CASE STUDY
Global IT Outsourcer Analyzes XML-Based Contract Data
ual
The company is a global technology outsourcing provider and is a subsidiary of one of the world’s largest consulting and information technology services providers in the world, with more than 190,000 professionals working in over 160 countries.
Offering
Business Challenge
Global technology outsourcing provider
subset of all available data, and critical details The company offers complete IT services were lost in the process. on an outsourced basis to some of the world’s largest organizations. Managing the The pressure was on to find a solution that contracts associated with these thousands of outsourcing projects is a huge, and critical, would: task for the company. These contracts are the • Enable fast, in-depth reporting on all of the data—not just a shredded sub-set. single most important documents of record for all revenue related to an outsourcing • Analyze its customer revenue engagement, and one contract may have commitments by customer, year, industry thousands of pages covering several years and geography. and hundreds of millions • Distinguish between of dollars. fixed and variable The company implemented the revenue commitments, Skytide Analytical Platform to In order to manage as well as analyze details give them unprecedented insight all of this contractual into their XML-based data. Unlike in original contracts information, the company traditional BI tools that can only versus contracts altered implemented and uses analyze structured data, the with “change orders.” a Contract Management Skytide Analytical Platform is the • Assess the future Information System first and only business analytics impact of contract (CMIS). Given the platform that can understand clauses, such as “Most inherent complexities of complex data from virtually any Favored Customer contractual information, source – including semi-structured Pricing” or “Termination the CMIS was built on a data such as XML. for Convenience”, on hierarchical, XML-based the ongoing forecasted framework, rather than revenue stream. a relational one. While this approach was great for managing the The Skytide Solution complex, multi-format data contained in the The company implemented the Skytide contracts, it posed significant challenges when it came time for analysis and reporting. Analytical Platform to give their executives unprecedented insight into their XMLIf the company wanted to generate reports based data. Unlike traditional BI tools from the XML data, it first had to be shredded that can only analyze structured data, the and loaded into a data warehouse, and Skytide Analytical Platform is the first and custom data models had to be built. This only business analytics platform that can labor- and time-intensive process meant that understand complex data from virtually any users often had to settle for analysis of only a source – including semi-structured data
Objective Ability to provide in-depth analysis and reporting on highly-complex contratual data in a timely manner.
Challenges • Data analysis was both labor and time intensive, with high data loss in the process • Executives wanted higher visibility into the contractual data that would impact future revenues
Skytide Delivered • Greater visibility into global revenue commitments • Fingertip access to all details related to customer contract terms • Replaced labor-intensive processes with higher value automated processes • More precise forecasting of financial impact of contractual clauses • Improved customer value and company profits.
such as XML. Skytide is also able to operate on data where it resides, which meant that the company did not have to transform and store data in a data warehouse, dramatically accelerating time to analysis. Skytide accesses contract information directly from the existing CMIS system, organizes this information into a set of multi-dimensional cubes that analyze the revenue forecast based on their set of variables, and provides reports as a set of pre-defined queries that can be called from the CMIS application. The key information is then presented to users via Excel pivot tables within a web browser and is automatically filtered based on the information protection policies in the CMIS system – so that while all users may request the same report, the analysis returned is customized to their security privilege profile.
Skytide was deployed as a two-tier system to process XML data from contracts accessed directly from the existing CMIS system and presented to users via Excel pivot tables.
Agreement Early Warnings
Key Terms & Conditions
The company implemented Skytide in less than four weeks, whereas previous attempts to solve their contract management analysis dilemma with traditional BI tools took months and never delivered Contract Deals in the desired results. The Skytide implementation required Value Process almost no IT involvement. Additionally, ongoing use and by Year maintenance of the system, including adding new reports, requires no special IT skills, allowing business users to access the system directly.
The Results
Skytide Reporting Cubes
Contracts
Skytide has enabled executives at the company to better understand and manage revenue commitments across the globe – which has in turn boosted customer value and company profits. Each responsible executive is able to review an analysis for his or her sector that includes not just the base information on revenue commitments by customer, but also critical forward-looking analysis as to whether the relationship is expanding or shrinking over time. Executives can easily drill down on all information – whether seeking an overview of their entire customer portfolio, details on the performance of a single customer, or specific contract terms that could affect forecasted revenues – to make informed business decisions.
The Skytide system has allowed the company to replace a labor-intensive manual process that had limited analysis capabilities, with a fully automated process that provides information far exceeding their expectations. Since Skytide processes the full continuum of data, including structured relational data as well as semi-structured and unstructured data, the company now has access to all critical contract data stored in its XML-based system.
Put Skytide to Work for You Skytide, Inc. 1820 Gateway Drive, Suite 300 San Mateo, CA 94404 Phone: 1.650.292.1900 Fax: 1.650.312.1400 E-mail: info@skytide.com Internet: www.skytide.com © 2007 Skytide, Inc. All rights reserved. Skytide and the Skytide logo are registered trademarks of Skytide, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Discover how the Skytide Analytical Platform can uncover the power of your data. Contact us today at info@skytide.com or 650.292.1900.
About Skytide Skytide delivers business analytics solutions that provide timely and unprecedented insight into the constantly changing environment in which today’s businesses operate. The XML-based Skytide Analytical Platform is the first and only solution available today that can understand complex data from virtually any source, including unstructured data such as XML and HTML, delivering the visibility necessary to make critical business decisions. Skytide customers include Fortune 1000 companies across a wide range of market segments, including manufacturing, financial services, healthcare, utilities, and retail. Founded in 2003, Skytide is a privately held, venturebacked company headquartered in California’s Silicon Valley.