Alexicon, Inc. Company Overview

Alexicon is a Platinum Partner with SAP Business Objects and partners with SAP, Microsoft, Computer Associates (CA) and Minitab.  Our company specializes in major applications and data warehousing.  In addition, Alexicon provides the following solutions:  DimensionSigma and ReportingSystems.com.

Our company also operates a Labs environment to focus on integrating cutting-edge software and hardware products to deliver rich information to users quickly anywhere on the globe.  Since our company provides business and IT solutions, our lab extends beyond the latest hardware and software to business content.  By focusing on these three areas, we are able to simulate future business conditions.   Alexicon Labs currently has systems exposed to the worldwide web that provide global textual and numerical information delivery with sub second responses globally.

The advantage to our customers is that we work through new hardware, software and business content in controlled environments to maximize innovations and up-front learning.  Customers are able to interact with our systems at various stages of an evaluation or purchase.

What is an Alexicon?

Alexicon comes from the word “lexicon.”   A lexicon is a book containing an alphabetical arrangement of the words in a language and their definitions.   We believe that Alexicon will make advances in organizing and relating textual and numerical information for global use.

Performance Management (PM)

Performance Management (PM) systems mean different things to different organizations.  An early example of a performance system built for a large sales force utilized MS Excel (many years ago and many linked workbooks).  What was learned from this system, however, is that if you provide reliable metrics at a lower-grain it naturally increases overall performance (similar to report cards in school; grades by subject area).  This early system took sales goals to a lower service level (categories) which led to better overall performance.  This example provided stratification and actionable goals at this lower level which drove collaboration between managers, sales people and peers.  Modern day PM systems go well beyond this example and apply to marketing, sales, finance, engineering, supply chain management (SCM), manufacturing and customer service organizations.  By using metrics and goals across these organizations, companies are able to increase coordination and collaboration for continuous performance improvements.

PM systems decentralize a company's performance objectives and puts the responsibility at management and associate levels.  Our assumption is that people come to work everyday and want to do well.  Clear goals and feedback provides the means for associates to have a clear picture on how they contribute to larger company objectives.  Business Intelligence (BI) tools have allowed great strides in building PM systems.  By providing reliable reporting capability over the web to potentially thousands of users (similar to Google access), BI has made it possible to maintain a central repository for goals and actuals.  Balanced Scorecards (BSC) have taken PM even further since it's inception in 1987.  What BSC brings is the ability to have Strategic Management objectives allocated throughout a company at associate levels.  Like the earlier example of report cards in school, BSC focuses on many areas with weights applied so that performance can be summarized at associate, management and corporate levels.  Process Modeling is also key to PM for identifying business processes across the company.

The recent ability to build high-end Excel-like models with Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) has also added to PM.  This new technology gives PM a new spin for the user-interface.  BI has been great for displaying numeric data and reaching large user audiences (on-demand information).  RIAs take PM to a new level with Excel and PowerPoint-like capabilities.  This new graphic-rich web interface provides better abilities for the user to interact with PM systems through graphics and numerics.  An example provided by Alexicon is DimensionSigma.  This solution provides a true blend of solid management methodologies and RIAs. 

Visibility creates a shared sense of responsibility to overall company objectives.  We also believe that user activity is important to a PM system.  Web Analytics offers the ability to understand how your PM system is being used.  This insight helps the continuous improvement of PM systems.  Information Technology adoption has always been a concern when building any management system; people need to use the system to make it a success.  Modern day PM systems go well beyond this example for sales people.  PM applies to marketing, sales, finance, engineering, SCM, manufacturing and customer service organizations.  With PM user adoption is made simple if designed right because people get usable and actionable information. 

People want to know how they are doing relative to the company.  BI has advanced the sharing of numeric data for over ten years.  The organizational benefits for PM can propel companies to new levels of increased sales, profitability and overall company health.  Managing metrics, content, and delivery of PM systems requires a focused approach.  Alexicon can provide solutions for your company to attain true PM.

Data Velocity

The ability for corporations to capture, store, integrate and report on large volumes of data is key to a competitive advantage, if done right.  Data Velocity (speed and volume of data) is increasing worldwide at significant rates due to international commerce, global internet use, social networks, affordable technology, the continued growth of business applications and data warehousing.  Some reports say that company databases are growing by 20 to 70 percent per year.  Considering the rise of data velocity, it is important to make strategic decisions about how your company will leverage its current data and add new powerful data sources to get clear information to run your business.  Without a strategy the age old adage, "drinking from a fire hose", rings true for unmanaged data velocity. 

Executives and managers careers depend on their ability to understand the company's complex make-up and how it interacts with the market and competitors.  Information systems provide the ability to monitor and systemize many core business processes.  With so much going on in companies it is easy to lose sight of how important solid information systems can be to a company's success.  Companies have been good at capturing data from traditional applications; however, many still struggle with integrating multiple data sources for consolidated reporting. 

