Wednesday, August 21, 2013

What’s a ‘small business’?


As a small business operator, you may be entitled to access a number of tax concessions targeted at small business, which we have discussed from time to time in our newsletters.
Currently, one of the first hurdles we have to get over is trying to work out whether your business is in fact a ‘small business’ for the purposes of a particular concession.

In this regard, each concession has different entry eligibility criteria, usually based on varying levels of turnover and/or assets.

This is confusing because what represents a ‘small business’ changes from concession to concession. It can be a costly and time consuming exercise working all this out. However, there is some relief on the horizon.

Late last year, the Treasurer and Minister for Small Business announced that legislation will be introduced hopefully to make access to these concessions easier and less costly for small business.

The eligibility tests that currently exist for the Simplified Tax System, Capital Gains Tax, Fringe Benefits Tax, Goods and Services Tax and Pay-As-You-Go small business concessions will be standardised.

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

TDS on Expenses-with Inventory (Purchase Voucher)


However in day-to-day business transactions, some times you have to face some complex cases e.g. a sales or purchase transaction where both Vat and TDS  is charged so how you will account this ?
This article will help you to record such transactions, where TDS on Expenses with Inventory applied for purchase vouchers
Example: On 2-8-2009 ABC Company received the bill for Rs. 52000 (for the supply of 1000 cartons @ 50 per carton and VAT @ 4%) from AK Enterprises. Cartons are printed with the company logo and other information as required on which (including the VAT amount) TDS is applicable.
The above transaction will be recorded in a Purchase Voucher
Step 1: Create Stock Item
Go to Gateway of Tally > Inventory Info. > Stock Item > Create
In the Name field enter the Stock Item Name e.g. Cartons
In the Under field select Primary group
In the Unit field select Nos
In the Rate of VAT (%) field enter 4%
Press Enter to save
Step 2: Create Party Ledger
Go to Gateway of Tally > Accounts Info. > Ledgers > Create
In the Name field enter the Ledger Name e.g. AK Enterprises
In the Under field select Sundry Creditors group
Set Maintain balances bill-by-bill to Yes
Enter the Default Credit Period if any
Set Is TDS deductible to Yes
In Deductee Type field select Company-Resident
Enter the Mailing Details and  Tax Information
Press Enter to save
Step 3: Create Purchase Ledger
Go to Gateway of Tally > Accounts Info. > Ledgers > Create
In the Name field enter the Ledger Name e.g. Purchase @ 4%
In the Under field select Purchase Accounts group
Set Inventory values are affected to Yes
Set Used in VAT Returns to Yes
In the VAT/TAX Class filed select  Purchases @ 4%
Set Is TDS deductible to Yes
In the Default Nature of Payment field select Payment to Contractors (Other Than Advertisement)
Set Use for Assessable Value Calculation to No
Press Enter to save
Step 4: Create VAT Duty Ledger
Go to Gateway of Tally > Accounts Info. > Ledgers > Create
In the Name field enter the Ledger Name e.g. Input VAT @ 4%
In the Under field select Duties & Taxes group
In the Type of Duty/Tax field select VAT
In the VAT/TAX Class select Input VAT @ 4%
Set Inventory values are affected to No
Set Rounding Method as Not Applicable
Set Is TDS Applicable to Yes
In the Default Nature of Payment field select Payments to contractors Other Than Advertisement
Press Enter to save
Step 5: Create TDS Duty Ledger
Go to Gateway of Tally > Accounts Info. > Ledgers > Create
In the Name field enter the Ledger Name e.g. TDS – Contractor Other Than Adv.
In the Under field select Duties & Taxes group
In the Type of Duty/Tax field select TDS
In the Nature of Payment field select Payments to contractors (Other Than Advertisement)
Press Enter to save
Step 6: Create Purchase Voucher
Go to Gateway of Tally > Accounting Vouchers > Press F9: Purchase
In F12: Configure
Ensure the option Use Common Ledger A/c for Item Allocation to Yes
1. Ensure the Purchase Voucher is in Item Invoice Mode
2. Press F2 and change the date to 2-8-2009
3. In the Supplier Invoice No. field enter the reference number as 4587
4. In party A/c Name field select AK Enterprises
5. In the Purchase Ledger field select Purchase @ 4%
6. In the VAT/Tax Class field Purchases @ 4% will be defaulted automatically as defined in the ledger master
7. In the Name of Item field select Cartons from the List of Items
8. Enter 1000 in the Quantity field
9. In the Rate field enter the Rs.50
10. Rs.50000 will be automatically updated in the Amount filed
1. In the TDS Nature of Payment Details screen accept the default details
Note: The TDS Nature of Payment screen will be displayed to only when the option Allow Alteration of TDS Nature of Payment in Expenses in F12: Configure (Voucher Entry Configuration)
1. Select Input VAT @ 4% ledger from the List of Ledger Accounts.
2. VAT amount of Rs.2000 will be updated automatically in the Amount filed and press enter to view the TDS Nature of Payment Details screen
Note: TDS Nature of Payment Details screen is displayed even for the VAT ledger as the Vat amount is also considered for TDS calculation.
1. Select TDS – Contractor Other Than Adv ledger  and press enter to view TDS Details screen
2. In the TDS Details screen
3. In Type of Ref field select New Ref
4. In the Name field the reference number is defaulted as Purc / 4-1
5. In the Nature of Payment select Payments to Contractors (Other Than Advertisement)
6. Assessable Amount and TDS Amount is defaulted automatically
Note: The TDS amount of Rs. 1040 will be displayed with negative sign.
1. Set Show Statutory Details to Yes to view the duty calculation
2. In the Bill-wise Details screen
3. In Type of Ref field select the New Ref as the Method of Adjustment
4. In the Name field enter Bill-897
5. In the Amount and Dr/Cr field keep the default allocation
6. In the Type of Ref field select New Ref
7. In the Name field enter Bill-897
8. In the Amount and Dr/Cr filed keep the default allocation
1. Enter the Narration if required
If you have any question, please post the same on Support forum only

