Published on the 15/07/2011 | Written by Newsdesk
As last issue’s iStart 2011 Investment Intentions Survey clearly showed, Business Intelligence has become the ‘must-have’ application of the moment…
While immediate future capital investment in ICT is forecast to remain more or less stable, 45 per cent of organisations are looking to invest in BI, up from just 32 per cent in 2010.
In the survey, BI is seen as the most pressing investment for the near future, second only to investment in infrastructure hardware.
A separate survey, conducted by independent advisory firm Dresner Advisory Services (DAS), confirms the trend towards increased BI investment.
The second annual Wisdom of Crowds Business Intelligence Market Study shows that almost two thirds of businesses report budget increases in Business Intelligence, with almost a third of respondents reporting increases of more than 10 per cent.
The report also notes that BI deployment is no longer the exclusive domain of IT professionals. On the contrary, business users are taking more of a leadership role in the selection and deployment of business intelligence solutions.
IT professionals still exert an influence on BI purchasing and deployment, but their role is declining. While this trend is most pronounced in North America, other regions, including Australia and New Zealand are rapidly following suit.
The report clearly shows that business users are seeking solutions that are easier to purchase, quicker to deploy and simpler to use.
Also of importance is the increased utilisation of emerging vendors to meet business’s needs for better process integration, mobile support, in-memory technology and collaborative capabilities.
Other key takeaways of the study include:
• A total of 63 per cent of respondents reported budget increases in at least one BI area and 31 per cent of respondents had increases of more than 10 per cent in at least one area of BI.
• The highest new deployment rates were found in government and technology verticals.
• There is a shift away from large BI implementations in favour of smaller ones. Dresner sees a new “centre of gravity” for deployments arising, with installations for between six and 50 users growing.
• Integration with operational processes, data mining and advanced algorithms, and in-memory analysis topped the list of related BI technologies/initiatives considered most important.
Less important were open source and software-as-a-service.
