2016 will see a fundamental shift in BI

Dan Sommer

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The upcoming ITWeb Business Intelligence (BI) Summit 2016 to take place in Johannesburg, 1-2 March, will see Senior Director: Market Intelligence Lead at Qlik and IT industry veteran Dan Sommer, examine the fundamental changes taking place in BI influencing the way companies do business.

Sommer will discuss the extent at which market dynamics and the competitive landscape are undergoing tectonic changes. This is having a significant impact on data, analytics, buying, and selling.

"There are a number of tipping points resulting in companies experiencing a massive force from centralisation to decentralisation and power to empowerment when it comes to business intelligence," says Sommer, who recently joined Qlik from Gartner where he spent the last decade as research director, agenda manager, and global lead for BI and analytics markets.

He believes that these points revolve around:

1. Data centricity as a result of more data being analysed in the cloud;
2. A shift in analytics from reporting-centric to analysis-centric BI;
3. A change in buyer-centricity where business units are buying more IT tools and have become less reliant on the IT department to do it for them; and
4. A focus on seller-centricity where new vendors entering the market are more analytical driven than before.

"Corporates in South Africa are extremely aware of these tipping points. The exciting thing is that we have now reached the stage where technology is forming around people instead of the other way around. This means tools are sitting much closer to individuals so that they can create their own analytical stacks through the visualisation and data layers, as well as the engine underneath," he says.

One of the resultant changes is that data becomes more relevant with analysts being able to combine it with other information in a more customised manner instead of just throwing queries (and problems) over the wall to the IT department. "Because of this, analytics have become democratised. Now, people can focus on that which is relevant to them in the context of their business focus." This, he says, is partially a technological shift but also a fundamental socio-economic one.

"Over the past two decades, people have been borne into this paradigm of being data-driven in their decision-making. CIOs have also realised that they have to become active participants in the data age if their businesses are to remain relevant. BI is therefore changing the way business works."

BI analysis is not only becoming the focal point of the organisation but also the centre of its business model to a large extent. Deciphering the huge amount of information and creating value out of it will be the biggest challenge of the 21st century, believes Sommer.

He goes on to say that companies need to understand that multi-pronged IT is needed in the knowledge economy. In other words, it is not IT-driven BI or business-driven BI, but rather a combination of both. Organisations need to look at embracing new job roles. These include data artisans, data storytellers, data scientists, and even citizen data scientists.

"In the digital economy, with information becoming the core asset, start-ups have a head start. These smaller (and nimble) businesses embrace more sophisticated ways of doing analysis. We have entered an exciting new phase of BI and companies have to evolve their thinking to keep up," he concludes.