Inventory entries in tally.erp 9


One of  tallynine.com reader Akash requested me to explain the how to deal with manufacturing entries  in tally.erp 9.Many other reader esp. newbie also facing how to deal with inventory entries in tally.erp 9
Tally.erp 9 provides  a seamless and easy to manage inventory entries. but first one should understand how to manufacturing process works.
In a manufacturing company some items consumed that is called input and the item which is produced is called as output or a product which you have to sell.
So, we can conclude that suppose you are purchasing two items as raw material one is steel and second is paint so both these are will be known as input item or raw materials that is consumed in manufacturing process.
Now it will give you a new product that is painted steel. It is called the output product which you can sell in the market in other words it is a finished good.
So, the question is how to deal with the same. because Raw materials you have to purchase and hence in your incoming/stock quantity it will be recorded whenever you make a purchase voucher.
Also the painted steel (finished Goods) will be recorded in tally as outward materials whenever you account a sales vouchers.
So, how you will tally it ? that is you have to pass production entries in your tally.erp 9 whereby you have to show the raw materials as consumed and then to produce a new item that is painted steel.
You must enable inventory features in your tally.erp 9 to record these transactions.
Go to main menu of tally then select Inventory vouchers
I am sure it will help to Mr. Akash and many other readers who are seeking how to record inventory transactions.

Tips and Tricks in Tally


If you want to repeat last narration of last voucher, then go to narration of the voucher and Press Ctrl +R  it will place the last narration and will save your time to write to write narration again and again
You are entering vouchers and suppose you made a mistake in entry however the voucher was saved now you want to alter it, then you will need to follow a big long procedure.
But I will explain you here by which you will be able to modify the voucher without going to related ledger account and without leaving voucher entry screen
Hit the page up button from your voucher screen and you will find the last entered voucher there. now you can modify it easily alter the voucher.
Similarly you can edit any voucher by this way by selecting a date and pressing page up button again and again and you will find voucher entries one by one for that particular date.
Sometimes Ago, I already explained how to create a new ledger account when you are in the middle of a voucher just press ctrl+c and you will find the ledger creation screen
and if you want to alter name or group of any ledger you can also do the same without leaving the voucher entry screen. just recall that voucher select the ledger you wanted to alter press enter one time you and go the amount field now hit back button and come back to the same ledger account and press Ctrl+Enter here you can modify name ,group or any details you want to modify
You are entering amount and suppose you want to do calculation and you need the result of these calculation to be entered in the amount field. Here is a short cut for this too. Go to amount field and Press Ctrl+C and you will be redirected to calculation pane at the bottom of your tally screen.Make your calculation and after that Press ENTER the amount will be automatically field in the amount column
Wanted to send a screen shot of your tally voucher entry of tally screen or even a ledger ?
okay go the screen for what you wanted to take a screen shot and press PrtScr button of your key board (top right side of your keyboard) now go word press or excel and just press Ctrl+V and you will find the screen shot of your tally screen. you may send this through email to any body you wish so.
If you want me to check your voucher entry you may send your screenshot to me at my email address by filling up the contact button on this blog.
Wanted to delete a voucher ? okay go to that particular voucher and Press Alt +D

