Business Intelligence Software

Pittsburgh, PA — December 22, 2008

Accurate operating data is the foundation for effective management; without it, decisions can only be based on gut instinct and experience – but no one has experience with the market we are moving into.

The ‘why’ of profitability

During the last downturn hotel companies that used Business Intelligence (BI) systems to analyze operating data were first to spot unnecessary expenses for utilities, and inappropriate staffing levels. These savvy operators trimmed expenses fast and stayed in business because they were prepared when occupancy and revenue dropped. They managed by the numbers and relied on BI reporting to compare their properties to spot the top performing hotels in each market. When they identified which properties were most successful, operators used BI to drill into their metrics to see the ‘why’ behind the numbers and implement best practices based on their most profitable propertys’ management strategies.    

New BI tools for the new economy

“Extended Stay Hotels has grown to 686 properties; at this level it can be a challenge to provide multiple performance reports to the executive team quickly,” said Ira Greenfield, VP of information technology at HVM LLC which operates Extended Stay Hotels. Many HVM managers request custom reports to track metrics such as gross operating profit and payroll expenses for side-by-side comparison of properties in separate markets; other executives may want actual vs. budget for occupancy, RevPAR and EBITDA during different time periods. “We use Aptech’s Execuvue BI system based on the latest version of the Cognos BI tools. It enables us to manage the data to deliver standard reports that our execs can customize to create their own guided ad-hoc reports from our initial format,” said Greenfield. “When executives have the tools to customize their reports, it makes the information more actionable and their management more effective.”

NextGen BI – simple to use

While business intelligence has always been a powerful tool for delivering flexible ad-hoc reporting to parse and analyze data on the fly, training was required to teach managers to use the application expertly. Conversely, static legacy reports are easy to use, but provide little flexibility. The newest generation of Execuvue BI systems bridges this gap with ‘guided ad-hoc reporting’ that delivers flexible business intelligence analysis and reporting with very little training that gives C-level and VP users the ability to get the data they need for better decisions without the training once required.

Dashboards – Faster information without email

Traditional legacy hotel management reporting uses spreadsheets that require line by line searches, but BI dashboards present information graphically on-screen with colored charts and other images to make the data easily understood. Aptech’s new Execuvue dashboards can be customized to quickly display ad-hoc report output. “It is easier for executives to manage by exception when they design their own dashboards and reports with our guidance,” said HVM’s Greenfield. “Secure online Dashboards give Extended Stay Hotels’ management the ability to view whatever metrics they want for segments, markets, regions or other criteria whenever they like. They do not have to wait for us to email a report.”

“Companies are investing in BI because it is the most effective analysis tool for chain management,” said Mark Manfredi, director of consulting for Edgewater Technology (EDGW:NASDAQ), a technology management consulting firm providing a synergistic blend of premium IT services. “Executives want increased visibility into their company’s performance. The tools they request include pre-defined reports and dashboards with flexible queries that enable them to be more spontaneous with their analysis to create ad-hoc information delivery that helps them manage by the numbers.” Edgewater provides services to HVM/Extended Stay, La Quinta and other chains to integrate their systems and data. “Reporting flexibility is essential because data consumers extend to vice presidents and C-level executives. They each have their own focus and KPI deliverables and Aptech’s Execuvue enables them to have the flexible reporting focus and formatting they require, including attractive presentation-quality information for financial reporting,” Manfredi said.

Role-based information delivery

Aptech’s knowledge of industry requirements and its “role-based” delivery is at the heart of Execuvue’s newest customized reporting options. Role-based delivery enables investors, executives, managers and staff to receive Execuvue’s BI analysis when and how they want it. Flexible delivery options take into account that each company has its own policies and adapts to nearly any variety of delivery requirements for any management position. For example:

    Property GMs – can receive audited performance data and labor numbers daily
    Regional VPs – may have customized regional flash reports emailed each morning
    Revenue managers – can get STR comp-set and property performance weekly
    Investors -receive entity performance every morning on their Blackberry
    Asset managers – can have property-group flash, labor and P&L output delivered on color coded dashboards.

