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ROI CASE STUDY SPOTFIRE ANONYMOUS TECHNOLOGY COMPANY THE BOTTOM LINE An anonymous technology company deployed Spotfire to leverage its existing engineering data warehouse with Spotfire’s interactive analytics solution to enable all engineers to intuitively access and analyze data, increasing productivity while providing greater visibility into key processes. ROI: 54% Payback: 1.8 years

THE COMPANY The company is a high-tech manufacturer of electronic components, devices, and applications that customers use in various types of electronic equipment. With more than 60,000 customers, the company is headquartered in the Northeast and has design and manufacturing facilities throughout the world.

THE CHALLENGE One of the company’s product divisions developed an engineering data warehouse that housed product, performance, and process data. Because of the complexity of the data, engineers were often challenged to analyze the data they needed to rapidly make decisions: The data warehouse could be accessed using a Microsoft Excel-based OBDCtype interface, and the learning curve for understanding the data structures enough to navigate the data warehouse was steep. Thus, the company had fewer than 10 engineers who were power users and approximately 100 engineers who had to go to a power user each time they needed help navigating the data or completing their analysis — slowing down decision making and productivity for both groups. There was no effective way for engineers to store and analyze parametric data. The company had some business intelligence tools that were used for reporting and analysis but none which could support the complex multivariate and parametric data analysis needed. The company needed to relieve the burden on data warehouse power users; create a centralized repository where all of its data could be stored, accessed, and analyzed; and provide a tool which would be intuitive and easy for all engineers to use.

Corporate Headquarters Nucleus Research Inc. 36 Washington Street Wellesley MA 02481 Phone: +1 781.416.2900 Fax: +1 781.416.5252

Nucleus Research Inc. www.NucleusResearch.com

June 2007

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THE STRATEGY The company’s engineering manager heard about Spotfire and its experience in the biotech industry and requested a demonstration of its standard offering. The company felt Spotfire’s analytical capabilities were applicable to its needs in the semiconductor industry and included Spotfire in its product evaluations. Before selecting Spotfire, the company considered several other options: Oracle. Because the company was already using Oracle as its database supplier it considered using its analytics offerings as well, but found that Oracle’s tools were more reporting and analysis-based and could not provide the visualization it wanted. In addition, Oracle’s tools could not support the large volume of parametric data that the company needed. DataPOWER. Although the DataPOWER tools were powerful, the company felt that they were too difficult to learn for a casual user, and that DataPOWER’s limited development environment would make it difficult to support the company’s specific analysis needs. Additionally, the company didn’t like DataPOWER’s proprietary database or its focus on building data warehouses. CA Clarity r8. Similar to DataPOWER, the company felt that Clarity r8 was too proprietary in nature and couldn’t affordably support the amount of users it required. Other vertical applications. The company also evaluated several vertical applications that it considered too costly to deploy, limited in use, and difficult to customize and integrate. After careful analysis, the company selected and purchased Spotfire in December 2004 based on the strength of its development environment, its ability to affordably support multiple groups, its ability to manage and analyze parametric data, and its ability to perform visualization analysis. Before going live with Spotfire, the company spent 14 months developing a new engineering data warehouse, integrating information, validating files, and loading data. The company also built data models that were integrated with the Spotfire information model to support Spotfire analysis of different views without having to change the source model each time, and developed two customized tools to perform analysis of standard processes. The first tool collects data from the database on a pre-selected time interval, completes a set of calculations, allows engineers to review and filter the data, and then performs the calculations again in real time for inclusion in the database. The second tool allows users to correlate different types of data using test chips (reference devices) to define and group data by category or zone. The company felt that these tools would support consistent analysis across multiple products and configurations. The company used consultants and two internal engineers to support the Spotfire deployment. The company also found that it needed to purchase additional hardware to support the storage and analysis of 6.5 terabytes of process and parametric data. By February 2006, implementation was complete and users attended a full-day training course to learn how to use Spotfire.

© 2007 Nucleus Research, Inc. Reproduction in whole or part without written permission is prohibited. Nucleus Research is the leading provider of bottom line-focused technology research and advice. www.NucleusResearch.com

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KEY BENEFIT AREAS The company found that using Spotfire improved analytical processes and extended analysis capabilities to more user groups, enabling the company to generate the following key benefits: Increased productivity. Using Spotfire, the company was able to improve employee productivity by 35 percent by providing engineers with intuitive visualization tools to access and interpret data and reusable models for repeatable queries. Better parametric data analysis. Given Spotfire’s data visualization capabilities, particularly for parametric data and bin wafer maps, engineers can analyze data more rapidly. Improved process management. Using Spotfire, users were able to capture and share best practices by developing various production links and storing them in a library so that other users can access them if they need to create a similar object. For example, if someone wants to generate a wafer map, there is a link users can go to and retrieve a model that has already been created. Automated key daily tasks. A customized tool automatically collects and stores manual data from engineers on a daily basis. BENEFITS