Shortcut keys in Tally


The shortcut keys appear in button names in the button bar (right side of the Tally screen). You can either click the button from the button bar or press the relevant function key or character underlined/double- underlined.
The buttons have a function key before the button names ( Eg: F1: Select Cmp) which means you need to press F1 key (Function Key) to select the 'Select Company' screen
The buttons have an underlined character ( Eg: F3:Cmp Info), which means you need to press ALT + F3 to select the 'Company Info' screen.
Some buttons have a double-underlined character (Eg: As Voucher) which means you need to press CTRL + V to select the 'Voucher' in voucher mode.
The shortcut keys available in Tally are listed in the below table:
Function Key Combination
WindowsFunctionalit yAvailability
F1To select a company
To select the Accounts Button and Inventory buttonsAt all masters menu screen
At the Accounting / Inventory Voucher creation and alteration screen
F2To change the menu periodAt almost all screens in TALLY
F3To select the companyAt almost all screens in TALLY
F4To select the Contra voucherAt Accounting / Inventory Voucher creation and alteration screen
F5To select the Payment voucherAt Accounting / Inventory Voucher creation and alteration screen
F6To select the Receipt voucherAt Accounting / Inventory Voucher creation and alteration screen
F7To select the Journal voucherAt Accounting / Inventory Voucher creation and alteration screen
F8To select the Sales voucherAt Accounting / Inventory Voucher creation and alteration screen
F8 (CTRL+F8)To select the Credit Note voucherAt Accounting / Inventory Voucher creation and alteration screen
F9To select the Purchase voucherAt Accounting / Inventory Voucher creation and alteration screen
F9 (CTRL+F9)To select the Debit Note voucherAt Accounting / Inventory Voucher creation and alteration screen
F10To select the Reversing Journal voucherAt Accounting / Inventory Voucher creation and alteration screen
F10To select the Memorandum voucherAt Accounting / Inventory Voucher creation and alteration screen
F11To select the Functions and Features screenAt almost all screens in TALLY
F12To select the Configure screenAt almost all screens in TALLY

Special Key Combination
WindowsFunctionalit yAvailability
ALT + 2To Duplicate a voucherAt List of Vouchers € ¦'¶ creates a voucher similar to the one where you positioned the cursor and used this key combination
ALT + ATo Add a voucherAt List of Vouchers € ¦'¶ adds a voucher after the one where you positioned the cursor and used this key combination.
ALT + CTo create a master at a voucher screen (if it has not been already assigned a different function, as in reports like Balance Sheet, where it adds a new column to the report)At voucher entry and alteration screens, at a field where you have to select a master from a list. If the necessary account has not been created already, use this key combination to create the master without quitting from the voucher screen.
ALT + DTo delete a voucher
To delete a master
(if it has not been already assigned a different function, as explained above)At Voucher and Master (Single) alteration screens. Masters can be deleted subject to conditions, as explained in the manual.
ALT + ETo export the report in ASCII, SDF, HTML OR XML formatAt all reports screens in TALLY
ALT + ITo insert a voucherAt List of Vouchers € ¦'¶ inserts a voucher before the one where you positioned the cursor and used this key combination.
ALT + OTo upload the report at your website At all reports screens in TALLY
ALT + MTo Email the reportAt all reports screens in TALLY
ALT + PTo print the reportAt all reports screens in TALLY
ALT + RTo remove a line in a reportAt all reports screens in TALLY
ALT + STo bring back a line you removed using ALT + RAt all reports screens in TALLY
ALT+ VFrom Invoice screen to bring Stock Journal screenAt Invoice screen € ¦Ã  Quantity Field € ¦Ã  Press Alt + V to select the Stock Journal.
ALT + WTo view the Tally Web browser.At all reports screens in TALLY
ALT + XTo cancel a voucher in Day Book/List of VouchersAt all voucher screens in TALLY
ALT + RTo Register TallyAt Licensing Menu in TALLY
CTRL + ATo accept a form € ¦'¶ wherever you use this key combination, that screen or report gets accepted as it is.At almost all screens in TALLY, except where a specific detail has to be given before accepting.
CTRL + BTo select the BudgetAt Groups/Ledgers/ Cost Centres/ Budgets/Scenarios/ Voucher Types/ Currencies (Accounts Info) creation and alteration screen
CTRL + CTo select the Cost Centre

