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Top 14 Business Intelligence predictions for 2012

Dont confuse c ontinuity for laziness. On face v alue, rehashing ev ents already transpired as predictions may create the appearanc e of lethargy . But, it seems that many
emergent themes from the 201 0/1 1 Business Intelligenc e (BI) scene will dominate 201 2, hav ing now dev eloped into significant market-shaping trends.
To reference the TDWIs blog The Future that has A lready Happened, and once again draw on interplay between The Joker and Batman in Christopher Nolans The
Dark Knight, 201 2 will bear witness to a certain lev el of continuity , and y es, repetition:
The major factors affecting BIs future are already in play - TDWIs The Future that has Already Happened report
I think y ou and I are destined to do this forev er The Joker to Batman

See what role Batman play ed in our Y ear in review : Top 9 Business Intelligence development of 201 1 disc ussion.
So, let the rev erberation of our reiterations begin:
1. T he spending spree will continu e
201 2 will prov e another rec ord y ear for inv estment in BI solutions, as organizations and CIOs feel the pressure to harness their data assets, and the abilities of new-age BI
products, in increasingly sophisticated way s. That, and the less reasoned pressure of anx iety : Get onboard or get left behind.
BI and analy tics hav e deposed cloud computing as top enterprise tec hnology priority for the New Y ear acc ording to a Gartner surv ey of 2,335 CIOs. It seems that while
BI will prov e a priority in 201 2, the analy tics market will also be caught-up in a v ast increase in worldwide IT spending, with IDC predic ting a 6.9 percent rise to $1 .8
trillion in 201 2.
A dditionally , The Corporate IT Forums annual surv ey on corporate IT strategies flagged more positiv e dev elopments for the BI market ov er the ensuing 1 2 months. The
study , compiled v ia responses garnered from almost 7 00 IT professionals between October and Nov ember 201 1 , rev ealed a 1 0.7 percent rise in the number or surv ey
participants planning to implement a BI strategy in the coming y ear. In addition, 45.8 percent of respondents indicated that they already hav e a BI strategy in place.
A new surv ey from consultancy firm, MorganFranklin, found that 7 5 perc ent of respondents intend to increase or maintain BI spending during 201 2.
A nd, TechTargets 201 2 IT Priorities Survey which polled more than 2,600 IT professionals and business analy sts in a mix of job positions found that 50 percent of
those surv ey ed planned on increasing BI spending by 1 0 percent or more ov er the nex t y ear.
A recent SnapLogic surv ey , of more than 1 1 0 CIOs, found that pursuing, ex panding and implementing BI/analy tic s initiativ es will remain the most popularly listed
number one priority in 201 2 (39%).
InformationWeeks Outlook 201 2 surv ey of 605 North A merican technology professionals indicated that BI would remain high on the 201 2 agenda, with 60 percent of
respondents stating that they consider the ability to perform timely analy sis on sales and operational data as important. A further 54 percent agreed that mining
customer data was important.