Aptech Computer Systems

Aptech Computer Systems, Inc., based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, leads the hospitality industry in leveraging change by valuing human relationships and applying technology to solve business problems for people.

Incorporated in 1970, Aptech is a financial and operations technology solutions and service company whose products include state-of-the-art back office, business intelligence and enterprise planning products: Profitvue, Execuvue, Webvue and Targetvue. Over 2,500 properties, including very large chains, multiple-property management companies and single-site hotels, utilize Aptech solutions to understand their financial and operational data. By offering the hotel industry a solid resource of hospitality professionals, and through its proven ability to evolve technology offerings as the market dictates, Aptech is proud to have earned 100% customer loyalty. Execuvue and Profitvue are registered trademarks and MyExecuvue is registered to Aptech Computer Systems, Inc. All other trademarks are owned by their respective holders.

CONTACTS:

Aptech Computer Systems, Inc.

Cam Troutman, Director of Sales

135 Delta Drive

Pittsburgh, PA 15238

Phone: 800-245-0720 or (412) 963-7440

http://www.aptech-inc.com/?campaign=PRWebdashboardDec222008

Media Contact:

Julie Keyser-Squires, APR

Softscribe Inc.

180 River Springs Drive NW

Atlanta, GA 30328

Phone: (404)256-5512

http://www.softscribeinc.com

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TORONTO, ON — June 22, 2006

Panorama Software, a global leader in business intelligence (BI) and proactive business management (PBM), today unveiled plans to enable Microsoft® Office 2007 to work as a primary BI front end application for SAP BW through its flagship product – Panorama NovaView.

Currently Microsoft Office 2007 has new BI capabilities only available for customers using Microsoft SQL Server. By using Panorama NovaView, SAP customers will now be able to take advantage of all the features and benefits that Office 2007 has to offer. As well, Microsoft® and SAP customers will also be able to take full advantage of advanced functionality in Office 2007 beyond the basic out of the box capabilities.

“Panorama will enhance Microsoft® Office’s capabilities for information workers by extending its BI offering to include SAP BW users,” said Eynav Azarya, CEO, Panorama Software. “Such capabilities were previously limited to SQL Server users, so we are pleased to be the Company to enable this diversification for Microsoft® Office. Through this initiative, Panorama leads the middle-tier market for BI by building the Intelligence Hub to deliver SAP data through familiar front end programs.”

Panorama’s solution also offers an innovative integration with Microsoft® Outlook and introduces a new “personal BI dashboard” where users can drag and drop any type of data into a visible side pane. “Today information workers can easily see and identify tasks and emails in Microsoft® Outlook,” said Oudi Antebi, Vice President Marketing and Business Strategy, Panorama Software. “With Panorama NovaView’s Microsoft® Office integration, we will enable information workers to have easy access to core metrics from within Outlook in order for them to measure and identify tasks and processes.”

Panorama NovaView for Microsoft® Office is essentially modeled after the Microsoft and SAP joint product – Duet™. Formerly known as “Mendocino,” Duet™ enables users to interact quickly and easily with SAP business processes and data through Microsoft® Office applications focusing on R/3 transactions. Panorama is essentially building the “Mendocino” for the business intelligence market by making BI data from SAP available in Office applications.

“Panorama’s focus to deliver valuable BI data through Microsoft® Office 2007 is a testament to the Company’s ability to offer industry leading solutions to the market,” said Sean Thompson, Director SAP Alliance, Microsoft. “By leveraging the Microsoft technologies, Panorama is able to offer an innovative approach to making BI information more accessible to the average user, and enable more customers to reap the many rewards of functioning within the Office environment.”

