The gradual transition from self-service to operational business intelligence, the move from aesthetics of data presentation to storytelling and infographic style, as well as changing user habits, are going to dominate the business intelligence space in the coming years.
This is according to Dr Rado Kotorov, chief innovation officer and vice president for product marketing at global firm Information Builders, who was speaking at the ITWeb Business Intelligence & Analytics Summit 2018 this week in Johannesburg.
These are part of the four micro technology trends, with the fourth being the frequent use of blockchain. "Self-service business intelligence platforms have failed deliver a pervasive business intelligence model to companies. Companies who are now moving towards more operational platforms are significantly more aware of the differences and benefits of an operational approach for on-the-job decision-making," says Kotorov.
"I think that now - primarily because of the recent developments in building reports and dashboards, along with all of these technologies - all companies are asking what's next.
"Another factor in BI - despite the dashboards and technologies - is that a lot of companies feel like they haven't gathered real returns on investments and an impact on the bottom line. This is what is driving the big shift to transition to operational business intelligence where we actually empower the frontline to make fact-based decisions."
Kotorov gave as examples, business intelligence being used in the police department, where data is used to implement predictive policing, as well as in the mining sector, where business intelligence in equipment helps with the implementation of newer safety measures. "Companies will then start seeing the benefits of operational decision support in analytics and expand the bottom line. Hopefully the snowball effect will be the creation of jobs in IT and other sectors," he added.
Speaker Annie Symington, data scientist at Dataviz Consulting & Henley Business School, disagreed, saying the latest self-service business intelligence platforms are crucial to businesses that seek to place data at the core of their operations.
"For years we have embarked on this data journey with the increased importance on getting our data clean and consumable. And now we need to move towards improving the way we bring the data to life and turn it into actionable insights. Businesses need to bring data to life - numbers have an important story to tell and visualising data allows the numbers to have a voice," she added.
Kotorov highlighted the shift towards the infographical design and storytelling as a definite trend driven by the business need to create an emotional and outstanding customer experience.
"My interaction with the financial and banking sector, which deal with a lot of statements and information aimed at the customer, informed the third trend. Infographical format and design enables these companies to forge better relations with their customers. This will create a lot of opportunities in the industries and change how information is delivered to people. The use of speech analytics will also enable companies to gather crucial customer information so as to improve its client interaction."
In terms of the vast adoption of blockchain technology as the final trend, Kotorov says SA will definitely flourish. "With regards to adopting a universal unbreakable ledger which increases the speed of transacting and lowers the cost, SA is really up there with the best and it is in fact slightly ahead with regards to implementation and development here in Africa. Despite the perception that the SA market for business intelligence and analytics is saturated, companies are trying to differentiate themselves and innovate."
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