2. Location Intelligence: Com plex lay ering

The ability to map, v isualize and understand data form a geographic al standpoint will become an inc reasingly important part of any BI solution. Why ? Bec ause, according
to IDC, more than 80 percent of the data collected by organizations has a spatial element and v endors are finally starting to offer integrated mapping with their BI
platforms.
Gartners 201 2 BI Magic Quadrant surv ey rev ealed that many organizations across a div erse range of industries are beginning to apply BI and analy tics to new business
areas. As a result, respondents listed geographic -intelligent functions as one of the standout new product requirements for 201 2.
Suc h functions, often encapsulated in the term Location Intelligence (LI), enable business analy sts to apply geographic c ontex ts to business data LI combines
location-based data with traditional metrics captured within a BI sy stem. It helps answer a business problem by prov iding contex t to business data.
A recent research report Loc ation Intelligence: What can be Expected as BI embrac es Location and Cloud released in March last y ear by Saugatuc k Technology ,
defines the benefit of LI in the following way : Integration of Location (GIS) and standard BI platforms brings LI to greater usefulness by making it av ailable as an option
to any one who is familiar with the more readily -av ailable BI solutions, and without the need to master new concepts or a new user interface. Spatial relationships also
greatly enhance many of the details commonly reported by BI sy stems, prov iding an added lev el of analy sis that is useful in v iewing and assessing trends (and ex isting
data ty pes).
The ability to ov erlay demographic or statistical data onto a map prov ides an additional lev el of analy sis, both aiding, and adding to a persons interpretation of the data.
By combining geographic data with traditional/standard business data, users are prov ided with the insights and contex t to make better dec isions.
Wev e all heard about the benefits of LI in relation to marketing, sales and operations the ability to locate customers, potential customers, manpower, infrastructure
and pair that knowledge with ex isting data ty pes to streamline processes and uncov er prev iously obsc ured opportunities. But, the TDWI, in their artic le 5 Macro
Trends Shaping Next-generation BI and Analytic s, shed new light on this c apability : For those who say that location intelligenc e is little more than a nice-to-hav e
feature, c onsider this: when the U.S. Special Forces unit (i.e., Seal Team 6) entered the now-famous compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, the information accuracy it
gathered was literally mission critic al. This operation required sifting through struc tured and unstructured data, then integrating it with targeted geo-spatial analy tics
and location intelligence. A fter analy zing massiv e quantities of data, the team was able to build an ex act duplicate of Osama Bin Ladens compound in A fghanistan to

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train, test, and ex periment before making their actual ex ecution flawless. Mission: accomplished.

