Alacrity Results Management (ARM)

1. Alacrity Results Management (ARM) Alistair Davidson Eclicktick Corporation: www.eclicktick.com Howard Weinstein Cherniak Software: www.cherniaksoftware.com Draft 3.1 November 5th, 2003

2. Alacrity Results Management • ARM – innovative proven support for performance improvement with superior value and capabilities • Lower cost • More capabilities • Higher extensibility • Distributable over multiple servers • Possibility of software agents and genetic modeling attached to system

3. What is Alacrity Results Management Version 7.303? • A component based object oriented “end userized” application that provides: • Information warehouse collection from heterogeneous data sources • Large scalability and robustness • Modeling capabilities that can managed complexity • Consolidation capabilities • Modeling with different models working off same granular data • Performance reporting and scorecards • Integration with Excel for reporting • Rapid construction and modification • Batch construction via descriptive meta-language • Manual construction

4. Why Is ARM Different? • Developed by innovators in the strategic planning and strategic IT planning space • Has been used for large scale data collection, budgeting, consolidation, reengineering data tracking, IT portfolio tracking and market modeling • Designed to deliver fast large and complex projects on impossible deadlines • Designed to eliminate the time, costs, checking and frustrations of trying to make multiple technologies work together • Designed to be a long term sustainable architecture for rapidly changing problems • The underlying database technology is in production with 200+ large companies • ARM is in production in large multi-location environments where it is simultaneously being used as an information warehouse for low level data and also for modeling, performance tracking, budgeting and consolidation.

5. Why ARM? • Less expensive • 10-20% of equivalent solutions • More flexible • Supports multiple views of data • Quicker configuration • Designed to support rapidly changing needs and impossible deadlines • Batch construction by a financial analyst • Scales better • Federated • Different paradigm than OLAP or relational databases • Allows storage of raw operating data without performance penalty minimizing impedance mismatches between RDBs, OLAP datacubes and object architectures • Modern architecture • OO principles applied to business intelligence and business activity monitoring • Permits many to many relationships unlike relational databases • Does not experience exponential growth problems

6. Why Is It Less Expensive? • One solution provides • Integration with spreadsheets for input and output • A central information repository that can combine data normally kept in different places • An architecture that does not bog down as size grows • Essentially, you get an information warehouse for free

7. ARM Uses a Node and Link or Network Architecture • Nodes are smart objects that can be thought of as small OLAP cubes, preprogrammed to deal with time, accounts and variants, rather like a 3-D Excel spreadsheet with more functionality • Nodes can be linked in any way you want • You can have multiple and inconsistent linking to represent the complexity of organizations • e.g. linking organizational structure with processes with products with markets with projects

8. Versions Source information Date/currency knowledge Associative Relationships User input Other source Cost allocation relationships Calculation status Source currency Display currency Conversion method Multiple links to: sensors business units objectives budgets performance measures Can be used for reporting modeling and aggregation Smart Numerical Objects That Know: Numerical item Versions Repository data Formula management and formula cloning Time series roll up Consolidation and modeling formulae

9. ARM’s Smart Object Structure • A simple hierarchy • Plans consist of • Statements consist of • Items have • Item numerical calculations and • Meta-information • Items are associated with one or more parent nodes

10. ARM Has Fewer Limitations Than Commonly Used Technologies • Any type of item • Any type of chart of accounts • Any number of consolidation paths or owners of a numerical item • Any number of business units • Any number of consolidation layers • No actual software size restrictions other than a billion objects per server • In the interests of full disclosure, an ARM smart object consists of a group of objects, but databases can be spread over multiple servers to get around the billion objects per server limitation

11. Example: Why Is This Important for Client X? • Significant development time in Hyperion (cost: around $250K of programmer time over 3 years) • Current model probably close to limit to practicality • Future growth problematic • Processing takes 10-12 hours (down from 24 hours) • Five cubes need to be maintained • A 10 gig. eSSBase model demonstrates the problem of a 9 dimensional representation of the business • The ideal system mapped out by planning would probably not be implementable directly in Hyperion as it requires more integration of information than is current achievable • The model is so large that only 10% of the actual data is stored. 90% has to be calculated for size reasons.