About Panorama Software

Panorama Software, the company that sold its leading OLAP technology to Microsoft, helps global organizations unlock the hidden value of their information assets to improve business performance and results through SMART, SIMPLE and COMPLETE BI solutions. Panorama takes advantage of the Microsoft (NasdaqNM:MSFT) and SAP (NYSE:SAP) platforms through smart, simple and complete business intelligence and corporate performance management solutions.

Panorama, a leading innovator of business intelligence solutions, supports customers worldwide in industries such as financial services, manufacturing, retail, healthcare, telecommunications and life sciences. Panorama has more than 300 partners in 30 countries, and maintains offices throughout North America, EMEA and Asia. More information is available at www.panorama.com.

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Pittsburgh, PA — June 20, 2007

Aptech Computer Systems, Inc. will demonstrate new dashboarding functionality of its Execuvue business intelligence product in Booth # 525 at HITEC in Orlando, Florida, Orange County Convention Center, June 25 to 28, 2007.

Hospitality companies are implementing business Intelligence (BI) systems at a rapid pace, with top performers including Starwood, Extended Stay America, Sage Hospitality, Ashford Hospitality, Merritt Hospitality, and Peabody Hotel Group relying heavily on the accurate data analysis for running their operations. BI systems set a magnifying glass over all areas of a company’s performance management reporting and unlock the reasons behind the numbers. That insight helps hotel management maximize revenue, minimize expenses and increase profitability with informed, data-rich decision making.

The term ‘business intelligence’ refers to a broad category of business management software applications and technologies for gathering, storing, analyzing and providing access to operating data that enables enterprise users to make better business decisions. BI applications encompass decision support, query and reporting, online analytical processing (OLAP) and data mining.

Now, the next generation of business intelligence is here. The newest BI tools take informed decision making to the next level with on-screen dashboards. Dashboards are flexible graphic displays that communicate complex information more quickly for rapid response to changes in performance. While traditional reporting uses cross tab spreadsheets that require line by line searches for specific information, dashboards enable quicker, more confident decision making by translating numerical information from multiple corporate systems into easily understood, visually rich presentations. Gauges, maps, charts and other graphical elements show multiple results in a visual format that frees managers from cumbersome hardcopy reports to save them time.

BI Dashboard – ‘head’s up display’ of performance

What makes hotel operators and management companies unique is how they direct their enterprises – every company establishes its own performance indicators to manage by. Business intelligence dashboards can display a customized data screen designed for each company which enables managers to focus on their own specific data set to guide their operation. Multi-property hotel groups gain the greatest value from executive dashboards because dashboards provide a 50,000-foot view of an entire hotel portfolio across regions, flags and segments – like a heads-up display of global operations. For example, underperforming properties or regions may come up red, others in green so executives can easily identify areas that require action. This type of clear graphic exception reporting is faster to use and more detailed than any previous technology and lets executives act instantly where necessary.

Among the top BI providers, Cognos Incorporated (NASDAQ: COGN) is the most widely used by hospitality companies, and Cognos’ newest Version 8 release delivers powerful dasboarding capabilities. In our market, third-party hospitality specialists like Aptech Computer Systems have added their extensive knowledge of hotel related systems and operations to Cognos’ business intelligence and corporate performance management solutions. This combination produces an application with world-class functionality and hospitality-specific interfaces and metrics. Some of Aptech’s Execuvue licensees include Concord Hotels, Strand Development, Innkeepers Hospitality Management, Sandals Resorts, HI Development, Highpointe Hotel Corporation, ZMC Hotels, CHIP Hospitality and Dolce International

What separates true BI systems from simple data-mining tools is their ability to gather and analyze data from many different systems. A true business intelligence system is a free-standing data warehouse that captures, standardizes and stores information from separate applications for analysis, reporting and graphic presentation and dashboards. In the hospitality industry, BI systems also access data from sources outside the enterprise like Smith Travel Research and PKF cost numbers, and combine them with in-house metrics like occupancy, budgets, guest satisfaction, labor expenses and other measures to create a unified picture of a property’s performance as well as its surrounding business environment.

