Data Spotlight: Business Intelligence Software

The business intelligence (BI) software market will grow 9.7 percent, hitting a high of  $10.8 billion in 2011, according to Gartner. “It’s a sign of the strategic importance of BI that investment remains strong,” said Ian Bertram, managing vice president at Gartner. “This market segment has remained strong because the dominant vendors continued to put BI, analytics and performance management at the centre of their messaging, while end-user organizations largely continued their BI projects, hoping that resulting transparency and insight will enable them to cut costs and improve productivity and agility down the line.”

Three trends emerged from the Gartner study:

1) The Consumerization of BI

The report states that  “the need for more intuitive and interactive BI tools and applications extends to users on the go” is emerging, as brands demand a user-friendly, “consumer-style” ease of use from BI products. While the report states that “the vast majority of organizations have yet to embrace mobile BI,” Gartner estimates that “this is set to change very quickly with the proliferation of Apple’s iPhone and iPad products.”

2) Support for Extreme Data Performance; Emerging Data Sources

Gartner found that “capabilities that enable the analysis of large, volatile and diverse data will open up possibilities for a broad range of new, high-value BI applications and will be another driver of BI growth.”  These opportunities will  include in-memory technology and social and content analytics. “Combining these capabilities with support for extreme data volumes and consumer-oriented tools,” the report states,  “opens up possibilities for a broad range of new, high-value BI applications and will be another driver of growth.”

3) BI as a Decision Platform

Gartner’s user surveys revealed that “improved decision making is the top driver of BI purchases.” Added platform capabilities will develop BI from merely an information delivery system to a decision platform and will increase the value of BI and continue to drive its growth according to the report.

Learn more about Gartner research here