1. Managing Essbase & Dodeca Support & Development at Kroger Matthew Holt, CPA ODTUG Kaleidoscope 2010 Washington, DC June 30, 2010

2. Poll the Audience Business? Technology? Have a Center-of-Excellence today? Considering a CoE? Attended TriNet’s CoE presentation yesterday?

3. Intent of this Session “The focus of this session will be to look at one solution for consolidating support and development of Essbase and Dodeca, which is currently spread across multiple lines-of-business, and reorganize it into a single department, or center-of-excellence, using only existing resources. In addition, discuss how we brought Essbase out of the shadows and defined the partnership between the business units and IT, which allows each group to do what they do best.” – ODTUG Kaleidoscope

4. Agenda The Kroger Co. The Problem The Solution The Journey

5. Kroger 2008 Fact Book Headquartered in Cincinnati Fiscal sales of $76.0 billion #22 ranking on Fortune 100 326,000 employees 2,481 supermarkets 781 fuel centers 771 convenience stores 385 fine jewelry stores 40 manufacturing plants 2009 Fact Book was not yet published at time of this writing.

6. Kroger Banners

7. The Problem It’s a good problem to have…

8. The Problem Essbase & Dodeca have been too successful A 10+ year evolution Still has a “buzz” Too many lines-of-business (LoB) continuing, enhancing and/or requesting Essbase No internal structure to guide the growth and development

9. The Problem A LoB new to Essbase was on a island: Obtain licenses Purchase hardware Staffing with existing personnel or hire consultants If internal, sent them to Essbase Bootcamp Develop and support Essbase cubes Develop and support Dodeca Manage versions User training

10. Major Development Efforts

11. Resulting Environment Various support & development methods Redundant data Redundant efforts Silos everywhere Minimal collaborations across business units Each LoB did their thing; IS&S did theirs An unwillingness to share, or seek out, best practices Collaboration not required Knowledge with a 1-2 people in each group

12. Despite all that… Happy end-users Implementations & ongoing support have been generally successful Management not overly concerned about risks of putting “all the eggs in one basket” Demand for new Essbase & Dodeca efforts continues to grow

13. The Realization Essbase has evolved & grown up More complexity Users are demanding more We can do more Making the same avoidable mistakes Slow to launch new apps Poor design decisions “We had the same problem 5 years ago” Growing too dependent on too few people

14. The Solution Change how the enterprise supports Essbase & Dodeca development Establish a partnership between the lines-of-business and IS&S Agree on a direction Allow each to do what they do best Reassign existing resources within the lines-of-business to create a Center-of-Excellence Current responsibilities will also transfer to new CoE Create a cross-functional team Define roles & responsibilities for both Center-of-Excellence and IS&S

15. The Journey A quick look at what we’ve got and how we got there…

16. Essbase Landscape Essbase 7.1.6 & 11.1 2,000+ unique users 100+ reporting, budgeting & forecasting cubes Most BSO; some ASO EAS & EIS MaxL & some Esscmd Extensive/complex calc scripts for budgeting & forecasting About 11.0 FTE for support & dev in 9 lines-of-business Plus 2.0+ FTE in IS&S

17. Dodeca Landscape 4 Dodeca apps in production today 3 more in next 12 months 300+ unique templates today User base Corporate & regional offices, manufacturing plants and IS&S management Controllers & analysts in all 18 divisions 200+ stores, via Citrix Several major roll-outs and/or expansions planned

18. Essbase & Dodeca Use Notes Many users have access to more than one environment. Major expansion pending. Finance groups now using one Dodeca app.

19. In 2007, a group began monthly meetings to manage the long-term direction of Essbase & Dodeca, including: Retail Operations Finance IS&S Manufacturing Why? Bring Essbase & Dodeca out of the shadows Control growth Share ideas and concerns Share more data, quicker Leverage existing data & processes Eliminate redundancy of data & effort Establish best practices Steering Committee

20. Asked Ourselves Questions What’s the right balance? Lean & flexible vs. structured & rigid Elite strike team vs. the whole field army “change it now” vs. a formal change control process Who does what? IS&S involvement/oversight? LoB involvement/oversight? Should the org chart change?

21. Attempt #1 Work with counterparts Best practices Create Agree on Implement Share knowledge Become each other’s back-up Collaborate on future projects Share data & eliminate redundancies

22. Yeah…that didn’t exactly work No authority Voluntary compliance Silos continued Additional development methods emerged Limited data sharing Even less collaboration

23. Attempt #2 Steering Committee became more assertive gave itself authority Asked questions What’s working? What’s not working? What are the risks? How much risk can we tolerate? If starting from scratch, how would we be organized? What have we learned?

24. Top 5 Things Learned Business users “love” the functionality, autonomy and control of Essbase & Dodeca, but… New resources don’t understand Essbase, Dodeca and/or the business practices Knowledge & skill set with a few people Inconsistent development & maintenance Redundant data & efforts Everyone has unique business requirements

25. Committee Requirements Keep control with business users Increase IS&S’s involvement Eliminate redundant data Use existing resources Develop cross-functional resources Define roles & responsibilities

26. Cross-Functional Resources To develop cross-functional resources: Need authority to: manage/shift work set priorities Build a common language Learn together Set & enforce best practices Truly collaborate

27. Top Recommendation Reassign existing resources to the new Center-of-Excellence Resources remain embedded with their current LoB Roles & responsibilities could be aligned across multiple groups Reports to Finance, but collaborates with IS&S

28. Example of Org Chart Finance LOB #1 LOB #2 LOB #3 LOB #4 Manager Business Analyst Business Analyst Business Analyst Business Analyst Notes Expand current Finance group, adding “dotted-lined” accountability to lines-of-business (LOB). Primary and back-up responsibilities based on skill set, experience and/or physical location. Provide more career path options. Developer/Architect

29. Finally, Roles & Responsibilities …which are not completely finalized yet

30. Proposed Roles & Responsibilities Center-of-Excellence Cube design, calc scripts, etc Filters, groups and security Cube extension MaxL automation Build & deploy Dodeca views User training Prioritize data requests to IS&S and validate results Coordinate with LoB and/or IS&S on new efforts IS&S Pull data from host systems and load cubes Support software & hardware Manage vendor negotiations Provide surge resources for project execution Facilitate software upgrades, testing, certification and enterprise deployments Provide stable environment Maintain architectural integrity

31. Update – June 2010 Numerous staffing changes in past 6-months Recent actions will modify this proposal Basic intent remains unchanged Increase IS&S’s development responsibilities Define all existing Essbase cubes in production as either: Core – to be supported by IS&S Business Use – to be supported by the CoE or trained power users

32. Responsibility by Cube Type Business Use Highly dependent on business logic & calc scripts. Frequent changes or customizations. Quick turnaround times. May pull and load subsets of data from Core cubes. May have a very targeted user base. Examples include budgeting & forecasting cubes. Core Outlines built entirely from upstream sources. Extensive ETL requirements. Few customizations. A locked-down, controlled environment is desired. Examples include standard load and calc cubes, usually for reporting only, which mirrors the system of record.

33. Thank you! Matthew Holt matthew.holt@kroger.com Feel free to e-mail me questions, comments or thoughts.