Business Objects - Friday, May 28th

After finishing lunch outside on a beautiful Friday in Paris, we walked to Business Objects. We met with Michael Thompson and Timo Elliot to hear about business intelligence and the company's strategy. Business Objects strives for intuitive interfaces for client information through information management, enterprise performance management, business intelligence, and governance risk and compliance.

The company's success has been in creating interfaces that allow clients to manage data easily and create reporting with this data. Business Objects, Business Intelligence Explorer products allow companies to make informed decisions based on solid data and analysis. Current activity for the company has been around SAP Streamwork. The new product focuses on data (outside of the financials) needed for decision making. The software looks at "Collaborative Decision Making" to assist companies in managing the collaborative process in a team work setting. It creates a traceability on decision making in a team setting and increases buy-in for companies.

Both Michael and Timo also expressed the challenges that they have faced with the SAP and Business Objects merger over the last year. The process has been difficult on many fronts for both companies. This is something new for the employees of Business Objects that have had successful mergers in the past. One of the main issues has been the lack of "cross pollination" between the two companies. Both seem to be working along separate tracks instead of integrating together both in their process and location of employees. The difference in company culture for both has also been an issue.

The discussion then moved to the differences between US and European labor laws and the challenges of living/working abroad as an expatriate. The EU offers more job security with a longer benefit package for employees laid-off (ie. SAP had a 3 year pay package for employees laid-off). Although the EU requires a 4 month trial period for a new employee, it is much more difficult to fire that worker once employed compared to the US (ie. US - you are an employee at will). Employee privacy is an issue within the EU. For example the EU Worker Council ruled that information regarding an employee's title was indicative of their salary, so this became censored within companies. There is also a much lower turn-over rate for workers in Europe, but the promotion process in the EU is much slower compared to the US. In regards to living broad, both stressed the importance of integrating into the culture of where you are living to be a successful in a relocation abroad. One must also be aware that by working abroad you are "paying into the system" of the country you live in, making it more difficult to leave after many years. Your benefits become tied into the country.