With the introduction of business intelligence dashboards hospitality companies have a tool to condense the stack of daily corporate reporting into a format that makes the most efficient use of an executive’s time. It is simply a better, more effective way to leverage important operating data for faster decisions – and higher profits.

Cam Troutman is director of sales for Aptech Computer Systems. He may be reached at http://www.aptech-inc.com/?campaign=PRWebViewpointDashboardsJune202007.

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5-Minute Executive Overview Business Insights for the Retail Industry Demonstration of a Business Intelligence (BI) dashboard for the retail industry. The demo shows a PerformancePoint / SharePoint dashboard solution.
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Las Vegas, NV — June 26, 2007

Clarity Systems, a leader in corporate performance management (CPM) solutions, today announced the launch of Clarity 6.1 Legal Edition, a solution designed to help professional services organizations better perform and manage their budgeting and forecasting activities. Please visit us online at www.claritysystems.com. The new release is being showcased at the annual 2007 Thomson Elite User Conference being held at the Wynn Las Vegas from June 26 to June 28.

As part of the highly functional Clarity 6.1 software solution, the Legal Edition includes sophisticated capabilities such as predefined data models, advanced acquisition forecasting and modeling functionality, business intelligence dashboards, and a complete financial reporting package. These enhancements are specifically designed to meet the complex performance management needs of law and other professional services firms.

“Clarity 6.1 Legal Edition has helped us to organize our budget and allows us to standardize and maintain a common budgeting process,” says Julie Rosenberg, Controller at Hodgson Russ. “Previously when someone had a question about the budget it was a matter of pulling out physical files or pulling up spreadsheets to confirm what the numbers mean and where they came from. Now everything is right at our fingertips. With Clarity, we can breakdown all information by practice area and department to compare budgets to actuals, analyze profitability, and conduct cost analysis.”

Some of the new features in Clarity 6.1 Legal Edition include:

Predefined data models

-Provides pre-defined planning data models that represent best practices of the legal industry

-Offers easy configuration to meet a firm’s specific planning and reporting requirements

-Multi-currency support

Advanced acquisition forecasting and modeling

-Streamlines ‘what-if’ modeling to effortlessly generate financial alternatives using different parameters

-Flexibility to copy, alter data and report variances between multiple versions

Business Intelligence (BI) dashboards

-Designs executive dashboards and supports interactive charts and graphs with Clarity Visualizer

-Creates profitability reports to review a firm’s profitability across practices or clients

Full reporting package

-Comes with a series of out-of-the-box reports including client, timekeeper, analytical and profit and loss reports

-Performs ad-hoc financial analysis and financial statutory reporting

-Includes drill-through capabilities to access supporting details and actual transitions to investigate and understand variances

-Creates and distributes highly formatted financial statements

Clarity Systems’ expertise in providing legal vertical solutions is strengthened by their reseller partnership with Thomson Elite, a leading provider of financial and practice management systems to professional services markets. The Clarity 6.1 Legal Edition solution connects to Elite Enterprise and Elite 3E databases ensuring a legal firm’s budgeting and forecasting processes seamlessly feed into each other.

“Clarity software helps Thomson Elite’s customers in their everyday operations,” said John Callahan, director, market segments at Thomson Elite. “With Clarity 6.1 Legal Edition, we are providing legal firms easy to use planning solutions with intuitive features, helping them remain efficient, capture more hours and spend more time on practicing law.”

“Our knowledge in the operations and management of legal and professional services organizations is evident in the functionality of Clarity 6.1 Legal Edition,” said Paul Hill, COO at Clarity Systems. “The software offers integrated, out-of-the box solutions necessary to ensure the development of effective plans for law firms.”

About Clarity 6.1 Legal Edition

Clarity 6.1 Legal Edition is a comprehensive planning, forecasting and financial reporting application for the legal vertical. The Legal Edition leverages the functionality of the Clarity 6.1 software solution to offer additional capabilities that meet the unique needs of the legal and professional services industry. It offers easy collaboration during the budgeting cycle, real time aggregations, driver based budgeting, top down planning through global assumptions, and bottom up adjustments by regional offices as well as other processes necessary to create successful plans for law firms.