To select the Cost CategoryAt Groups/Ledgers/ Cost Centres/ Budgets/Scenarios/ Voucher Types/ Currencies (Accounts Info) creation and alteration screen
At Stock Groups/ Stock Categories/ Stock Items/ Reorder Levels/ Godowns/ Voucher Types / Units of Measure ( Inventory Info) creation/alteration screen
CTRL+ ETo select the CurrenciesAt Groups/Ledgers/ Cost Centres/ Budgets/Scenarios/ Voucher Types/ Currencies (Accounts Info) creation and alteration screen
CTRL + GTo select the GroupAt Groups/Ledgers/ Cost Centres/ Budgets/Scenarios/ Voucher Types/ Currencies (Accounts Info) creation and alteration screen
CTRL + ITo select the Stock ItemsAt Stock Group/ Stock Categories/ Stock Items/ Reorder Levels/ Godowns/ Voucher Types / Units of Measure ( Inventory Info) creation/alteration screen
CTRL + LTo select the LedgerAt Groups/Ledgers/ Cost Centres/ Budgets/Scenarios/ Voucher Types/ Currencies (Accounts Info) creation and alteration screen
CTRL + OTo select the GodownsAt Stock Group/ Stock Categories/ Stock Items/ Reorder Levels/ Godowns/ Voucher Types / Units of Measure ( Inventory Info) creation/alteration screen
CTRL + QTo abandon a form € ¦'¶ wherever you use this key combination, it quits that screen without making any changes to it.At almost all screens in TALLY.
CTRL + Alt + RRewrite data for a CompanyFrom Gateway of Tally screen
CTRL + SAllows you to alter Stock Item masterAt Stock Voucher Report and Godown Voucher Report
CTRL + UTo select the Units At Stock Groups/ Stock Categories/ Stock Items/ Reorder Levels/ Godowns/ Voucher Types / Units of Measure ( Inventory Info) creation/alteration screen
Ctrl + VTo select the Voucher TypesAt Groups/Ledgers/ Cost Centres/ Budgets/Scenarios/ Voucher Types/ Currencies (Accounts Info) creation and alteration screen

Special Function Key Combination
WindowsFunctionalit yAvailability
ALT + F1To close a company
To view detailed report
To explode a line into its detailsAt all the menu screen
At almost all report screen
At almost all screens in TALLY
ALT+ F2To change the system periodAt almost all screens in TALLY
ALT + F3To select the company info menu
To create/alter/ shut a CompanyAt Gateway of Tally screen
ALT + F4To select the Purchase Order Voucher TypeAt Accounting / Inventory Voucher creation and alteration screen
ALT + F5To select the Sales Order Voucher Type
To view monthly and quarterly report At Accounting / Inventory Voucher creation and alteration screen
At almost all report screens in TALLY
ALT + F6To select the Rejection Out Voucher Type
To change the Sales Order Voucher TypeAt Accounting / Inventory Voucher creation and alteration screen
ALT + F7To select the Stock Journal Voucher Type
To accept all the Audit lists At Accounting / Inventory Voucher creation and alteration screen
At TallyAudit Listing screen
ALT+ F8To select the Delivery Note Voucher Type
To view the Columnar reportAt Accounting / Inventory Voucher creation and alteration screen
At Ledger Voucher screen
ALT + F9To select the Receipt Note Voucher TypeAt Accounting / Inventory Voucher creation and alteration screen
ALT + F10To select the Physical Stock Voucher TypeAt Accounting / Inventory Voucher creation and alteration screen
ALT + F12To filter the information based on monetary valueAt almost all report screens
CTRL + ALT + F12Advanced ConfigAt Gateway of Tally