12. Client X • The really expensive part of the process is the roughly 30-45 person years of time for maintaining the planning system every year • The even larger expense is the unmeasured cost of missed opportunities from inability to tie together • trends and costs, • markets and opportunities, • promotions and channel activity, • production and procurement

13. An object approach allows more dimensions than an OLAP tool Organizational unit Customer object Scorecard object Employee object Product object Skills & knowledge attributes Date object Statement object Process object Market research object Financial object Contract object Project object Numerical object Source object Resource object

14. Multiple Consolidation and Modeling Trees off Same Source or Aggregated Data Shadow consolidation Business unit Project Business unit Channel Process Mfg. data Customer segment

15. ARM’s Network Model Architecture • Does not grow exponentially like an OLAP cube • Easily handles many-to-many relationships that are impossible in relational databases (RDBs) • Allows raw data to be used by multiple applications and views • Once consolidations and aggregations are calculated they don’t need to be recalculated so raw data can be mixed with aggregated data • Control over incremental and batch processing also an option • Virtual database architecture provides flexibility in processing power • Will be increasingly important with grid computing

16. ARM Scales Robustly • ARM is based upon industrial strength database technology that has been around for over 20 years (Gemstone Object Database) • ARM has smart recalculation so large size does not mean long recalculations • Unlike OLAP or RDBs, ARM’s processing does not slow down exponentially as complexity increases • ARM has superb auditability and flexible drill down so the source of information is always visible • ARM can be constructed in batch using a metalanguage in Excel. This permits use of standard Excel functionality for constructing repetitive knowledge models and instances of smart objects • Surprisingly, existing clients with ARM don’t need DBAs.

17. We don’t like to overclaim • For a number of years, Gemstone has supported a virtual database capability so data can be spread across networks • Local countries can have their own repositories and models • Head office can grab data without caring where it is located • ARM requires only trivial modifications to take advantage of this feature in Gemstone

18. Modern Architecture • Object oriented design is critical to controlling software costs • Spreadsheets are not typically OO in design • Neither are RDBs • ARM delivers the benefits of OO and has an order of magnitude lower cost of ownership

19. Sources of cost advantage • Elegance • One solution can provide • An information warehouse • Consolidation • Modeling • Cost allocation • Reporting • Integration with spreadsheets • A repository for flat files from multiple data sources • An extensible architecture • Agents, web front ends, integration with relational databases are all doable at low cost

20. ARM Savings • Reduced testing time • Reduced number of tools • Reduced maintenance costs • Faster development times • Elimination of DBA function • Less expensive sourcing of data for new applications and reports • Reuse

21. The Big Benefits (1) • A better view on the problem leading to • Lower costs • Better modeling • Lower cost of changing analysis • The ability to analyze what you need to analyze when you need to do it • Massive integration abilities at low cost • An architecture that can scale globally • Built in business activity monitoring (BAM) functionality

22. The Big Benefits (2) • Performance report (red, amber green) for scorecards • Superb drill down that matches or exceeds OLAP capabilites • High integration with existing spreadsheets (in and out) • Faster calculation with more data in the system • Lower maintenance costs

23. Example: Modeling a Telecom Fixed Wireless Vendor’s National Market by City by Customer by Service Down to Capacity and Equipment Consumption, Costs and Profitability Residential demographics Penetration curve Bandwidth requirement Customer premiseequipment Business customers Sales activities Customer service activities Node deployment Customer installation Cost of acquisition Marketing costs Network capital costs Customer profitability Profitability by customer, node, network or business unit

24. The underlying technology in ARM • Gemstone • 200+ major customers on 6 continents • State of the art object management with transaction processing options • Over 20 years of leading edge development • Alacrity Results Management • Cited by the Convergent Engineering Institute as one of the Top 7 object applications in the world as an example of deployed object representations of enterprises

25. Consider the following: • What kinds of opportunities are your missing because • You can’t tie together informational silos • Market research to sales to promotions to inventory to production to marketing to finance • It takes too long to do certain kinds of analysis • You spend most of your time checking data rather than making decisions based on data • Too many people are required to find an answer • Too much time is spent on maintaining “value reducing” mappings e.g. • RDB – OLAP – Spreadsheet – OO Model

26. Contact Information • Alistair Davidson, Eclicktick Corporation • 29 Clinton Street, Suite 305 • Redwood City, CA 94062 • Phone: 650-298-9072 • alistair@eclicktick.com • Web site: www.eclicktick.com • Howard Weinstein, Cherniak Software • 10 Commerce Valley Dr. East, Suite 400 • Thornhill, ON L3T 7N7, Canada • Phone: 905-771-7011 • howard@CherniakSoftware.com • Web site: www.cherniaksoftware.com