Direct 13%

Indirect 87% TOTAL: $3,781,250

KEY COST AREAS Key cost areas for the deployment included personnel, consulting, software, hardware, and training. COSTS

Training 1%

Software 16%

Personnel 41%

Consulting 11%

Hardware 31%

TOTAL: $2,544,678

© 2007 Nucleus Research, Inc. Reproduction in whole or part without written permission is prohibited. Nucleus Research is the leading provider of bottom line-focused technology research and advice. www.NucleusResearch.com

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The largest cost area was personnel because the company used an internal team for 14 months to manage system implementation, data loading, and tool development. In addition, the company invested in new hardware to support the management of 6.5 terabytes of parametric and stored data.

LESSONS LEARNED The company found that by using Spotfire it was able to perform data analysis more efficiently than with traditional BI tools. Because the traditional power users could create models that could then be adopted, revised, and reused by more general users, Spotfire leveraged the expert knowledge of the power users without taking a significant investment of their time, and enabled the broader user base to more rapidly complete their analyses because the models are available and trusted. One of the challenges the company faced was in configuring Spotfire to work with the Oracle database to support multivariate analysis. It found that it had to isolate specific joins that it wanted to be used for a specific analysis in Spotfire, and that the best strategy was to define a certain number of analysis streams and provide engineers with a predefined direction for beginning their analysis.

CALCULATING THE ROI Nucleus calculated the costs of software, hardware, consulting, personnel, and training over a 3-year period to quantify the company’s total investment in Spotfire. The most significant benefit for the company was a 35 percent increase in employee productivity that was calculated based on the average fully loaded cost of employees using a productivity correction factor to account for the inefficient transfer of time.

Nucleus Research is a global provider of investigative technology research and advisory services. Building on its unique ROI case study approach, for nearly a decade Nucleus Research has delivered insight and analysis on the true value of technology and strategies for maximizing current investments and exploiting new technology opportunities. For more information or a list of services, visit NucleusResearch.com, call +1-781-416-2900, or e-mail [email protected].

© 2007 Nucleus Research, Inc. Reproduction in whole or part without written permission is prohibited. Nucleus Research is the leading provider of bottom line-focused technology research and advice. www.NucleusResearch.com

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DETAILED FINANCIAL ANALYSIS ANONYMOUS TECHNOLOGY COMPANY SUMMARY Project:

Spotfire

Annual return on investment (ROI)

54%

Payback period (years)

1.77

Net present value (NPV)

201,401

Average yearly cost of ownership

848,226

ANNUAL BENEFITS Direct

Pre-start 0

Year 1 166,667

Year 2 166,667

Year 3 166,667

Indirect

0

1,093,750

1,093,750

1,093,750

Total Benefits Per Period

0

1,260,417

1,260,417

1,260,417

DEPRECIATED ASSETS Software

Pre-start 0

Year 1 0

Year 2 0

Year 3 0

Hardware

520,000

0

0

0

Total Per Period

520,000

0

0

0

DEPRECIATION SCHEDULE

Pre-start

Year 1

Year 2

Year 3

Software

0

0

0

0

Hardware

0

104,000

104,000

104,000

Total Per Period

0

104,000

104,000

104,000

EXPENSED COSTS

Pre-start

Year 1

Year 2

Year 3

Software

0

100,000

100,000

200,000

Hardware

0

93,600

93,600

93,600

Consulting

280,000

0

0

0

Personnel

291,667

250,000

250,000

250,000

Training Other Total Per Period

FINANCIAL ANALYSIS Net cash flow before taxes Net cash flow after taxes

22,212

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

593,878

443,600

443,600

543,600

Results

Year 2 816,817

716,817

(816,939)

460,408

460,408

410,408

Annual ROI - direct benefits only (816,939)

56%

56%

54%

-11%

-11%

-13%

(416,584)

(68,449)

201,401

Payback (years) Average annual cost of ownership 3-year IRR

Year 3

816,817

Annual ROI - direct and indirect benefits Net present value (NPV)

Year 1

(1,113,878)

1.77 1,113,878

1,557,478

1,000,539

30%

848,226 30%

FINANCIAL ASSUMPTIONS All government taxes

50%

Discount rate

15%

© 2007 Nucleus Research, Inc. Reproduction in whole or part without written permission is prohibited. All calculations are based on Nucleus Research's independent analysis of the expected costs and benefits associated with the solution. www.NucleusResearch.com

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