Key Combination used for navigation
WindowsFunctionalit yAvailability
PgUpDisplay previous voucher during voucher entry/alterAt voucher entry and alteration screens

PgDnDisplay next voucher during voucher entry/alterAt voucher entry and alteration screens

ENTERTo accept anything you type into a field.
To accept a voucher or master
To get a report with further details of an item in a report.You have to use this key at most areas in TALLY
At the receivables report € ¦'¶ press Enter at a pending bill to get transactions relating to this bill (e.g., original sale bill, receipts and payments against this bill, etc)
ESCTo remove what you typed into a field
To come out of a screen
To indicate you do not want to accept a voucher or master.At almost all screens in TALLY.
SHIFT + ENTERCollapse next level detailsAt Voucher Register screen and Trial Balance report
SHIFT + ENTERTo explode a line into its detailsIn almost all Reports:
At a Group/Stock Group/Cost Category/Godown/ Stock Category € ¦'¶ displays Sub Groups and Ledgers/Stock Items/Cost Centres/Secondary Godowns/Secondary Stock Categories
At a Voucher € ¦'¶ displays its entries and narration
At a Stock Item- displays its godowns and batch details
At Voucher Register screen € ¦'¶ displays the next level details
At Trial Balance report - displays the next level details
CTRL + ENTERTo alter a master while making an entry or viewing a reportAt voucher entry and alteration screens
At all reports

BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE IN BANKING


Business intelligence (BI) is a computer based technique used in spotting, digging-out, and analyzing business data, such as sales revenue by products and/or departments, or by associated costs and incomes.
"Business Intelligence is a set of methodologies, processes, architectures, and technologies that transform raw data into meaningful and useful information used to enable more effective strategic, tactical, and operational insights and decision-making. Business intelligence also includes technologies such as data integration, data quality, data warehousing, master data management, text and content analytics, and many others.
 BI technologies provide historical, current, and futuristic views of business operations. The common functions of business intelligence technologies are reporting, online analytical processing, analytics, data mining, business performance management, benchmarking, text mining, and predictive analytics.
Business intelligence aims to support better business decision-making. Thus a BI system can be called a decision support system (DSS). BI uses technologies, processes, and applications to analyze mostly internal, structured data and business processes while competitive intelligence gathers, analyzes and disseminates information with a topical focus on company competitors.
BI applications in an enterprise:
Business Intelligence can be applied to the following business purposes, in order to drive business value
Measurement – program that creates a hierarchy of Performance metrics and Benchmarking that informs top management about progress towards business goals
Analytics – program that builds quantitative processes for a business to arrive at optimal decisions and to perform Business Knowledge Discovery. Frequently involves: data mining, statistical analysis, Predictive analytics, Predictive modeling, Business process modeling
Reporting/Enterprise Reporting – program that builds infrastructure for Strategic Reporting to serve the Strategic management of a business, NOT Operational Reporting. Frequently involves: Data visualization, Executive information system, OLAP

Collaboration/Collaboration platform – program that gets different areas (both inside and outside the business) to work together through Data sharing and Electronic Data Interchange.

Knowledge Management – program to make the company data driven through strategies and practices to identify, create, represent, distribute, and enable adoption of insights and experiences that are true business knowledge. Knowledge Management leads to Learning Management and Regulatory compliance/Compliance

BI in banking:

BI in banking evolved through Manual Systems to management Information systems with Computerization. Banks had efficient transaction recording systems before computerization also. The manual systems too had effectively provided  the necessary reports for management and regulatory requirements. These reports were manually consolidated at lower offices and final reports were presented at head office level. These manual systems worked well till the scale of operations of the banks were small.

As the banks grew in size and expanded geographically the number of branch network grew leaps and bounds and so the, the volume of transactions became quite large and manual operations became time consuming and error prone. To cater the load of operations from all bank branches spread across geographies the banks have started using computers and slowly banks have become fully automated.

