Business intelligence (BI) in its current form is too complicated and this, coupled with the belief that users are not IT literate, means there is an over-dependence on IT professionals, resulting in report-centric BI.
This was the argument of QlikView MD, Davide Hanan, speaking at the ITWeb BI Summit and Awards in Bryanston this week.
“The fact that we're still asking if BI matters more than 50 years after it came into being means BI has failed or is misunderstood,” said Hanan.
“When decision-makers require information, they rely on other people to get it for them, which means there's no flexibility to do any kind of analysis and there is the loss of the valuable insight that comes from working with information,” he added.
He labelled these reports 'stone tablets' because they are not interactive. Each report cuts down information, which means a whole variety of reports is necessary for a complete overview. This results in information overflow - the number of reports needed increases exponentially with each item an executive wants to consider.
Changing mindsets
Hanan believes the solution lies in changing the way people think about BI, making use of in-memory data storage, and changing the way businesses access and interact with data.
“The OLAP cube solution came about out of lack of CPU power and memory in 1989. In 2010, we have the hardware, but the OLAP cube is still used,” he said. “The tools were dependant on the technology available at the time.”
Today, different technology is available, meaning businesses can use different tools. Hanan suggested a future where cloud computing, mobile devices, and simple analysis software that enables users to visually perceive relationships allows guided, actionable analytics from anywhere, at any time.
“It's the difference between getting reports and getting answers,” he said.
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