Going BIG with BI
11 SAS customers share their plans for business intelligence in 2008
By Michael Dowding
When it comes to business intelligence (BI), there’s no time like … the future. That’s because – despite the staggering value that it has delivered across every major industry over the past 18 years – the best days for BI may just lie ahead. In its most recent analysis, IDC predicted a five-year compound annual growth rate of 10.3 percent1 – heady growth for an enterprise software category that has seen such broad adoption and has been viewed in some quarters as “mature.”
What’s driving the impressive and sustained interest in BI? Perhaps the greatest overarching factor is simply the universally acknowledged truth: Data volumes are growing relentlessly. Investments in enterprise applications have created massive stores of data that contain strategic insights for organizations that can unlock that potential.
Philosophically, many businesses are also recognizing that broader deployments and wider adoption of BI – in both process-oriented and strategic contexts – can ratchet their returns further. Previously, BI was a department initiative for specialists. Today, it’s a pervasive business tool available to everyone, from call-center reps to middle managers and senior executives who have access to more powerful sets of analytics, interfaces and tools.
In the following vignettes, 11 SAS customers share their perspectives on how they foresee their BI deployments unfolding in 2008 – and beyond. We invite you to learn a little more about why we think the future of BI has never been brighter.
CIGNA HealthCare
Healthcare insurance, USA
Focus: BI data integration and information management
Myer
Retail, Australia
Focus: data mining for customer intelligence
ENMAX Energy Corporation
Energy, Canada
Focus: custom analytics for risk and product pricing
ABSA Group
Financial services, South Africa
Focus: data consolidation and user-controlled reporting
Companhia Energética de Minas Gerais (CEMIG)
Energy, Brazil
Focus: customized portal pages and advanced analytics
Vodafone
Telecommunications, Italy
Focus: real time analytics and increased personalization
University of Central Florida
Education, USA
Focus: dashboard and scorecard functionality in a user-friendly Web environment
Spaipa S/A
Manufacturing, Brazil
Focus: strategic management mapping with performance management
General Public Accounting Department of France
Government, France
Focus: performance-management dashboards and data quality
Fortis Retail Banking
Retail banking, Belgium
Focus: data warehousing to support customer relationship management
California Employment Development Department
Government, USA
Focus: expanding BI to more users
Bio:
Michael Dowding is a freelance writer with more than 20 years of software marketing, writing and public relations experience. www.wordscape.com.
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