3. Mobile BI
Mobile BI the ability to place reporting and analy tics in the hands of dec ision-makers, wherev er they are v ia their fav orite mobile dev ic es will intensify in 201 2.
Ex citement, procrastination and plans will transform into action as organizations realize the benefits of timely fact-based data outweigh security and integration
concerns.
The potential benefits are significant. TDWI best practices report Mobile Business Intelligence and analytics: Extending Insight to a Mobile Workforce found that the
top four business benefits sought from Mobile BI are:
Improv ed customer sales, serv ice, and support (65 %)
More efficienc y and coordination in operations and business processes (60%)
Faster deploy ment of BI and analy tics applications and serv ices (50%)
Customer self-serv ice benefits (45%)
The top four information access benefits sought from Mobile BI are:
Faster and easier ex ecutiv e access to information (83%)
Easier, self-serv ice access to data sources (67 %)
Right-time data for users roles in processes or operations (54%)
More frequently updated information for all users (5 1 %)
Recent Aberdeen Group research suggests that these sought-after benefits c an (and are) be realized by best-of-breed Mobile BI implementations.
The scale of growth will be profound. Many analy st firms and industry studies suggested that around 9 percent of organizations were deliv ering BI v ia mobile dev ices in
2008. That figure, although with some conjec ture, sat at around 20 percent at the end of 201 1 . A recent TechTarget surv ey predicts that almost 50 percent of companies
will hav e a Mobile BI solution by the end of 201 2. Further ev idence of this furiously acc elerating trend c omes from renowned Forrester Research blogger and analy st,
Boris Ev elson. Mobile analy tics is ex pected to become so perv asiv e, that in his researc h report, A Practical How -To A pproac h to Mobile BI, Ev elson states that
corporations now need to design dashboards with mobile BI in mind.
Results from SearchBusinessA naly tics.coms 201 1 Business Intelligenc e Challenges and Priorities Survey also suggest a marked uptick in Mobile BI implementations.
Thirty perc ent of the 249 surv ey participants said they would implement a Mobile BI program within the coming y ear. And again, InformationWeeks 201 2 Business
Intelligence, Analytic s, and Information Management Survey disclosed that 44 percent of respondents plan to add mobile analy tics capabilities, v ia smartphones or
tablets, to their data strategies this y ear.
Gartner goes ev en further, suggesting that mobile analy tic s will remain a foremost trend and priority until around the end of 201 5: "While the rise in popularity of mobile
dev ic es and the growing comfort with browser use for enterprise applications preordains a richer mix of email c lients and acc ess mec hanisms, the pace of change ov er
the nex t four y ears will be breathtaking," Gartner said. Moreov er, smartphones and tablets represent more than 90 percent of the new net growth in dev ic e adoption for
the coming four y ears. Also, more mobile application dev elopment projects will be commissioned than PC-related projects for the first time in 201 2, according to
Gartner.
Gatners Gartner Predicts 201 1 report predicts that 33 percent of BI func tionality will be consumed v ia handheld dev ices by 201 3. Gartners 201 2 BI Magic Quadrant
surv ey backs that forecast: More than 20% of surv ey respondents report that they are already using mobile BI or are piloting it. A whopping 33% plan to deploy mobile
BI in 201 2. By the end of 201 2, a majority of organizations should hav e some mobility solutions in place.
T ablets and iPads to dom inate new Mobile BI im plem entations
The large form factors of tablet PCs, and the rampaging success of A pplies iPad within business env ironments and BY OD (Bring Y our Own Dev ice) to work programs, will
see a sharp increase in the number of iPad-oriented Mobile BI initiativ es fulfilled throughout 201 2. InformationWeeks aforementioned Outlook 201 2 report found that 31
perc ent of contributors agreed that tablets would become the main computing dev ic e for select employ ees A significant shift from the 201 0 v ersion, in which 51
perc ent strongly disagreed that their organizations would giv e tablet PCs to ev en 1 0 percent of employ ees in place of a desktop or laptop.
A ccording to the IDC, worldwide tablet shipments are set to jump from 1 6.1 million in 201 0, to 1 47 .2 million by 201 5 45 million of which will be bought by businesses.
More spec ifically , Apple sold ov er 32 million iPads last financial y ear (September 201 0 September 201 1 ). A pple also claim that a truly astonishing 92 percent of
Fortune 500 organizations will test and / or deploy iPads as part of their corporate information strategy during 201 2. Dresner Adv isory Serv ices latest Mobile Business
Intelligence Market Study also identified the iPad as the dominant platform for Mobile BI in 201 2. The majority of surv ey participants (55 percent) listed the iPad as their
first choice, or primary , deploy ment platform.
Tec hTargets 201 2 Global IT Priorities Survey found that 34 perc ent of respondents plan to introduce tablets as part of their corporate IT strategies in 201 2, up from 1 8
perc ent in last y ears study . Conv ersely , smartphone-oriented programs hav e simultaneously stagnated. Thirty -fiv e percent of respondents planned to implement
smartphone initiativ es, c ompared to 34.8 percent in 201 1 .
Mobile BI gets collaborativ e
The collaborativ e features taking root in a number of BI platforms will be introduced to the nativ e mobile apps offered by those v endors in 201 2.
4. SaaS: BI in the Clou d spu rs SMB adoption
A recent Gartner report suggested that cloud-based BI is being adopted at a slow, steady as she goes pace, accounting for only three percent of BI rev enue by 201 3.
Whilst this prediction puts much of the hy pe into perspectiv e, we believ e the Software as a Serv ice (SaaS) BI market will ex perience stronger growth giv en the potentially
lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for small to midsized businesses (SMBs).
Tec hTargets 201 2 IT Priorities Surv ey which polled more than 2,600 IT professionals and business analy sts found that a growing number of enterprises plan to
increase their ex penditures for cloud serv ices ov er the nex t y ear.
IDC research indicates that the SaaS BI market has and will ex perience triple the growth of the ov erall market, ex panding at a c ompound annual growth rate of 22.4

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perc ent through to 201 3.

