Vendors are divided on whether consolidation in the BI market is a good thing, but they all want to achieve better functionality and user-friendliness.
During a panel discussion on the issue of the consolidation of vendors in the BI market, held at the recent ITWeb BI Conference, panellist Alan Brickett, business data architect for Premier Foods, said: “Nothing much has happened in the past few years in terms of user-friendliness. Yes, there is a better look and it has been made to look nice, but there has been no real increase in functionality.”
There are some who don't believe it will work. Panellist Martin Rennhackkamp, COO of the PBT Group, is one such sceptic: “Consolidation is not good, because it will take away healthy competition in the industry”, he said.
There should be more efforts made to bring IT and business together and bring BI into the boardroom, he added. By doing that, vendors will become more of a strategic partner to an organisation, have more of a vested interest in the success of that organisation and, therefore, do more to achieve better functionality and user-friendliness. “And people want more choice,” he added.
Brickett did concede that consolidation in a given market usually brings a maturity to that market and better standards. However, he added: “We haven't seen that happening in the BI market yet and it has already been two years.”
Panel chair Bill Hoggarth said the real integration of vendors in the BI market will take up to 10 years to achieve. For the time being, it seems a lot still needs to be done in terms of consolidation, he noted. The key is to bring IT and business closer to each other, and functionality should be addressed urgently, he concluded.
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