I was on my way home from a business trip earlier this year when I noticed something strange. Something that make my BI antennae stick up.
Single Version of the Truth?
How much longer until the train arrives?
That a simple question, right? I can see on the monitor above the entrance to the Airport shuttle that the next train arrives in 33 seconds. No problem – that’s easy.
But Are You Sure?
If it were only that easy. You see. There are actually two answers. If you looked closely at the yellow TV below, you would see some contradictory information.
So what do you think now? Which number is correct? 33 seconds or 40 seconds? In my case, it didn’t really matter – it was just the matter of waiting, but in the same of CFO accountability and financial scrutiny, it could be a significant problem and even land you in jail.
Do Yourself a Favor
I’m not sure where these train monitors are getting their information but clearly they are NOT doing it the same way because the monitors are presenting two different answers. This does nothing but spread distrust and confusion. Help!!
We talk a lot about the strong semantic layer at the foundation of the BusinessObjects Product Suite. It’s essential to not only make information easy to access and consume, but to know that it’s trusted. It’s absolutely critical that if two users ask for the same information they get the right results.
Do yourself a favor. Save yourself hours of time arguing about who’s spreadsheet is right. In an Enterprise Business Intelligence environment, you can provide an environment where regardless of who the user is – if two users ask the same question they will get the same answer. We call this Single Version of the truth and SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence makes it possible.
As far as the Atlanta Airport is concerned – as my 16 year old would say: FAIL!
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