The manual management information system (MIS) in the banks had the following drawbacks:

The data is laying in different  silos
There was a Time lag in data collating.
Data quality is poor.
Unavailability of customer specific data
Data granularity required for developing analytics (what if scenario, drill down)
Was not available to decision makers.
Reporting activity competed with business activity for resources at the branch.
Data classification rules were not applied uniformly across the organization, and also varied with time.

Slowly, majority of the banks began using information technology for MIS. The inflexibility of Cobol programmes and batch processing was soon overcome by powerful desktop systems with rudimentary database systems, which allowed banks to analyse data, once it has been received in manual form from branches, the same was transcribed into machine readable formats and validated. Quite a few of regulatory reports were also produced in this way. These earlier initiatives laid the foundations of BI in banking.

Uses of BI in banking:

Business Intelligence tools can be used by banks for historical analysis, performance budgeting, business performance analytics, employee performance measurement, executive dashboards, marketing and sales automation, product innovation, customer profitability, regulatory compliance and risk management.

Examples of these applications are;

Historical Analysis (time-series)

Banks can analyze their historical performance over time to be able to plan for the future. The key performance indicators include deposits, credit, profit, income, expenses; number of accounts, branches, employees etc. Absolute figures and growth rates (both in absolute and percentage terms) are required for this analysis. In addition to time dimension, which requires a granularity of years, half year, quarter, month and week; other critical dimensions are those of control structure (zones, regions, branches), geography (countries, states, districts, towns), area (rural, semi-urban, urban, metro), and products (time, savings, current, loan, overdrafts, cash credit). Income could be broken down in interest, treasury, and other income; while various break-ups for expenses are also possible. Other possible dimensions are customer types or segments. Derived indicators such as profitability, business per employee, product profitability etc are also evaluated over time. The existence of a number of business critical dimensions over which the same transaction data could be analyzed, makes this a fit case for multi-dimensional databases (hyper cube or ‘the cube’).
Analyzing, interpreting and acting upon on the information is a subjective exercise. Hence, the BI vendor shifted their focus to customer relationship management (CRM). CRM continues to be the centre of the attraction to banks today and risk management comes to second.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM):

CRM is at the centre stage of BI in banking. However, it  is becoming difficult to assess whether it is driven by technology or business. Traditional or conservative banking business models of Indian banking industry relied heavily on personal relationships that the bankers of yesteryears had with their customers. If we  look into the application of CRM in banking, more closely, CRM is an industry term for the set of methodologies and tools that help an enterprise manage customer relationships in an organized way. It includes all business processes in sales, marketing, and service that touch the customer. With CRM software tools, a bank can build a database about its customers that describes relationships with  sufficient detail so that management, salespeople, service people, and even the customers can access information, match customers needs with product plans and offerings, remind customers of service requirements, check payment histories, and so on.

A CRM helps a bank with the following:

Find customers
Get to know them
Communicate with them
Ensure they get what they want (not what the bank offers)
Retain them regardless of profitability
Make them profitable through cross-sell and up-sell
Covert them into influencers
Strive continuously to increase their lifetime value for the bank.

The most crucial and daunting task before banks is to create an enterprise wide repository with ‘clean’ data of the existing customers. It is well established that the cost of acquiring a new customer is far greater than in retaining an existing one. Shifting the focus of the information from accounts tied to a branch, to unique customer identities requires a massive onetime effort. The task involves creating a unique customer identification number and removing the duplicates across products and branches. Technology can help here but only in a limited way.

The transition from a product-oriented business model to a customer-oriented one is not an easy task for the banking industry. This is true in case of all the banks of all the banks, Indian or otherwise.

For example, even today, in a tech savvy new generation private sector bank there is no 360 degree view of a customer details. They treat the same way a for a credit card applications to its existing customers as well the new ones.

 A retail loan application does not take into account the existing relationship of the customer with the bank, his credit history in respect of earlier loans or deposit account relationship. And the private banks are the pioneers in setting up a data warehouse, and a world class CRM solution.

Most CRM solutions in Indian banks are, in reality, sales automation solutions. New customer acquisition takes priority over retention. That leads to the hypothesis that it is BI vendors that are driving CRM models in banks rather than banks themselves. Product silos have moved from manual ledgers to digital records. An implementation model of ‘relationship’ in Indian banking industry is hard to see as of today.

