There is a transformational change going on in business intelligence.
Users are becoming more and more demanding. They want access to their
real-time data without the complications of IT staff or difficult to
use applications. Today the action is in a new, more integrated world
of dynamic, real-time information. Next-generation BI promises
speedier, automated decision-making.
To underpin this trend a poll released last month by InformationWeek
showed nearly half of the 500 IT professionals surveyed, plan to
increase spending on software for viewing and analyzing business
information from 2006 levels. Forrester says BI platform revenues will
reach $7.3 billion by 2008, and CIO's surveyed by Gartner identified
BI as their No. 2 technology priority last year, up from No. 10 in
2004.
The underlying issue though for BI customers, is that Enterprise BI
projects continue to deliver less than expected value. And why does
enterprise BI continue to fail? Three reasons:
[1] They do not cover the needs of the majority of business users. In
fact, over 75% of enterprise business licenses end up as shelf ware.
[2] Traditional BI projects have come at a high cost. Their complexity
has meant long delivery cycles, and therefore greater risk and a
reduced ROI.
[3] Enterprise BI simply does not meet the needs of operational staff
and line management.
So if Enterprise BI is failing, what is driving BI spend? Embedded
BI; either at the process or application level, that's what!
Are information silos really that bad? Not according to the big
vendors!
The market is rapidly changing; Oracle's recent purchase of Hyperion,
SAP buying Pilot Software, and market leaders such as IBM, Microsoft,
and most recently Hewlett-Packard, are trumpeting BI, analytics and
data warehousing. They are now challenging in markets once owned by
pure-plays such as Business Objects, Cognos, MicroStrategy and SAS.
The big vendors are beginning to understand that only a small fraction
of senior management require integrated enterprise business
intelligence. Most people within an organisation, such as sales and
front line staff do not need enterprise BI. They need operational BI
that gives them instant access to relevant data in their
applications. They need to get on with their job and generate
revenue. In fact, 80% of report data is sourced from single point
operational systems, not monolithic enterprise data warehouses, and
nothing is really going to change that!
The major reasons that these vendors are growing their embedded BI
capability include:
They understand the reality that people work in silos and that these
users are demanding access to their data and are wanting more than
just static reports
Not only do they 'own' the operational applications that these workers
use, but they are the experts in the application as well as the data
that they contain. Vendors are able to create real value for their
customers, more in fact than your average BI consultant
Let's not forget there is money to be made. Why provide traditional BI
players with a slice of the customer pie, when you can win that
business for yourself?
Embedded BI is the way of the future, and is the key for application
vendors that want to add real value to their customers. The days of
pre-canned static reports have come to an end and software developers
who think they can get away without sophisticated embedded BI need to
think again.
