November 17th, 2009
FusionOps launches business intelligence, process automation modules
FusionOps, an on-demand enterprise performance management company, will launch a new business intelligence module that may compete with the very ERP vendors it partners with.
If successful, FusionOps could be on to something big, but it has some tricky waters to navigate. FusionOps’ business intelligence tool—called Insight—promises to plug into a company’s enterprise planning system and deliver a return on investment in 12 weeks. FusionOps will first connect to SAP and later Oracle.
“Our initial focus is on SAP. then Oracle,” explained Ram Mohan, CEO and president of FusionOps. “We wanted to be very ERP centric with the ability to derive metrics and get data from ERP systems. We understand SAP data models and are a software partner.”
FusionOps’ business intelligence tools, which will be self-serve, will ride shotgun with a process automation service called Streamline. According to Mohan, the business intelligence module can be integrated and running in hours. FusionOps secret sauce is that it takes read-only access to SAP data documents, uploads them to a data center (hosted by RackSpace) and then provides a dashboard with metrics, reports and key performance indicators.
The company has priced Insight at $100 per user with enterprise data hosting of $3,000 a month per company. There’s minimum of 10 users.
The company also launched an on-demand service dubbed Streamline, which automates procurement and supplier management processes. FusionOps is pitching ROI in 8 to 12 weeks. Streamline is based on functionality needed and subscriptions start at $5,000 a month.
Here’s the pitch:
It’s hard to argue with the return potential with a SaaS-based business intelligence tool, but Mohan acknowledges some potential conflicts. After all, SAP bought Business Objects for business intelligence and Oracle owns Hyperion. Are these two giants really going to let FusionOps poach customers in the long run?
“I see the conflict with BusinessObjects,” said Mohan. “BusinessObjects is a tool that derives a lot of metrics, but it’s cumbersome. Customers can use BusinessObjects, but if they want to see metrics out of the box they can use our service.”
Mohan’s bet: FusionOps’ pitch of metrics in a day will trump a 6 to 9 month implementation. “Our biggest competition is ERP vendors,” said Mohan.
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and Editorial Director of ZDNet sister site TechRepublic. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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