Yahoo Finance EPM: Building a Cohesive Heterogeneous Technical Environment January 17 th, 2008 Key Performance Ideas.

Yahoo Finance EPM: Building a Cohesive

Heterogeneous Technical EnvironmentJanuary 17th, 2008

KeyPerformanceIdeas

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Agenda

• Introductions

• Application Delivery Lifecycle

• Yahoo! Corporate Landscape

• How Yahoo! Supports its Corporate Landscape

• Finance Organizational Requirements Overview

• Systems Environment

• Key Performance Ideas - Solutions Delivered and Data Integration

• Star Analytics at Yahoo!

• Bob’s 10 Insights and Learnings

• Q&A

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The KPI Value Proposition

• We are an Oracle partner with specific focus on Hyperion:– Hyperion Focus – The Hyperion product suite is the focus of our technical competency– Best-of-Breed Expertise – We are capable of augmenting Hyperion with world-class

3rd party tools– Proven Track Record – We have successfully implemented a full range of Hyperion

solutions

• Our team has extensive experience with:– The Planning Process – We understand the impact of a coherent budget & planning

process on the operations and financials of a company– Meaningful Business Intelligence – We can help turn your data into useful information

for decision making– Process Transformation – we understand the importance of engaging the users, not

just the technology– A Complete Solution – We have all the technical expertise necessary – as well as

project management, change management, infrastructure, documentation & training experience to make a project successful

• You have our commitment:– Leadership by our Leaders – Every project is led by hands-on participation of the KPI

management team– Customer Satisfaction – We are passionate about our customer’s success & helping

achieve their goals– Ethical & Transparent – KPI is committed to doing business “the right way”

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A Partial List of KPI Clients

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Introduction to Star Analytics

• Founded 2004 by Hyperion veterans

• VC backed software company

• Fortune 500 referenceable customers

Partial List of Star Analytic’s Customers

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Yahoo Finance EPM

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BusinessStrategy/

Model

Business Process/

Management

Technical enablement

People

ProcessTechnology

Application Delivery Fundamentals

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Yahoo! Business Landscape

Entity

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Monthly

184M UV

3,600,000,000

Advertisers

PublishersPartnerships

Divestures

M&A

Highly competitive marketHeightened scrutiny on financialsLarge and complex legal structures

Legal Entities

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ManageChange!

StrategicInvestments

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Corporate Applications – Business Intelligence Team

Unique value of Corporate Applications• Align for complete end-to-end

integration and highly aligned with complementary providers

• Specifically focused on Hyperion platform and organized with focused roles

1) Help Desk 2) Operations3) Development

• Designed to create value-add for Finance instead of just basic services = business partner role

• Designed to be a catalyst for change (efficiency & automation)

• Designed to be strategic partner and “be part of the conversation”

• Designed to provide process design as well as technical solutions

CorporateApplication

ERPOracle

HRMSData

warehouseHyperion

FinanceHRSales &

Marketing

Decision Support

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Finance Overview

• Operate in multiple currencies (25)

• Financial forecasting – monthly interval, 8 rolling quarters

• Actuals reporting – Hyperion

• 5 tier allocation for functional burdening.

• 9 year data retention policy

• Detailed forecasting bottoms up –(named employees) (data gathering vs. data analysis and modeling)

• Partner and affiliate level forecasting

• Consolidated reporting - frequency

• Frequent M&A activity

~375 Global Users

Support – Follow the Sun

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Yahoo! Systems Environment

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Solutions Delivered at Yahoo!

• System 9 Planning

– Includes Workforce Planning

• Custom Essbase reporting environment

– Essbase Analytics (BSO)

– Enterprise Analytics (ASO)

– Transparent Partitions

• Custom FX Solutions

– As part of 4x daily data movement

– FX Unlimited

• Outsourced Operational Administration

• Outsourced Help Desk

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Yahoo!’s Data Integration Requirements

• Extract Hyperion Planning data 4x/day with zero downtime

• Schedule periodic extracts from Hyperion Applications

• Update Oracle Data Warehouse

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Star Integration Server (SIS)

• Enterprise software suite

• Unifies information across portfolio of financial analysis applications

• Shares critical financial information throughout the enterprise

• Lets businesses safeguard, manage, re-use, and capitalize on critical financial information

• Enables both historical and near real-time financial reconciliation, compliance, and control

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How Star Integration Server (SIS) Was Used to Solve Yahoo!’s Needs

Essbase Analysis

Hyperion Reports

Oracle Data Warehouse

Business Intelligence Tools &Other Reporting Standards

Revenue OPEX

HYPERION PLANNING

Headcount

Essbase Reporting Environment

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Capabilities

Star Analytics at Yahoo!

Extract Hyperion Planning data 4x/day

Hyperion Planning environment online 24*7

Schedule periodic extracts from Hyperion Applications

“Data Generating” Hyperion Planning data synchronized with Oracle Data Warehouse

Ability to use Essbase ASO for roll-ups and Essbase Planning BSO for R/W and calculation intensive operations

Improved reporting with greater adherence to corporate reporting standards

Requirements• Extract Hyperion Planning

data 4x/day with zero downtime

• Schedule periodic extracts from Hyperion Applications

• Update Oracle Data Warehouse

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Bob’s 10 insights and learning’s

1. Partner partnerships – KPI/ Star Analytics product roadmap 2. Hammer mentality – there are many options

(SIS, Perl - balanced with sustainability)3. Keep it simple – Architecture, Object counts, Servers,

Platforms [keep ops simple] (fewer load rules)4. Automated reconciliations are possible (report script, FSG,

Perl)5. Leverage RDBMS principals – incremental loads,

fragmentation, 3rd normal form normalization 6. Run away from temporary development solutions = concrete7. The “D” word - document8. Rapid application development (RAD) – really awful design,

randomly assembled database 9. Stick with it – process rigor 10. Business partner in business process management

(examples: calendar, outline maintenance, M&A)

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Question & Answer

Contact Information

• Bob Yau

Bob_yau_2000@yahoo.com or LinkedIn

• Nate Coate

nate@keyperformancideas.com (415) 948-3430

• Quinlan Eddy

qeddy@staranalytics.com (650) 539-4600