Businesses will spend £1bn on business intelligence
software during 2007, Gartner has predicted.
Research by the analyst firm has found that CIOs see business
intelligence as the number-one technology priority in 2007 – for
the second year running. But consolidation of business intelligence
tools will also be a big focus for IT directors this year.
Gartner said that until recently many firms have bought business
intelligence systems at a departmental level, resulting in myriad
different tools being used across many businesses.
But for 2007 Gartner said firms were looking to use a single
system across the business to ensure a consistent, standardised
approach to analysing and measuring data that should also boost
operational efficiency.
Speaking at the Gartner Business Intelligence Summit in London
yesterday, Andreas Bitterer, research vice president at Gartner,
said, “BI has become a strategic initiative and is now recognised
by CIOs and business leaders as instrumental in driving business
effectiveness and innovation.”
But Bitterer also warned that BI is not well understood by many
firms’ employees, which meant an increased focus on training would
be crucial in 2007.
A survey conducted at Gartner’s 2006 BI summit found that large
organisations who already invest in BI spend an average of £760,000
per year purchasing BI software. For many of these organisations,
Gartner said there was now a significant shift towards bringing BI
to the masses by making the tools available to increasing numbers
of employees, as well as customers, business partners and
suppliers.
Nigel Rayner, research vice president at Gartner, said that
businesses that have implemented ERP systems are now looking at BI
to extract value from the massive amount of data they are storing
as a result of ERP.
Rayner said, “Once people know what factors impact business
performance, they can change what they are doing. ERP helps you do
things better, but BI helps you do better things.”
BI suppliers move towards performance
management
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