About Clarity Systems

Clarity Systems delivers superior CPM software solutions, training, consulting, and advisory services for financial budgeting, planning, reporting, consolidation, and analytics to a large client base across North America. With a rich feature set, Clarity 6 is a unified application that offers the flexibility, security, and control needed to meet compliance requirements, make more informed business decisions, and ensure better corporate responsibility. As a Branham 300 top 100 IT company, Clarity Systems continues to experience a large growth in revenue, expand its client base, and lead the industry as the CPM solutions’ specialist. For more information on Clarity, please visit our website at www.claritysystems.com or call us toll free at 1-877-410-5070.

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Oracles OBIEE is a powerful and flexible foundation for any organizations BI strategy. This session will review the general capabilities of OBIEE and describe how it can be deployed to support a comprehensive plan to both leverage existing BI and reporting objects and to develop new information solutions. Presented by Stan Korwin.
Video Rating: 0 / 5

Karl Schultz, Professor at BICG University & Senior Consultant for BI Consulting Group, presents on how BI Publisher allows you to create high-fidelity report templates that are created and published via common personal productivity applications delivered directly or through Interactive Dashboards to end users. This presentation will give a general overview of BI Publisher as well as the key points in integrating with OBIEE. This session is intended to enlighten BI dashboard and answers users with what else they can do with BI Publisher.
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Roswell, GA — January 2, 2008

Cambridge Professional Group], an Atlanta-based full service search and staffing company specializing in legal, financial, technical and office support services has expanded their operations to include a location in Washington, D.C. Recently, Cambridge was ranked #15th on Staffing Industry Analyst’s “America’s Fastest-Growing Private Staffing Companies 2007″ list with an average annual growth rate of 49 percent.

Steve Sullivan, President of the Cambridge Group, needed a solution for his fast growth firm that would enable him to track the real-time sales and recruiting performance as well as provide other operational metrics and financial analysis. He knew that tracking and managing key performance indicators (KPIs) in each of his offices was critical to their success. Sullivan even considered developing his own software to track performance. He ultimately selected VCG’s Gateway, the first Web-based business intelligence dashboard designed to analyze, measure and predict staffing and recruiting firm performance.

And how has Sullivan liked the results?

Sullivan states, “Purchasing Gateway was a no-brainer for us. We have eliminated all manual reporting. Before Gateway, every revenue producer and manager spent at least an hour a week preparing reports that are now developed once, and then automatically updated. VCG’s Gateway has a graphical interface that is very user-friendly and gives us immediate visibility into revenue-generating activities and performance measures. All revenue-generating employees at Cambridge use Gateway.”

The Cambridge team can easily access their performance metrics and individual managers can view the KPIs for their teams and individual staff at anytime through the Internet. Additionally, managers can drill down to the detail behind specific metrics that can help them more effectively manage their team. The simplicity of this process enables Sullivan’s staff to focus on what’s important – revenue generation.

Sullivan points out that a key report Cambridge uses is what they call the “Recruiting Metrics Report.” This view of his business details individual revenue by month for both temporary and direct hire lines of business as well as revenue year-to-date and commissions. It also tracks the activities of their recruiting pipeline and provides key efficiency ratios and statistics in real-time.

Because of Gateway’s ease-of-use, Sullivan, on his own, has created 30-plus reports relating to his business.

“The result is quicker reporting and real-time feedback. For example, I realized one employee was receiving a 15 percent higher candidate rejection average than the company as a whole. This immediately gave me the information I needed to discuss this issue with the employee and positively affect his job performance.” Sullivan adds, “Finding performance issues and dealing with them before they become a problem is invaluable. Instead of seeing a report of the business metrics which are a week old due to a manual, time-intensive process, we see what is happening right now.”