A nother recent surv ey of 5 00 US based IT end-user clients by non-profit trade association, CompTIA , reflected those predictions, with almost 7 5 perc ent of respondents
say ing they intended to increase spending on Cloud programs.
A dditionally , global SMB ICT market researc h and industry analy st organization, Techaisle, rev ealed that cloud BI usage is ex pected to jump in the nex t y ear, with 47
perc ent of respondents planning to shift from spreadsheets to cloud a jump of 59 perc ent from 201 1 . The study found that 22 percent of SMBs are currently using BI,
another 27 perc ent plan to implement in the coming y ear, and that cloud-based BI is the top BI area of planned inv estment for 201 2 amongst SMBs.
InformationWeeks 201 2 BI and Information Management Trends Report further underlines the appeal of SaaS-based BI for SMBs, with respondents listing low ov erall
cost (55 %) and low initial cost (39 %) as two of the biggest attractors.

5. Big Data
Despite Big Data rating highly on Gartners latest Hy pe Cy cle its not all puffery . Big Data will continue to receiv e significant market place attention in 201 2, as v endors
and analy sts scramble to meet and dissect emerging market demand. But why has Big Data become a hot topic? The answer seems to be two-fold and fairly simple.
Firstly , new, affordably pric ed, products and serv ices hav e emerged to giv e organizations the capability and c apacity to c apture more information than ev er before. A
recent TDWI article 5 Macro Trends Shaping Next-generation BI and A nalytics prov ides an ex tremely relev ant ex ample of how such dev elopments hav e changed
corporate data collation approaches and mindsets: suppose y ou run a manufacturing company that produces baby bottles. In 2001 , y ou probably focused on just two
data points: how many bottles y our plants produced and how much money y ou made from that production. Today , howev er, y oure likely to track how many bottles y ou
manufacture and how much money y ou make as w ell as how satisfied y our customers are, what percentage are repeat customers, and what people are say ing about y our
bottles on social networks.
This has been simultaneously meet with the ex pansion of ex isting data ty pes and sources, and the creation of new ones. The emergence and continuing proliferation of a
multitude of notable social media platforms has created v ast amounts of potential customer data. Data which is just waiting to be mined and ex plored! For ex ample,
Fac ebook now has ov er 800 million users whose details, preferences and interac tions are av ailable for analy sis.
A recent Gartner study puts the propagation of av ailable data into perspectiv e, stating that the v olume of data generated in 2009 alone was greater than in the preceding
5,000 y ears combined. IDC predic ts that digital content v olume will balloon by 2.7 zettaby tes in 201 2 a 48 percent boost from 201 1 . Gartner ex pec ts global enterprise
data assets to grow by around an additional 65 0 percent by the end of 201 4.
6. Ease-of-u se will continue to be the num ber one BI priority
Play ers from both side of the prov erbial fence in the BI marketplace will work hard to consolidate the most notable and ov erarc hing trend to affect the software segment
since its inception ease-of-use. Why ? Bec ause organizations hav e realized the v alue in equipping non-technical employ ees and business areas outside IT with self-serv e
reporting and analy tics and, naturally , v endors are-all-too-keen to tap into that v astly ex panded potential c ustomer base.
Gartners 201 1 and 201 2 BI Magic Quadrant surv ey s report ease-of-use as the new number one purchase consideration for BI platforms. New V entana benchmark
researc h on business analy tics elicited a similar response from participants, with 89 percent ex pressing a desire for simpler analy tics. Like Gartner, V entanas V alue
Index also lists product usability (57 %) as the most important ev aluation criteria, according to end-users, for product assessment.
A gain, InformationWeeks 201 2 BI and Information Management Trends Report an October 201 1 surv ey of 542 business technology professionals found that lack of
usability is the most common barrier to BI adoption. Forty -fiv e percent of respondents cited ease-of-use challenges with complex software/less technic ally sav v y
employ ees when presented with 1 5 possible responses to the question what are the barriers to adopting BI products enterprise-wide?. But ease-of-use doesnt merely
relate to produc t usability . Six ty -three percent of respondents to the same Information Management surv ey listed ease of implementation as their first choice when
