A move by Brio Software to package its business intelligence tools as a suite has won the approval of Christchurch International Airport.
The airport has been using Brio products to draw together market intelligence from internal and external sources for three years.
IT manager Stewart Gibbon says the ultimate aim is to extend the use of these tools to external partners and suppliers, probably through a portal.
Gibbon was one of about 80 people who attended a Brio conference in Sydney last week, at which Brio executive vice president of worldwide operations Todd Davis explained the company’s recent relaunch.
Davis praised Brio’s products but said they had been poorly marketed. He said Brio no longer wanted to be pegged as a business intelligence vendor because business intelligence typically indicated IT-centric tools which are used by a handful of power users.
Instead it will integrate its products into the Brio Performance Suite (including Brio Intelligence, Brio Reports and Brio Portal), which is aimed at a wider range of users. Early next year it will launch Brio Performance Applications, to offer functionality around analysis, reporting and querying for existing customers.
Christchurch Airport’s Gibbon says bringing the tools together into one suite will make it much easier to spread it across the organisation. The airport has 18 people using the tools ranging from the chief executive to the main supervisors and would like to extend this further.
“We find it most valuable for getting an insight into the industry and the market. The airport has a lot of external factors that influence business such as the global economy, national security issues, airline viability. A lot of market intelligence and operational data comes from business partners and suppliers.” The airport combines that data with its own and analyses it for trends and other issues, then “regurgitates” that data to business partners outside the company. “To do well in business today you need to partner with suppliers so it’s not just internal staff who has to use this tool. We have to open it up to third parties,” he says.
Nevertheless, he says the biggest constraint on business intelligence was getting lots of users to take advantage of it.
Gibbon says there is no specific time frame for the plan.
Brio claims 80 sites in New Zealand including Inland Revenue, Land Transport and Safety Authority and Vodafone New Zealand. It is sold here by gen-i and DSS (Decision Support Systems).