The future of business intelligence

Ian Charlesworth, Senior Analyst, Ovum

Over the past few months, we conducted interviews with SAS executives, industry experts and leading research analysts – asking each the same set of questions about the role of business intelligence (BI) in the next two to five years. Here, Senior Analyst Ian Charlesworth discusses BI convergence and the delivery of information in "appropriate time."

What is your vision of how business intelligence will be used two to five years from now?

Within this time frame, I expect that many organizations will have made a key strategic investment in BI. This will see them consolidate their tactical and departmental BI investments very often to a single strategic supplier. Usage of BI will grow to incorporate a wide audience, the majority of which will be everyday, casual users.

However, this will in turn act as a platform for much more innovative uses of BI technology, with opportunities sought to integrate the use of BI tools and services into operational business processes. For BI to deliver maximum value and opportunity, it needs to be integrated at the point of control and decision, taking triggers from key business events. Such triggers and events are naturally found within business processes, and I expect to see much interest in this convergence over the coming years.

What capabilities will be widely available in BI solutions of the future?

BI will become more closely aligned to other aspects of organizational IT, thanks in part to the growth and interest surrounding service-oriented architecture. I expect that we will have started to address many of the current barriers surrounding the integration of BI, for example, through better integration with content management technologies, business process management software and so on. The most fundamental development will be in the use of events and rules to make BI more time- and context-aware, ensuring that information is delivered in “appropriate time.”

What should organizations be doing now to help lay the foundation for long-term BI strategies?

Successful long-term BI strategies need to be driven by a vision. This vision needs to encompass a broad understanding about the power that comes from the effective use of information. Thus, much of the hard work for organizations does not concern the technology; it is about committing to this vision and laying down the groundwork to enable it to happen. With the right level of education and sponsorship, the business will then be in an ideal position to evaluate the best route forward and technologies required to take it there.

How might the BI vendor landscape change in the next two to five years?

The BI market is already mature and supports a number of vendors, both small and large. The market is long overdue for consolidation, and this has to be seen as imminent. Within the next few years, I fully expect to see most of the prevalent pure-plays acquired by the large infrastructure and application vendors.  

Bio: Ian Charlesworth is a Senior Analyst at Ovum where he leads research on integration.