Extending Enterprise Business Intelligence Beyond Your Firewall

Knowledge is critical to your success in today�s competitive environment. The management of knowledge in the form of business intelligence (BI) is now a standard component of a successful business strategy.

The increasing adoption of BI systems has led to more organizations having the capability to share business information and get a better view of internal performance. You make better business decisions by harnessing real-time performance and sales data and sharing it, where key decision-makers are able to analyze and act on it.

Organizations with established BI systems are adept at creating and delivering actionable information to key players within their corporate structure. They�ve worked hard at making information accessible, timely and, most importantly, secure. But how do these same organizations share critical information with customers or partners outside their firewalls?

Even the most technically advanced organizations continue to deliver valuable reports via email, and often they still print hardcopies of important material and circulate it by hand. Not only are such methods ineffective, since printed data is static and quickly becomes outdated, they also leave the information unprotected. There is no way to control or monitor who sees the documents delivered this way.

Sharing Information Outside Your Organization

There was a time when all business-critical data resided within the company, and only people inside your organization needed it to see it � but that�s no longer the case. Today, sales, marketing, finance, and operations managers must interact daily with partners, suppliers, and customers.

As companies grow, often through acquisition, data sharing needs increase. Large, multinational companies must share information across their entire organizations, both off premises and on premises. Such organizations need a knowledge-sharing solution that extends beyond their firewall and is fast, simple, and secure. They are also looking for a solution that extends the value of the BI investments they�ve already made.

Smaller companies also have data-sharing needs and security concerns, and it�s even more critical for them to find a solution that doesn�t require a huge effort of time, energy, or IT resources.

crystalreports.com from Business Objects, an SAP company, answers these needs for both small and large enterprises. This on-demand, software as a service (SaaS) solution lets you share information with the right people � instantly, simply, and securely over the Web. Accessing crystalreports.com via a Web browser, you can share critical information in the form of a Crystal report. You can segregate report-viewing privileges among any number of unique groups and extend the system to as many users as needed � all with no software to install and no additional dependency on IT. You also can schedule reports to be uploaded from on-premise systems

Tapping the Benefits of crystalreports.com

Quick Return on Investment

SaaS products are increasingly popular among businesses that seek quick and easy deployments, cost savings, and greater flexibility to serve an increasingly mobile workforce. As hosted services, on-demand solutions allow you to quickly deploy new business applications without making additional IT investments or undertaking time-consuming deployment projects. Because of its subscription-based pricing, crystalreports.com enables organizations of all sizes to acquire BI software functionality on a pay-as-you-go basis. Your organization can get started quickly, adding users and reporting capability as needed to meet business requirements. In addition to substantially reducing the upfront cost and time investments of traditional on-premise applications, crystalreports.com also permits your users to access vital business information anytime and from anywhere, via the Web.

Leverage Your BI Investment

crystalreports.com increases the value of your existing BI system. Simply upload any Crystal report to crystalreports.com and anyone in the world that you want to have access to it, can. Crystal Reports� allows you to communicate with vendors, clients, and account managers, using emailed PDF files. crystalreports.com can enhance your existing Crystal Reports implementation by automating report distribution and ensuring secure access to reports.

By extending your BI capability beyond the corporate firewall, crystalreports.com improves your decision-makers� ability to make key business decisions based on timely and accurate data. crystalreports.com lets you direct each client to a specific URL, and have them see the contents of their particular report folders. You can schedule the publishing of these reports, and you can allow users to actually refresh their reports online.

In addition to leveraging Crystal Reports from Business Objects, your users can share Xcelsius dashboards and Microsoft Office documents over the Web, and give everyone faster, easier access to the information they need.

Users simply log onto crystalreports.com and view the reports you specify for them. You can:

• Define user and group permissions and create report groups
• Schedule reports from your desktop
• Alert users via email, when new reports are ready for viewing
• Refresh reports with "live" data inside the company firewall
• Enable predictive analysis; run what-if scenarios with Xcelsius models

Summary

Today�s global business requirements make it imperative that companies of all sizes have access to real-time data wherever it resides and be able to share that information instantly and in as useful a form as possible. Businesses are no longer confined inside their corporate structures, and they can no longer afford to restrict their business intelligence to within their firewalls.

Business Objects understands that today's business managers expect to get information instantly, no matter where it resides. You want live access to data, regardless of its source or location. A key to reaching this goal is to continue to broaden the connectivity to the everyday information that your people need�and to allow reporting, query, and analysis on demand.

Business Objects understands that today's business managers expect to get information instantly, no matter where it resides. You want live access to data, regardless of its source or location. A key to reaching this goal is to continue to broaden the connectivity to the everyday information that your people need�and to allow reporting, query, and analysis on demand.

crystalreports.com provides companies of all sizes with a turnkey, enterprise reporting system. And, if you have an existing BI system, crystalreports.com leverages your investments by allowing you to extend your use beyond the corporate firewall and take advantage of the ubiquity of the Internet.