Pilot your company

By R.Ramasubramoni | 10 Jul 1999

Do you lead an organisation? Have you ever flown a plane? Not many people would say "yes" to both questions. But then the differences are not too vast. Especially if you have come across 'management cockpit'. If you have entered one (like the one in the picture above), you will know what we're talking about.

Management cockpit is a new concept implemented by Origin International, part of the Philips group of the Netherlands, and a leading IT services provider with extensive experience in SAP R/3. The system, developed by a Belgian research company, NET Research, provides an answer to complex and dynamic business needs. It helps overcome fragmentation of corporate information, which hinders effective internal communication.

'Management cockpit' is part of SAP's Strategic Enterprise Management (SEM) solutions based on its 'business information warehouse'. The cockpit is actually a room in which a manager can sit and access strategic information. He can use that information directly to take decisions that will help his organisation cope with competition.

The room consists of four walls that go by the names black, red, blue and white. These walls depict performance parameters notified as mission critical factors, in the form of suitable graphics displayed on wall-mounted screens, six on each wall.

the black wall shows the principal success factors and financial indicators
the red wall shows market performance
the blue wall shows the performance of internal processes and employees; and
the white wall shows the status of strategic projects.

A high-end PC, designated the 'flight deck', allows drilling down for detailed information. The combination of the walls and the PC helps bring out essential information that the top level management requires -- in terms of corporate structure, interrelation of various factors, identification of issues, indicators and areas, monitoring them, and a visual means of communication based on these.

The system integrates external data and non-SAP transactional data to give an overall picture of the company. Together they allow competitive analysis based on existing market conditions.

SEM takes its first step with the management cockpit. At a time when everybody is into implementing ERP, as a result of which the competitive edgd of the ERP adopters is getting blunted, management cockpit provides a new system to leverage a company's ERP system, increase the return on investment of the ERP project, and gain an advantage in the marketplace.