UT STUDENTS APPLY COMSHARE'S E-BUSINESS SOLUTION

The University of Toledo (UT) is an urban university based in Ohio, focused on educating future leaders of the 21st century. "The future of higher education relies heavily on the application of technology in the information intensive society," says the university's president, Dr. Vik J. Kapoor. "Our mission is to provide future business leaders with leading-edge technology skills to compete in the highly competitive global economy." To fulfill its mission, UT faculty in the College of Business Administration chose Comshare Inc's Web- architected business intelligence software, DecisionWeb, and Microsoft's SQL Server 7.0 OLAP Services database to provide students with the pragmatic knowledge and experience necessary to make insightful business decisions.

Comshare is a leader in e-business software applications for management planning and control (MPC), which includes planning, budgeting, financial consolidation, management reporting and analysis. Today, under UT's guidance, future business professionals have the technical tools necessary to understand all aspects of a business's operation and how to harness technology and volumes of data to help guide their decision-making.

The Challenge

The University of Toledo's College of Business Administration offers a variety of degrees to approximately 400 graduate and 2,700 undergraduate students. "Today's business environment is characterized by increasing complexity, voluminous information, and greater uncertainty," says Dr. Jeen-Su Lim, marketing department chairman for the College of Business Administration. "Decision-makers have to contend with rapidly changing customer requirements, shrinking market niches, and highly focused global competitors. Because business environments change frequently, the decision-maker's view can easily become out of touch with reality. Key to ensuring a business's survival is to provide its decision-makers with tools that keep them aware of change so that their business decisions are based on the most current information."

Lim was faced with the challenge to make a fundamental change to courses offered at the college. Courses needed to reflect more real-world business experience and decision-making. "Current marketing books end with `the future is in business intelligence,' yet no one effectively addresses this topic," says Dr. Lim. "A new approach was needed to train our future business leaders. We needed to use realistic and practical systems to train them in making business decisions using today's huge databases containing volumes of customer information." Dr. Lim and research associates, John Heinrichs and Lonnie Hudspeth, agreed that the computer hardware and software capability for using and supporting large executive information systems exists. The key problem was effective use of these systems.

"Knowledge management is becoming the key to maintaining any possibility of competitive advantage," says Heinrichs. "Yet, there is still a `knowledge gap' when it comes to using business intelligence tools to obtain meaningful information and make sound decisions," confirms Hudspeth. The answer to Lim's challenge resulted in a partnership with well-respected leaders in business intelligence systems and information handling: Comshare Inc and Microsoft. Getting a degree in business, at least at The University of Toledo and other colleges following its lead, will never be the same again.

The Solution

The new UT course, "Marketing Analysis and Decision-Making," is grounded in a Web-based application for rapid development of custom OLAP (online analytical processing) applications using Comshare's DecisionWeb software and Microsoft's SQL Server 7.0 OLAP Services database. "Comshare is a leader in business intelligence software," says Dr. Lim, "especially in the area of management planning and control. Applying Comshare DecisionWeb, coupled with Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 OLAP Services, was the obvious choice."

The course abstract speaks for itself: "This educational offering was developed to prepare future business leaders to compete in the competitive global `market space.' The course immerses students in the problems and opportunities faced by business firms, provides them with the business intelligence tools utilized in the industry, ensures that they have access to the same volume and quality of information as current business leaders, and provides them with creative strategic thinking exercises and cases."

Course objectives include the development of strategic decision-making and critical questioning skills, the achievement of proficiency in the use business intelligence tools, and the application and implementation of business models. "The course is about how to create powerful and elegant solutions that set the standard for business intelligence management in the 21st century," confirms Dr. Lim. "It is designed to address the gap between the development of the business intelligence tools and the effective use of them in making strategic business decisions."

Today, business firms working with UT have access to students trained in leading-edge business intelligence (BI) concepts and techniques, executive training to improve the use and effectiveness of BI tools, and leading-edge business research projects on business intelligence.

The Benefits

Recently UT's unique educational offering was a finalist for the Decision Sciences Institute's (DSI) 1999 Instructional Innovation Award. DSI is the union of the quantitative and behavioral approaches to managerial decisionmaking, encompassing all of the functional areas of business. The Instructional Innovation Award is DSI's prestigious award given to recognize excellence in courses developed specifically in college and university business schools. With more than 4,200 members worldwide, the Institute is the premier professional organization of choice for business scholars.

"Together, Comshare and Microsoft provide the technical tools necessary to understand all aspects of a business firm," confirms Heinrichs. "Using the best business intelligence software and the latest business models enables students to develop insightful, strategic thinking through built-in analytic capabilities that foster those analytic skills."

DecisionWeb is a Web-based business intelligence application hosted on a centralized database for enterprise wide financial analysis, executive information systems, performance measurement, and management reporting. Because of this Web architecture, students can link to it from anywhere using a Java-enabled Internet browser. "Students can prepare their course work by accessing the application from work, home, or a variety of locations on campus," Heinrichs continues. "Using a database constructed for a virtual cosmetics firm, LJL Industries, several vital lessons are made and various business models that are integrated into the application are explored."

Course champion, Dr. Lim, further attests, "The design of LJL Industries allows us to link customer satisfaction data with internal financial data, external census, competitive, and industry data. The ability to ask the right questions is the most important skill we can cultivate in our students. Gaining proficiency with business intelligence tools and understanding decision models enables future business leaders to develop insights more quickly and respond to the competitive market."

Remarks from recent graduates of the UT course confirm its value to them, whose newly gained experience in the use of business intelligence and strategic thinking will set them apart in a marketplace where those skills are in short supply: "This is the best course I've taken so far in the MBA program!" says one student. "It definitely made you think," says another. "It combined all the knowledge of business concepts learned from past years. Critical thinking was a must!"

About Comshare

Comshare Inc is a leading provider of e-business software applications for management planning and control (MPC), which includes planning, budgeting, financial consolidation, management reporting and analysis. Comshare's MPC applications deliver business-critical information over the Web that can be used to make sound planning and management decisions. In business for nearly 35 years, Comshare is one of the top independent software companies, with customers around the world, many of which are Fortune 500 and Financial Times Top 1000 companies. Comshare is an Hyperion Alliance Partner, an IBM Business Partner, a Microsoft Certified Solutions Provider, and an Oracle Business Alliance Partner. For more information on Comshare, call 1-800-922-7979, send e-mail to info@comshare.com or visit Comshare's Web site at www.comshare.com.

Contact Comshare Inc, Sandy Ellinger 734-769-6194 sellinger@comshare.com or University of Toledo, School of Business Admin, John H. Heinrichs 734-459-0365 jheinri@pop3.utoledo.edu.