Sullivan notes, “We also have realized cost savings. We no longer need a dedicated person to create specific reports for divisions, branches or lines of business. Any employee can create a report with minimal training. VCG provided the tools to measure goals specific to our company.”

“One employee has come up to me and said that Gateway is addictive. It is very easy for them to get their reporting to the appropriate manager in a timely manner. Easy, comprehensive self-reporting improves accountability as revenue-generating staff always know where they stand in relation to their goals,” said Sullivan.

Moreover, Sullivan says that they have only just begun to use Gateway to its full capacity. Cambridge will soon start using Gateway for trending and predictive analysis in addition to its current monitoring of KPIs and other activity metrics.

It’s this kind of proactive management that keeps Cambridge at the top of its game. Recognized as one of Atlanta’s Top 25 Staffing Companies by the Atlanta Business Chronicle, there is no limit to the growth and success that Sullivan and team can achieve.

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Karl Schultz, Professor at BICG University & Senior Consultant for BI Consulting Group, presents on how BI Publisher allows you to create high-fidelity report templates that are created and published via common personal productivity applications delivered directly or through Interactive Dashboards to end users. This presentation will give a general overview of BI Publisher as well as the key points in integrating with OBIEE. This session is intended to enlighten BI dashboard and answers users with what else they can do with BI Publisher.
Video Rating: 0 / 5

Oracles OBIEE is a powerful and flexible foundation for any organizations BI strategy. This session will review the general capabilities of OBIEE and describe how it can be deployed to support a comprehensive plan to both leverage existing BI and reporting objects and to develop new information solutions. Presented by Stan Korwin.



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WorldAPP Introduces Official Corporate Website

WorldAPP

Braintree, MA — July 16, 2009

WorldAPP Inc., a global on-demand web-application company ranked by Inc. 5000 as one of the Top 100 software companies in the nation, today announced the launch of its corporate website located at http://www.WorldAPP.com. With a well-branded layout and intuitive navigation, customers can easily access the information they need when they need it the most.

WorldAPP is the parent company responsible for Key Survey, a web-based software platform that automates the creation, deployment, analysis and reporting of surveys, and Extreme Form, an enterprise-class data collection application. The company further provides custom solutions development for clients worldwide.

“In developing our new website, we wanted to clearly communicate our steadfast commitment to customer service while promoting a cohesive brand that complements our solutions suite,” explains Cal Brown, WorldAPP CEO. “The new website offers one-click access to valuable information about our company, our product line and our custom development services.”

WorldAPP IDEAs, or Integrated Data Engineering Applications, are designed to meet a diverse range of functions. Custom development and integration services align seamlessly within each company’s existing infrastructure and workflow.

WorldAPP collaborates with stakeholders to define and analyze existing end-user processes, recommending alternate solutions to expedite and automate tasks. Plug-ins, java scripts, BI dashboards and custom portals are then designed to transform out-of-box Key Survey and Extreme Form solutions into Integrated Data Engineering Applications built to user specification. These solutions take current and projected growth into account, created with scalability in mind to quickly adapt to future demand. As a result, WorldAPP customers can enjoy a favorable return on their investment.

To learn more about WorldAPP or to speak with customer service representative, visit http://www.WorldAPP.com.

About WorldAPP:

Founded in 2001, WorldAPP Inc. is the industry leader in online on-demand data collection and management technologies. Headquartered in Braintree, Massachusetts with offices in Dallas, Kiev and London, the company’s enterprise data management solution, Key Survey, helps organizations launch, manage, monitor and evaluate online surveys and forms. Fully web-enabled, Key Survey offers a single, secure data repository wherein administrators and stakeholders may discuss campaigns and results while forming a valuable audit trail. The company offers turn-key products for small to mid-sized organizations and customized products for large enterprises, with its robust API-enabled solution launched in 2004.

Contact:

Olga Kurylenko

781-849-8118

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