Analytics Services
In addition to the services listed below, Hermetica has a number tools to support these. Please see the Tools section.
Benefits Tracking Systems
Hermetica has built numerous benefits tracking systems in the past ranging from simple Excel spreadsheets, through web based dash-boards, all the way to tracking systems making use of data warehouse intelligence (see below). Benefits realisation is a complex topic (book planned!) but Hermetica comes from the old school where cost benefits should eventually be clearly visible within financial accounts. Any planned savings should be downscaled by a confidence factor to reflect initiative status and the quality of the gateway process applied. Unfortunately modern pressures to be seen to do well often mean otherwise in many circumstances.
"Big Data" Data Warehouse Solutions and Business Intelligence (BI)
Hermetica cannot claim to have had experience dealing with terrabytes of data, but has routinely built systems involving gigabytes. Having developed software to perform data extraction from multiple different systems (including major ERP systems such as SAP and Oracle as well as operational spreadsheets), Hermetica has indepth knowledge of the extraction, cleansing, transformation, mapping, analysis and presentation processes involved. This extends to pulling data together from many different sites, often on a national or global basis. Hermetica is able to offer software tools to accelerate rapid prototyping of such solutions.
Purchasing Spend Analysis (all levels)
Anyone who has routinely been involved in delivering purchasing savings will know that the devil is, more usually than not, in the detail. Within the services sector this requires a proper understanding the rates paid for different skills and capabilities, within the manufacturing sector prices over time for individual parts delivered by different suppliers to different destinations. All too often there can be large gaps between what is recorded via a purchase order, what is delivered, how much is invoiced and what is paid to the supplier - even within environments where three-way matching is the norm. Hermetica attempts to reconcile all of this data.
Key Performance Indicator Monitoring
The analytics Hermetica has performed routinely collect information other than quantities and money. For part level risk analysis, information on quality, lead times, logistics requirements, usage etc, has been collected providing a rich basis for looking at other indicators. In the case of one outsourcing project Hermetica delivered a full suite for monitoring the performance of the supplier. Performance metrics almost always influence the actions of those individuals being measured. Quite quickly people also adapt how they report things to ensure they look good. For this reason, Hermetica is a firm believer in the "Balanced Scorecard" approach.
Data Remapping and Categorisation Solutions
In order to meet shareholder expectations, most large organisations have got large via acquisition rather than by natural growth. This means that raw data is often in different formats, categorised in different ways - even when the same system is nominally used. There are recognised standards for categorising data (eCl@ss, CPV, UNSPSC, SCCS) as well as routinely used proprietory norms (e.g. KKS, VW, etc.), in addition to those built up over many years by acquired companies. However, it is rare to find a single solution which fits all needs. Hermetica is experienced in building mapping solutions which take account this complexity.