shrink-wrapped software products in installation and operation, being guided by SMB.

TAdviser: Whether there are some verified signs by which it is possible to determine need of implementation of a BI system for the company? Any simple test, from a series "if you answered in the affirmative at least three questions from ten, then a system is necessary for you"?

Alexey Yudin: The main incentives for implementation of a BI system – aspiration to increase in efficiency and speed of acceptance of management decisions. At the same time the following situations can be possible symptoms of need of acquisition of BI:  

• in the company too much time for data collection and processing, preparation of the reporting and analytical materials for decision support is spent, at the same time the obtained information is not always relevant;
• there are discrepancies in the management reporting and plans of different divisions since information gathers from separate automated systems;
• management decisions are often made instinctively as for their justification there are not enough analytical materials, a possibility of carrying out complex calculations, including for the perspective period;
• let's difficult exercise control of accomplishment of plans and achievement of goals of divisions, including results of work of subsidiary companies.

TAdviser: How to exercise in the choice of a BI system judgment? Give, please, specific advice how to orient in those systems which are presented at the Russian market?

Alexey Yudin: In terms of the choice of a BI system it is more correct to be guided by the specific contractor regarding implementation, as we know, 100% of ready-made solutions do not happen. Today a large number of BI developers is presented at the market, but only units from them have own analytical platforms providing flexibility of solutions. Besides, recently, especially during the crisis period, the major factor is existence of the sublimated industry experience provided by a set of standard solutions that allows to perform works in the shortest possible time and to provide optimal price relation and qualities.

TAdviser: How did develop the BI expert of your company for the last year? What most significant events could you celebrate? Whether there were some unusual projects, graceful or non-standard implementations about which it would be interesting to our readers to know?

Alexey Yudin: In 2010 Forecast continued cooperation with all the traditional clients and also executed a number of new interesting projects. So, on July 1, 2010 on the official site of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation the analytical section of the portal of the Ministry of Finance developed by our company was open for the general access.

This year we became a winner of competition on development and deployment of a large-scale system of collecting, processing, visualization and the analysis of social and economic and social and political development of the Yaroslavl region and its municipal entities. The developed system incorporated the most modern BI technologies and our advanced achievements in the field of business solutions for regions. In particular, in its framework the whole complex of industry subsystems and models of alternative forecasting, the situational center of the Governor is developed.

In 2010 Forecast continued expansion on the international scene. New projects for the IMF and the World Bank were successfully implemented. Projects on the African continent through the African Development Bank were actively kept.

Tender was won for creation of model of the analysis of railway infrastructure of Denmark for Danish railway company Banedanmark. New tools will help the staff of Banedanmark to optimize the long-term plan of repair and replacement of the equipment, to predict key indicators of development of a system of railway tracks of the country.

The management system for investment processes of the Republic of Kazakhstan developed by Prognoz company for the benefit of the Ministry of Economic Development of RK was provided to the President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev within opening of the New university of Astana, having been highly appreciated by the head of state.

In the shortest possible time we implemented the system of collecting and consolidation of business plans of the company for the largest operator of petroleum products market in Kazakhstan of JSC KazMunaiGas — Processing and Marketing (JSC KazMunaiGas Trading House).

In 2010 we implement the information and analytical system for the National energy company "Ukrenergo" allowing to perform monitoring of key indicators of activity, to create and control execution of plans and budgets, to prepare the management reporting, to provide a possibility of forecasting of development of the company.

This year the information and analytical system of collecting, processing and monitoring of data on container transportations for large port company Abu Dhabi Terminals (UAE) is put into commercial operation.

TAdviser: Tell, please, how your BI system in the last year developed? What world trends in development of BI you picked up what functionality was added and what for?

Alexey Yudin: In 2010 our company made high-quality breakthrough in development of the BI platform – the Analytical FORECAST complex. We expanded a production cycle due to creation of the mobile direction which is in great demand at our clients already today. Besides, the major step forward was transition to the service-oriented architecture (SOA) with the cross-platform application server that becomes recently relevant both for domestic, and for foreign IT markets.

In development of the web application of the Analytical FORECAST complex the company is guided by use of enhanced capabilities of HTML5 standard. Though completion of works on HTML5 is planned for 2024, the new standard is so demanded today that all modern browsers already support its most important components. With its help it is possible to build in vector graphics structure of the page and to manage it through JavaScript that in the long term will allow to get rid of resource-intensive plug-ins, such as Adobe Flash or Microsoft Silverlight completely.

It would be desirable to note a release of the new version of the designer of analytical panels allowing to create the complex interactive show-windows intended for the most effective acceptance of management decisions.

TAdviser: As it seems to you whether those technology innovations in BI about which blows the same Gartner are demanded already in Russia: mobile BI, BI in "cloud" and on the basis of the SaaS model, socialization of BI systems, visualization and others? Whether technological solutions are ready at vendors if this demand becomes mass?

Alexey Yudin: Certainly, the specified directions of development of IT are demanded already now and many vendors rather dynamically move in the direction of perspective technologies. Mobile technologies are improved every day, and in the near future it will be difficult to imagine a BI system without the corresponding mobile client. At the same time, the main lack of the modern market of mobile applications is the lack of the ready-made certified solutions on data protection. This factor imposes essential requirements to the level of confidentiality of the published information that occasionally considerably limits analytical opportunities of applications. As for "cloud" calculations, it is the effective instrument of expansion of sales channels. The industry of "cloud" calculations promptly develops and, according to forecasts of analysts, by 2012 about 10% of all expenses on IT will fall to its share. Our company in the nearest future is going to start new service based on SaaS model.

TAdviser: How, in your opinion, will market development of systems for a business intelligence in the next years in Russia move? What general trends put already now, could you note?

Alexey Yudin: In our opinion, in the next years in Russia following to current trends, such as "cloud" calculations, web technologies and mobile access will be natural development of a business intelligence.

Growth of availability of analytical applications to the end user remains one of top trends. Today more and more wide range of specialists of the companies and external users, and not just top management and experts-analysts actively use results of work of BI systems. With respect thereto the popularity of services for work with a BI system via the Internet grows including via devices of mobile communication.

We note the growing needs of our customers for more advanced analytics – modeling, forecasting, optimization, risk management, situation analysis.

Interest in BI from the sector of small and medium business increases. With respect thereto demand for the SaaS-applications and shrink-wrapped software products as the most economic and easy in installation and operation will grow.

TAdviser: Thanks!