TM1 Forum

Hi all,

I've studied some planning tools such as : TM1 ,SAP BPC ,Oracle Hyperion Planning and i saw that there are only some typical planning process (Workforce planning ,Capex planning ,Allocation expense...) Now I wonder are there any specific-process for specific-industry such as : manufacturing, banking ,insurance... ? Would you please share your ideas !

Thanks ,
Tin Pham

IMO:The purpose of BI is to have a platform that fits with an individual firm's way of measuring business that is relevant to the organization. There are some constants, like Headcount / Fixed Assets, however the nuances in these shared metrics will vary from firm to firm and the detailed definition and base calculations establishing these items will vary. For example, a manufacturing firm's planning environment will greatly differ from a management consulting firm's because of the difference in the business models. A one size fits all wouldn't really be as useful. Like I said above, there are shared metrics but they really only share a name or purpose.

The name to the process, some of the concepts and methods maybe common, e.g. Workforce planning. However, the approach taken can differ from industry to industry and company to company.

Oracle have attempted to make modular planning applications that cater for a variety of needs, their Workforce planning and Capex planning models in the Oracle Planning suite do a decent job. But the issue is when it comes to complex specific requirements.

While some modules are generic across all businesses such as headcount or capex there are also inductry specific practices such as manafacturing/insurance/banking. I'm being careful here not to recommend the old Cognos Planning (EP), but one of the good things they did and I understand they are/were attempting to replicate in TM1 was "industry blueprints". To develop these blueprints they got some modellers and people with in-depth knowledge of an industry to develop a best practice model. At one of the Cognos forums I managed to have a chat to one of the guys involved with the manafacturing blueprint and it was a great start to get some ideas and talk to industry people in their own language. Certainly for manafacturing it helped me understand the constraints between sales/manafacturing and logistics. There may still be some videos/information on the IBM web site.

My complaint with the blueprints is there were marketed as "out of the box" which creates unreal expectations. In reality, they were a great reference to help you build a model.

Steve