Most of the BI applications cater to the needs of the top management in banks. But, line managers have a different set of BI requirements, which differ from those of the top management. The line managers of banks require operational business intelligence.

Operational Business Intelligence:

Operational BI embeds analytical processes with the operational business structure to support near real-time decision making and collaboration. This characteristic fundamentally changes the way how data is used, where it exists and how it is accessed.

Thus ‘Operational BI merges analytical and operational processes into a unified whole’. This change is rapidly exposing the limitations of traditional analytical tools. Operational BI helps businesses make more informed decisions and take effective action in their daily business operations. It can be valuable in many areas of the business, including reducing fraud, decreasing loan processing times, and optimizing pricing.

Characteristics of Operational Business Intelligence:

Caters to middle management and frontline:

Operational BI delivers information and insights to those managers that are involved in operational or transactional processes. For example while serving a customer over the phone if a customer executive get a flash on his computer screen on the likely requirements of the customer based on his profile and past transaction behavior. This is an example of operational business intelligence.

Just-in-time delivery:
To manage time sensitive process the needed information should be delivered in near real-time i.e. within minutes or hours. Operational BI will help in reducing user reaction for a business issue. The reduced user reaction time with the help of operational BI can bring business benefits to the organization.

For instance, the ability to detect and react more quickly to the fraudulent use of a credit card is a good example of how operational BI can provide business value.

 By analysing the history of fraudulent situations, the BI system can be used to develop business rules that signify potential fraud, and operational BI can be used to apply those rules during daily business operations. The closer to real time the fraud can be detected; the less is the operational risk.

However, not all operational BI systems need to be near real-time. Reducing action times to close to zero are is beneficial only in specific types of business requirements such as the fraud example. In fact, operational BI can be classified into being demand-driven and event-driven, the latter being more automated. If the action time requirement is a few hours, business users or applications can use the BI system at on-demand analysis and evaluate the results manually to determine whether any action is required. In the demand-driven case, it is the user who drives the BI system.

But if the action time requirement is two seconds, then on-demand will not be suitable. In this scenario BI systems must track business operations continuously
and automatically run analyses to determine whether any action is required. If it is, the business user must be alerted about the situation and sent recommendations on potential courses of action. In case of a fraudulent credit card transaction, the BI system is expected to refuse authorisation. In event-driven BI, business operations and the BI system drive the user. It is obvious that the implementation of event driven operational BI is more complex than demand-driven BI.

Uses recent transactional data

Data used for operational analysis is frequently accessed before getting loaded into the data warehouse. The latency in a traditional data warehouse implementation results from the batch mode in which it is populated. It is more suited for strategic applications such as historical analysis, risk management, performance management etc. But a dashboard needs to be as close to transaction data as technically feasible.

Less aggregation, more granularity

In a sharp contrast to traditional BI in which pre-aggregation, with optional drill down to detail levels is a norm, operational BI normally requires more of data granularity to address the needs of the specific operational function it supports. Traditional BI aims at a holistic view of corporate performance, while operational BI is process and user specific. Yet, some operational BI requirements do require aggregated data, such as the lifetime value of a customer, which is required for a directed sales call.

Embedded into business processes

Operational BI is intricately connected to transactional business processes. The extent of this integration depends on the level of implementation. One could use it to generate operational reports to analyse processes, or monitor them using dashboards and scorecards. In these two levels there is not much of integration.

In the other two levels, where operation BI is embedded into business processes either to facilitate them (demand-driven) or to execute other processes (event-driven), it is embedded into the process.

Handles disparate sources and unstructured data

Traditional databases and data warehouses do not take into consideration the increasing use of unstructured data; such as emails, telephone calls, letters, internal notes etc, stored outside these systems, which are of critical value in an operational BI implementation. Another issue that it has to handle arises out of the disparate transaction systems in use in most of the banks. The variety of banking services makes it very complex and often impractical for a single software solution to handle all kinds of transactions. Extracting data from such disparate systems and making use of unstructured data is required to be handled by an operational BI system.

Availability is a concern

The high level of integration with transactional business processes demand the same level of availability from operational BI implementations that transaction processing systems have to provide. An outage of an operational BI application could have a direct impact on the organization’s ability to do business or to service its customers. Therefore, availability becomes a critical issue for operational BI applications.

