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Data 'must belong to everyone'

By Tracy Burrows, ITWeb contributor.
Johannesburg, 10 Jan 2013

ITWeb Business Intelligence Summit 2013

The 8th Annual ITWeb Business Intelligence Summit and Awards takes place on 26 and 27 February 2013, with a workshop on 28 February. Themed "Integrated BI for optimised performance", the 2013 summit empowers BI practitioners to derive the maximum value from their BI implementations. For more information and to reserve your seat, Click here.

The days of the business intelligence (BI) report produced by the IT department are over - now all data must be accessible to all, says Davide Hanan, MD of QlikView SA.

BI specialist QlikView, diamond sponsor of the annual ITWeb BI Summit, says where IT was once the gatekeeper to data, it needs to become an enabler - allowing everyone in the enterprise to access whatever data they need.

"In future, the IT department won't control every app and report; it will, instead, provide data and services so users can help themselves. This is not only because of changing needs, but also because the use of data will become a lot more varied and more information needed for analytics will reside outside the organisation. IT should now understand and manage this process, rather than fully control it."

Hanan says: "Data needs to belong to everyone in the organisation - it must be available to people at all levels, because decisions are made at all levels. And they can only make the right decisions if they have access to the right information."

He also points out that the changing role of the IT department as custodians of data is just one of the trends being seen in the BI sector at the moment. The importance of analytics, the rise of the touch interface, and consumerisation are also changing the face of BI, he says.

"BI in itself is as old as information - the concept of BI is simply to enable people to understand what is happening in business. The objective is still very much the same - it is the way it is done that is changing. The need to have knowledge about your business and its environment is still there. If there is data, you need to understand it."

What has changed, he adds, is increasing awareness of the importance of data in business success. The spotlight on big data in recent years has helped drive this awareness, says Hanan.

"True big data issues only apply to a small percentage of South African companies. But the focus on big data has highlighted the true value of data, showing that if you use data properly - through analytics - you can catalyse change in your business."

QlikView will sponsor the ITWeb BI Summit on 26 - 28 February 2013, at The Forum in Bryanston. For more information about this event, click here.

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