A BI Integration Story - from the Walt Disney Company

My Tagline: "Walt Disney Company is much more than theme parks"

I wonder what Walt would make of his legacy could he comment today? Proud no doubt but also i suspect concerned that the customers are receiving the same level of service he envisioned on the opening day of the first theme park. He need not worry. They do, and some.

So what does Walt Disney Company do now?

This is what Walt Disney is now involved in so they need to have a very good reporting suite to bring them the information as they need it, when they need - fast, accurate and above all relevant to the customer:

1. Media, including ABC and ESPN
2. Studios, including acting and animation
3. Consumer Products
4. Online Services
5. Theme Parks and Resorts

Lets concentrate on the latter to get some perspective, as the speaker for this session was Kenneth Hierman, Finance Manager for Walt Disney Theme Parks and Resorts. This division of the parent company is busy - they have Walt Disney resorts in California, Florida, Paris, Argentina and Tokyo (apologies for any i missed) as well as the 'Adventures by Disney' offering. The latter offers an insight in the company's vision - over 20 countries are offered as one-of-a-kind adventure holidays (but not roughing it) including Australia, Peru, Germany, SW North America, Italy and South Africa.

In order to successfully offer such a package, across the globe, and to keep everything ticking along well a company needs excellent reporting that has been well implemented and continues to develop even after Go-Live.

What were the challenges?

The Theme Parks and Resorts division run SAP - before the BO XI 3.0 integration they ran SAP R/3 and BW 3.5. Note they do also run BusinessObjects 6.1b, but more about that later. The implementation was successful but they were finding gaps that were proving hard to fill with anything other than a manual intervention. Here were the key challenges:

1. Cannot connect SAP to different data sources (i assume here we are talking about BW3.5)
2. SAP finished implementation in 2003 but lacked certain aspects of analytics. This led to data dumps into MS products to present to the executive level in a meaningful manner. Oh dear.
3. No dashboards (recent data), which was a strong end user requirement
4. No cockpits (real time data)
5. Need an easy to use reporting solution
6. Need a secure solution
7. Solution implementation must be sustainable. Quite reasonable but often overlooked for short term gains.

The result was a decision to select the latest Business Objects offering - BO XI 3.0 (as is was in 2007)

Why Business Objects?

There were several reasons for selecting BusinessObjects, largely due to it being 'close to home'. These are all valid reasons and often would produce the least path of resistance:

• Currently being used in 6.1b version by Theme Parks & Resorts
• Large user base - 22000 in BusinessObjects already
• SAP Connector Kit is a requirement by is cheaper to purchase than a new application
• SAP bought BusinessObjects (this only came about after the selection process though). This also meant that in terms of the enterprise reporting market, SAP suddenly became a bigger player. With an almost guaranteed effort in integration from SAP and SAP BO this is great news - there would be support, guides, product development and above all, probably a lot of effort in detailed integration to the latest releases of BI and BO.

However, not all is as easy as it seems.......

Pre-requisites!

Now i would be the first to admit that when a new application comes out i hold my breath waiting for the dreaded 'pre-requisite' lists. That is, the list of what must be done before you even get started on the new application. I can be like a domino effect - New product? That'll be a new back-end release then. Oh, yeah and that will in turn need a DB upgrade. Older hardware ? Sorry that CPU architecture is not supported anymore.

Well, Walt Disney were hit with all this but were sensible, that is they are (by their own admission) slow in the uptake - a more considered and careful approach is advised. Nice to hear. So from July 2007 to February 2009 this is what happened:

1. Upgrade SAP R/3 to ECC 6.0.
2. Upgrade SAP BW 3.5 to BI 7.0
3. Implement BI Accelerator
4. Upgrade BusinessObjects 6.1b to XI 3.0
5. Consideration of AIX architecture currently in use.

However, how you actually do this is critical for success. These are the 'must dos' but do not define 'how to do it'. It is critical when you have an application like BusinessObjects already in use and you are effectively promoting SAP as the primary application, to be careful about the implementation of the SAP upgrade and then BO upgrade. The teams need to fit together, to understand their roles, deliverables, demarcation points and responsibilities.

So how was the upgrade and implementation achieved?

This is a quick rundown and then we will discuss the areas in more detail.

1. Proof of Concept/Acquisition/Contracts
2. SAP Upgrade activities. Three words covers a lot of effort!
3. BusinessObject upgrade
4. Connection to SAP. That is they used BO 6.1b without SAP connection. Now this is needed and also includes bringing 20000 users across from BO into SAP
5. Troubleshoot/Test
6. Train/Communicate

Now in more detail, a considered implementation needs to be undertaken. In the Theme Parks & Resorts a phased approach was undertaken with a pilot group of 1000 users across DisneyLand in California, DisneyWorld in Florida and some users in Tokyo. These users already knew SAP BI and were selected a the first phase rollout to Finance. These 1000 users were workgin to am implemetation standard that woudl be used in each of the phased rollouts up to 23000 users, repeating the same basic remit each time:

• Phased approach (Finance first, HR later)
• Select only a few widely used cubes - focus and prioritise
• No canned reports - all reports are business driven for Theme Parks and Resorts not to make implementation easier
• User of a Super Users Group, as per the SAP implementation back in 2003
• Communication to use a tiered approach. This means executive communications first, then management, then end users. The latter includes the training plans and a final kick off communication on go-live day. Communication is also managed geographically to ensure support is available in the regions and releases are pertinent to content required in that area.
• Training: BusinessObjects Knowledge Accelerator implemented; Instructor led training and online resources available to support the users, to obtain executive communication and 'buy-in'

As noted, these occur at each phase.

What issues/benefits were found?

There were a number of issues that came along during the porject that required consideration until a resolution could be found:

1. BusinessObjects XI3.0 had a number of issues that required upgrade to XI3.1 SP2.
2. Size of BO resources needed (server sizing and growth)
3. SAP and BO merger itself
4. Common name issues in the Hierarchies
5. Unix vs Windows (an age old battle, that one!)
6. Complex reports

However there were some significant benefits including: the ability to combine external data sources with BI data; a single reporting solution; user uptake increased significantly.

What about the future?

Ongoing post live support is vital - the online knowledge resources (Wiki) are updated including uploading BusinessObjects user guides. New 'universes' are being developed to complement the 6 in production - these service key areas and are very carefully considered before development as to their purpose and design. Usage is constantly encourage through executive communications and involvement in development:

• Develop & Test
• Publish
• Communicate
• Train
• Support

Summary

23000 users over 3 continents with a three way upgrade and new integration (of BO 3.0 to SAP BI 7.0) is no small task - it was a large scale global implementation and rollout over a 20 month period, which in itself is a great achievement. It should be noted here that the previous figure is a linear time. The project used 11 FTE consultant over the project period equating to a total of 31 months equivalent. The most important message to come out of this session is this ....."implementation never ends at Go-Live - with a product set such as this and the market it operates over, there can be no resting as the possibilities are seemingly endless, and so there is always room to improve service". I doubt Walt would be happy if that were to happen.

Chris Enstock

4th August 2009