Requires different architecture

Traditional BI vendors had built their products using proprietary architectures. While these architectures are ideal for strategic BI, they are not suited for operational BI. Because operational BI entails coupling BI applications with operation applications and operational processes, a component-based, service-oriented architecture (SOA) is necessary to fully support operational BI. Service-oriented architecture that lets users access real-time knowledge with a set of service feeds can maximize business agility while reducing complexity. For example, SOA flexibly and cost-effectively supports the midstream, on-the-fly data collection and analysis necessary for operational BI. Service orientation also supports operational BI throughout the business by pushing BI data out to the mobile workforce and enabling workers across the enterprise to incorporate this vital data into their workflow. The straight-through processing requirements in the banking industry necessitate immediate risk analysis, which in turn requires an online BI capability.

Business Strategy and Access to Medicines in Developing Countries


Business Strategy and Access to Medicines in Developing Countries


Anne Roemer-Mahler

The availability of generic ARVs was important for the expansion of treatment in developing countries. This paper argues that it is therefore imperative to examine which factors have shaped generics companies’ decisions to supply these drugs. This will help us better understand the development of the global AIDS response in the past and how to address some of its future challenges. This paper illustrates the value of combining the investigation of political and economic dynamics with a focus on how they affect the commercial considerations of companies that supply products required by society. In doing so it contributes to the existing literature on business in global governance, which tends to focus on how business affects states’ decision-making but neglects how global governance influences companies’ decisions to produce some goods and not others. 


Introduction


A major challenge for the global community in the fight against HIV is how to fund treatment for millions of people living with HIV also living in poverty. At the end of 2009, only about 36 percent of people living with HIV in low- and middle-income countries received anti-retroviral therapy (ART).[i] Given that people living with HIV require lifelong treatment and annual new infection rates have varied between 2 and 3.5 million per year since 1990, the magnitude of the problem is evident.2 Against these daunting figures, however, stand more encouraging ones, namely that approximately 5.25 million people living with HIV in developing countries have gained access to antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) in the past decade.[ii] This represents a more than 20-fold increase since 2001, when only about 240,000 people living with HIV in developing countries were receiving treatment.[iii]  While the task ahead remains enormous, experience shows that expanding treatment on a large scale is possible.
In order to explain the progress achieved in the global AIDS response during the past decade, many authors have emphasised the increased political momentum, especially on the part of governments and international organizations, as manifest in the 2001 UN General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS and the 2006 UN General Assembly High Level Meeting on AIDS; the creation of new intergovernmental organizations, including the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; and programmes within existing intergovernmental organizations, including the World Bank, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNPFA), as well as programmes launched by individual governments, such as the US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).[iv] Also the governments of some developing countries have forcefully responded to the pandemic, notably Thailand and Brazil.5 By the end of the decade, eight developing countries had achieved universal access to ART.6 Some authors have also pointed at the critical role played by people living with HIV as well as civil society organizations in national and global efforts to fight HIV.7
In addition, many studies mention the importance of low-cost generic ARVs becoming widely available in 2001 as a key factor enabling progress in the global AIDS response.8 Stephen Lewis, former UN Special Envoy for AIDS in Africa, stated that “we wouldn’t have this extraordinary run of treatment in Africa now if it weren’t for the generic drugs.”9 The availability of low-cost generic ARVs contributed to the progress of the global AIDS response both directly and indirectly. Generics contributed directly because they led to a drop in drug prices, which increased the affordability of treatment for poor people living with HIV. Initially, prices fell from approximately USD 12,000 to USD 350 per person per year.10  In 2009, the weighted median price of the six most widely used first-line regimens was USD 137 per person per year in low-income countries.11 A study on ARV supply in developing countries found that generics companies from India alone provided more than 80 percent of the donor-funded market.12 Indirectly, the availability of low-cost generic ARVs increased access to treatment because it fuelled the political momentum that was emerging at the time. The drop in drug prices enabled governments and donors to subsidize treatment on a much larger scale than before. As the then US President Bush explained at the launch of the PEPFAR in 2003: “the cost of [ARV] drugs has dropped from USD 12,000 a year to under USD 300 a year, which places a tremendous possibility within our grasp.”13