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March 10, 2008
Whither headed BI?
In my honest opinion (henceforth to be mentioned as IMHO) Business Intelligence is headed many a place! Let's look at key trends on the demand side that have been highlighted off late:
- Pressure to invest in technologies that drive business and strategic transformation
- Information generated from enterprise applications will continue to increase
- It is becoming easier to build and consume BI applications e.g. BI search, in-memory analytics, SaaS & SOA
- Smaller and midsize organizations are becoming an important target market
- Growth of performance management initiatives
- Rising prevalence of analytic applications for non-financial applications
Couple these with some of the supply side trends:
- Mega-vendors are beginning to dominate the BI market - the Big Four (Microsoft, Oracle, SAP and IBM) now own almost two-thirds of the market
- Vendors have been modifying or extending their product, pricing and partner strategies to reach this key group Hosted BI through SaaS is now offered by a number of vendors
- Innovation in technology leading to new solutions such as unstructured data analytics, open-source BI etc.
With both demand and supply side factors looking good, it does not restrain analysts such as Gartner and IDC from making growth rate predictions in the range 8-10% CAGR for another few years. So what do these encouraging trends and numbers hold out for the consumers? IMHO four important things:
One: If you have been using BI solutions for a long time now, it is time to move from user-driven BI applications to process or strategy-driven ones. Explore new uses of BI to track strategic progress and also to predict future markets while formulating strategy
Two: If you are an SME or a small function within a behemoth that has hitherto never experienced the "power of BI", the time is nigh for uptake. There is a reason why so many businesses are spending SO much money on these solutions. Look out for solutions that match your ability to spend (in terms of time and money!)
Three: It is important to have someone in the organization who is on the lookout for opportunities to plug in BI solutions, integrate and standardize the environment and understands the data in your organization - a BI steward
Four: While it gets easier to store more and more data, this is also a good time to streamline your environment - have a slim and athletic information system. Look at whether you are storing and using information in the most efficient way. Make some short term investments and experience long term gains.
Posted by Parth Mukherjee at March 10, 2008 3:30 AM
