Published in DM
Review in August 2003.
Printed from DMReview.com

Business Intelligence Drives Strategy and Decision Making at
Parkway

By John Bryer

Parkway Corporation is a leader in designing, implementing, marketing
and managing innovative parking garages and lots. With 30,000 parking
spaces throughout North America, Parkway has had good judgment, making it
a leader in parking real estate development and operational management.

As the number of cars, parking properties and employees substantially
increased, a strong demand was being placed on reporting, planning and
evaluation. However, Parkway lacked an executive information system.

With Parkway's ascension to the top came an influx of data,
information, assets and people. It was at this time that I was hired as
vice president and chief information officer (CIO). The company, though
solid in management, operations and financials, was starving for business
intelligence (BI) to help manage its aggressive growth.

When I got to Parkway approximately three years ago, it had legacy
systems but not a lot of reporting systems. Parkway was information and BI
poor. Upper management had always been very experienced, but even the best
management can only go so far doing business the old-fashioned way. There
comes a time when objective, sophisticated e-business systems are needed.
The company's Achilles' heel was inadequate reporting. Employees were
going from system owner to system owner to get spreadsheets and
information. As CIO, I had a unique opportunity to help turn things
around.

Normally, when companies decide to undertake a large-scale project such
as this, they evaluate several service providers, but we looked at one:
RCG IT. I had worked with RCG IT in the past; and its combination of proof
of concept, fixed price and results-orientation proved its value with
Parkway upper management. RCG IT also showed the executive team that this
was a low risk method for getting the BI implementation that was
needed.

Furthermore, RCG IT had a track record of managing large complex
projects as well as substantial data warehouse (DW) and BI experience. The
team interacted closely with my staff, and this made for a smooth
implementation and development process.

RCG IT provided end-to-end application design, development, testing and
implementation services following industry best practices. To manage this
project, RCG IT implemented its proven BI methodology, which included
several stages:

Surveying existing systems, data and capabilities,

Identifying key business drivers and data sources,

Analyzing the technology and business environment to produce a
reliable, secure and cost-effective solution,

Defining a project plan and scope,

Developing a logical and physical data model,

Presenting a reporting architecture, and

Training end users and system maintainers.

The BI solution has played an integral part in helping redefine the
corporate strategy. Parkway has been spending a lot of time revitalizing
its strategy over the last six months. Its BI solution has helped Parkway
make stronger analytical decisions regarding its different market segments
and business practices.

Along with an improved business strategy, Parkway also realized four
specific benefits from the implementation of the DW and BI solution. The
company was able to reduce fixed labor and overhead costs associated with
gathering operational information. The DW provided a more precise picture
of revenue, profitability, operations and trends for both individual and
collective parking properties. Customized views of operational reports
became available to suit individual users' preferences across the
enterprise. The new BI/DW system served as justification to enhance,
upgrade and replace outdated, ineffective and costly systems and
processes.

The savings in manpower required in generating these operational
reports justified nearly the entire cost of the project in just two years'
payback. Given that the BI/DW project is relatively new, Parkway expects
to save thousands more over the application's lifetime. Still, specifying
ROI for a project of this magnitude can be difficult.

While it can be very hard to quantify the benefits from a system like
this, Parkway executives formerly made decisions based on intuition,
experience and "gut" feeling; they did not rely on data, business
intelligence tools and analysis. Now, before buying a property or
undertaking a new business venture, Parkway is able to analyze reports to
help determine if this business arrangement is worth undertaking. I think
that the company is better prepared to make strategic decisions on
acquiring what will make money and deleting or fixing what will lose
money. Overall, Parkway decisions are now more strategic, more effective
and increase the likelihood that we will make the right decision on
buying, selling and managing properties.

Parkway expects to have more demand from users who want access to the
data to help them with their specific, daily work. The owners and other
executives of the company clearly see the value of business intelligence
and consider this tool an indispensable item.

RCG IT's BI solution comprises application design, development,
testing and implementation of Web-enabled data warehousing serving
as the IT framework for Parkway's Decision Support and Executive
Information System. The system provides a picture of revenue,
profitability, operations and trends for individual and collective
parking properties, reducing labor and overhead
costs.

John Bryer, vice president and CIO of Parkway Corporation.

Copyright © 2003, The Thomson Corporation
and DM Review.