Internal and external websites provide information, transaction processing and/or collaboration for businesses.  Our company focuses on websites to collect valuable metrics and statistics on user preferences and behavior.  By using Web Analytics from internal and external sites, Alexicon can provide additional capabilities for enterprise reporting systems (even track the web-based reporting system itself).  Tracking web traffic and user behavior can be very insightful for a company.  When this type of information is combined with other company data, your Data Warehouse can provide previously unseen opportunities for strategic advancement (connecting the dots).

Our systems are good enough

Large companies are slower to react to changes because of size and the level of coordination required to effect change.  Taking business needs and providing the right system approach makes change simple because the system paves the way for success (clear vision).  Many times executives will institute organizational change with legacy systems that lock in past behavior.  If the system is ten years old, it likely meets the needs from that time.  Also, past system limitations can be perceived as too difficult to change so energy goes to other company initiatives and system changes fall to the wayside.  In effect, management is saying "Our systems are good enough."  The question is, "Are your competitors making strategic system investments that will impact your ability to effectively compete in the future?"

Realizing a failed strategy

No company likes to realize a failed strategy.  Unfortunately, this realization comes too late in many cases.  This is typically realized when customer accounts are lost or expenses are difficult to keep in-line with market competitors (both situations distract management attention and impact employee morale).  Correcting strategic mistakes, once realized, can be a day late and frustrating when trying to catch-up while dealing with slowed sales and/or high expenses.

Build it right now

Take the time to work your systems before failure is realized.  We can take a look over the past ten years and see the efforts around data warehousing and general quality improvements.  The idea is that improved quality will result in a stronger company which translates to increased sales and profitability.  Toyota is a great example of a company working on its internal quality (systems and processes) to produce market leading cars.  The result is that Toyota can now invest more in marketing activities and facilities to benefit from its Operational Competitive Advantage.

With Process Modeling and proactive monitoring systems, companies can continually identify opportunities to improve operational excellence.  Most companies already have plenty of data existing in current databases to start down the road towards operational excellence.  The trick is to understand how to define and monitor processes that are available in your databases today.  The foundation for getting visibility for improving your company's processes is Business Intelligence (BI).  This provides clear and reliable metrics on data that resides within your company.  Once BI is working and providing clear and concise information to people within your company, it is possible to identify areas or processes that require improvement.  Targeted areas typically have goals or tolerances established through Performance Management (PM).

Technology opportunity areas

Recent developments around web applications are driving new capabilities for companies.  Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) are one of those newer technologies that allow websites to become much more robust and versatile for management reporting.  These RIAs provide management the ability to systemize visual presentations with live data.  BI has taken many Excel capabilities and systemized them for a larger audience.  RIAs are allowing the next level of systemization for visual charting similar to PowerPoint (reduces the number of individual presentations in your company).  RIAs utilize technology that exists in video games and brings that to business.  By combining numerical analysis with visual materials, RIAs offer businesses more abilities to attain a Single Source of Truth (SSOT).

Text Analysis is another new technology that is quickly getting attention in the business world.  Google provides quick searches and provides results in just a few seconds.  The search engine that allows this searching has revolutionized modern day research for everyone around the globe.  Text Analysis is the next level for understanding massive amounts of text and summarizing the results.  This area will also drive new data storage and reporting needs.

Taking your reporting systems to a more granular level is a new wave that will continue.   Drilldown became a buzz word in the 90's and companies have found many ways to achieve drilldown capabilities (some are more elegant than others).  Either way, Very Large Databases (VLDBs) reporting systems have typically summarized data to get the level of needed information.  Often times these summary capabilities become disconnected from lower-grain business transactions.   Large database management has necessitated the rise of new database companies that provide super fast database engines.  These companies report speeds of 10 to 100 times faster responses for VLDBs.

Ability to handle big data

Just a few years back terabyte-sized databases were not that common.  Today, bigger databases are more common with multiple terabytes and growing.  Just look at the super web companies like Google, Yahoo!, YouTube and MySpace with petabyte-sized database environments (petabyte is a million gigabytes).   With influences from super web companies, corporation websites (internal and external) have also become hot opportunity areas for capturing user inquiries, transitions and user behavior through Web Analytics.  As previously mentioned, super fast database engines are becoming popular for VLDBs. 

Gaining an outside perspective and support

Global commerce is highlighting the need to keep up with information management which drives performance management.   Our company is focused on providing full lifecycle information management around organizational performance.  Alexicon provides support and recommendations for hardware, software, and management methodologies.  Take advantage of Alexicon Labs creativity and cutting-edge integrations for rich business content.  We focus on advanced systems that result from the integration of hardware, advanced software and business content.  With so much data coming at companies, their management team is vital in creating an information competitive advantage.  Alexicon can provide the required direction and support to advance your company's overall strategy and operational excellence.