NEW EDS BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE SERVICE CREATES
INFORMATION ARSENALS FROM DATA WAREHOUSES
EDS has signed a letter of intent to lead a business partnership with A.T. Kearney and NCR Corporation to deliver business intelligence services that create information arsenals by bundling management and solutions consulting with technical delivery across the extended enterprise, and also offer the additional option of sharing client risks and rewards based on results.
EDS clients are adding value to their businesses by using EDS Business Intelligence Services to:
EDS defines business intelligence as the bridging of decision support, traditional data warehouses, industry knowledge, and operational systems that allow a corporation to profit from its own and third-party data across the extended enterprise. Business intelligence is an opportunity for many industries to realign and focus on building extended enterprises and reinventing traditional value chains.
Aaron Zornes, executive vice president and director, Application Delivery Strategies, META Group, said, "It's commonplace now for IT departments to build data warehouses. But very few of these data warehouses allow organizations to share information across the enterprise, let alone across the extended enterprise." Zornes says that the problem causing most companies the greatest pain -- what he calls their "pain point" -- is the difficulty of integrating marketing systems with the rest of the enterprise.
Data warehousing has matured, and tomorrow's opportunities exist in the synergies of the extended enterprise. Only EDS addresses the strategic, tactical, and technical needs of clients in this market. EDS Business Intelligence Services bundles management consulting to identify improvement needs, experience creating extended enterprises and proven skills to manage the daily complexities generated by multiple data warehouses.
"EDS will transform data warehouses into information arsenals by sharing information across the extended enterprise and triggering more timely and informed decision-making," said Hartmut Burger, EDS executive vice president. "Companies are realizing the next competitive advantage comes from mobilizing isolated data warehouses and identifying unforeseen opportunities that add to the value chain. For this reason, we selected top-tier partners for EDS Business Intelligence Services to create this innovative new service.
"A.T. Kearney's 70 years of strategic consulting and operations expertise will enable EDS Business Intelligence Services to offer shared risk and reward and the ability to create a powerful contribution to extended enterprises and make them more competitive," Burger said. "NCR will be EDS' lead implementation business partner for the data warehouse aspect of EDS Business Intelligence Services. NCR offers the highest levels of performance, scalability, reliability, and security with the lowest administrative costs through its total data warehouse solutions, built on the foundation of its Teradata parallel database."
"The evolution of the digital economy requires companies to use information in entirely new ways," said Doug Aldrich, vice president and managing director of A.T. Kearney's Strategic Information Technology Practice. "EDS' Business Intelligence service offering, in conjunction with A.T. Kearney's strategic insight, provides the essential tools for companies to form extended enterprise networks and create new value for customers."
"NCR is extremely pleased to develop a partnership with EDS in bringing its Business Intelligence Services to market," said Mark Hurd, senior vice president at NCR Corporation. "Through this unique alliance, NCR and EDS will work to develop repeatable, high-value Teradata-based data warehousing solutions that solve particular business challenges for companies of all sizes in key industries."
EDS Business Intelligence Services provides EDS clients with the ability to leverage the leadership experience of a multi-talented business partnership team and create tomorrow's extended enterprise realities today. EDS Business Intelligence clients will be able to take advantage of the following services to meet their business intelligence needs:
A.T. Kearney and the EDS industry units bring broad and deep industry insight and affiliations that enable the establishment of value-added extended enterprises, allowing clients to reinvent their value chain and become key drivers in their extended enterprise.
By working with clients, EDS integrates of knowledge, information, and processes between enterprises to empower information partnerships across the extended enterprise.
EDS will leverage its Centrobe unit for its expertise in delivering the full spectrum of Enterprise Customer Management (ECMsm) services. Centrobe integrates all customer touch points and manages customer interactions so every facet of an enterprise can benefit from customer information.
EDS and NCR will focus on the total solution of people processes and technology and provide insight on information-based business improvement within a functional department, enterprise, or extended enterprise.
EDS provides single point-of-contact management, enhancement, correction, update, and maintenance of existing operational systems that currently house enterprise data.
EDS has been a leader in the global information services industry for over 35 years. The company delivers systems and technology expertise, management consulting, business process management and electronic business leadership. EDS, which reported revenues of $15.2 billion in 1997, offers solutions to improve the performance of more than 9,000 business and government clients in about 50 countries. The company's stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange and the London Stock Exchange. Visit EDS via the Internet at http://www.eds.com.
A.T. Kearney is one of the world's largest and fastest growing management consulting firms, generating annual revenues in excess of US$1 billion. With a global presence that spans every major and emerging market, A.T. Kearney provides strategic, operational and information technology consulting and executive search services to the world's leading companies. A.T. Kearney (http://www.atkearney.com) is owned by information services leader EDS.
NCR Corporation is in the business of transforming transactions into relationships. NCR is a recognized world leader in data warehousing solutions, ATMs, point-of-sale, high performance scanners, and support services for retail, financial and national accounts markets. NCR's business solutions are built on the foundation of the company's long-established industry knowledge and consulting expertise, value-adding software, global customer support services, a complete line of consumable and media products, and world-leading hardware technology. More information about NCR and its products may be found on the Internet at http://www.ncr.com.