Business intelligence (BI) remains a hot topic, and it will continue to be close to the top of the agenda in 2011. Here, from my perspective, are the 11 trends (in no particular order) that are likely to consume corporate and IT attention this year.
IT might hate Microsoft Excel, but it really is the choice of tool for most businesspeople.
Mervyn Mooi is director of Knowledge Integration Dynamics.
1. Excel hell still predominates. IT might hate Microsoft Excel, but it really is the choice of tool for most businesspeople. They love the freedom and individual choice it confers on them - even though it can create multiple versions of the truth. Best advice: accept the fact that users want Excel, introduce best practices, and ensure that all instances of Excel run against a single version of the truth. Spreadmarts aren't management's or non-Microsoft vendors' flavour of the day, but users can't be fought forever.
2. Enterprise performance management (EPM) will continue to gain traction, even in smaller companies. EPM, typically from companies such as Hyperion and Cognos, is associated with very large vendors due to the size of their IT budgets. The disciplines embodied in EPM, though, mean that planning, budgeting, reporting and other essential corporate activities can be linked and driven off the same version of the truth. And that is something all companies of all sizes need, so expect to see a drop in the price of EPM and an increase in its accessibility.
3. While the market-leading vendors will dominate the market, increasingly they are leaving something on the table for smaller, niche vendors. IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP will have by far the lion's share of the market, but there is a good deal of value left on the table for smaller, independent vendors. Think of QlikView and MicroStrategy, or emerging vendors such as ProfitBase and Panorama, and it's clear that the very nature of the free market will mean that new competitors will arise on a regular basis.
4. Cloud/software as a service (SaaS) BI will take off. BI delivered via the cloud should yield the same benefits as standard client/server BI. As bandwidth increases locally, this should be the case. Key considerations are ownership, security and integrity of data, speed of response and depth of functionality. Worth a look, though.
5. In-memory BI will continue to be touted, but in fact it will remain a slow burner. In-memory BI has been around for decades, but only now that the cost of RAM has dropped to affordable levels, does it make financial sense. Do most companies need it? No, but it is an elegant answer to a question few companies pose.
6. Mobile BI will be hyped, but users will not necessarily adopt it. The same argument applies here. SAP, for one, expects a billion users of SAP, in part through untethered users accessing corporate systems - among them BI. However, BI vendors will need to deliver their BI output in a different format if mobile BI is to work. Expect a new wave of BI applications, beginning this year.
7. The line between BI and complex event processing (CEP) will continue to blur, until the two are competing in the same space. CEP gives management the ability to interrogate, intercept and ultimately interpret millions of events within milliseconds of their occurrence - all through very specialised technology. Beginning 2011, companies will no longer make a clear distinction between BI and CEP, and BI vendors will begin offering CEP.
8. Rapid BI will become a basic requirement. Speed of delivery and implementation needs to be followed by speed of access. Users cannot sit around waiting for months for delivery, and an average of 10 seconds for answers. Both of these issues need to be, and are being, addressed by individual vendors. Look out for them.
9. Steady growth of interest in real-time analytics. Closely aligned with CEP, but more mainstream, real-time analytics interprets data streams close to their occurrence. More and more companies will want to adopt this technology.
10. Relatively niche adoption of BI in corporate will persist. Ten percent of users accept BI tools and use them regularly. Unless this figure is enhanced, BI will remain a sideline technology.
11. The first discussions around social media BI. Facebook, Twitter and blogs, to name three, are changing the world due to their user bases and pervasiveness. Analysing who is doing and saying what will become a key consideration for corporations in 2011.
Share