asked to identify the most important features to look for when purchasing a BI product or selecting [a] v endor. The bottom line? It just has to be easy .
7 . T he consum erization of BI driv es greater adoption and BI ROI
The continued consumerization of BI the inclusion and dev elopment of user-friendly features and functionality making reporting and analy tics accessible to a wider
array of users will generate more widespread user adoption and better BI Return on Inv estment (ROI). Gartners June 201 1 report The Consumerization of BI Drives
Greater A doption stated that the consumerization of BI had resulted in a new bread of end-user focused BI solutions, capable of deliv ering faster, more relev ant results
to business people of all bac kgrounds, and a better ROI. The report also suggested that this trend marks arguably the biggest shift in BI adoption since the rise of
enterprise-c lass BI platforms in the late 1 990s.
Studies from the TDWI and Bey eNetwork hav e also demonstrated the link between perv asiv e BI and superior ROI for BI initiativ es. The TDWI researc h report How
Pervasive BI is Good for Y our Business and How to Get There states that the number of activ e users is one of the best performance indicators for any BI
implementation. The study concludes by suggesting that BI adoption and usage rates remain low because most BI products are still geared towards analy sts and power
users. Its now utterly undeniable the consumerization of BI, the widespread deploy ments and high lev els of user adoption that follow, hav e c onsiderable positiv e
business impac ts. BI projects and technology that target the report consumer is good for y our business. The Bey eNetworks researc h report, Ease of Use and
Interface A ppeal in Business Intelligence Tools, also directly links BI adoption to ease-of-use and BI ROI.
8. More perv asiv e BI leads to changes in BI gov ernance and u sership
We know that business users are hav ing a greater say when purchasing a BI solution, but how are usership figures changing in accordance? A s ev idence that BI is
bec oming more perv asiv e and end-user oriented, Gartners latest BI Magic Quadrant surv ey and Dresner Adv isory Serv ices (DA S) 201 1 Wisdom of Crow ds Business
Intelligence Market Study demonstrated an inc reasing percentage of business (non IT) people utilizing BI software. Of the 1 ,364 respondents to Gartners 201 2 BI Magic
Quadrant surv ey , only 38.9 percent identified themselv es as pure IT, with 20.8 percent listing themselv es as a business user, while 40.3 percent said they had
blended business and IT responsibilities. DAS 201 1 Wisdom of Crowds surv ey also noted that business users are inc reasingly dominating BI adoption and usage. IT
users comprised 5 0 percent of the ov erall surv ey sample, compared to 61 percent in 201 0.
Business users appear to be increasingly driv ing BI adoption. We believ e that the trend towards business-dominated BI is a global trend, with other geographies lagging
behind North A merica by sev eral y ears, wrote report author and former Gartner research fellow, Howard Dresner.

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Ev ocativ e Forrester Research blogger, Boris Ev elson, wrote in a recent blog post that More BI will mov e into the hands of end users and that IT will learn not to fight it
or risk becoming irrelev ant. Its all about getting things done.
In further ev idence that BI gov ernance, as well as usership, is inc reasingly mov ing into the hands of business (non IT) departments, Gartner predicts up to 35 percent of
enterprise IT ex penditures will be managed outside of the IT departments budget by 201 5 .
The defined role of IT is changing from a mission of guarding the data to one of preparing the data for actionable business decisions. In 201 2, this trend will continue and
accelerate, noted Gartner analy st Dary l Plummer.
9. Enterprises are going to hav e to liv e with m ultiple BI tools
A s indicated by Gartners 201 2 BI Magic Quadrant surv ey and Dresners Wisdom of Crowds study results, enterprises are going to hav e to deal with a multitude of BI
solutions. This multiple solution env ironment is a product of business user demand for easy -to-use flex ible produc ts that put analy tic power into their own hands, and
ITs demand for deep analy tical functionality of course we believ e that Y ellowfin satisfies both criteria.
This has further accentuated the need for IT organizations to back away from a single-minded pursuit of standardization on one v endor to a more pragmatic portfolio
approach, wrote Gartner Magic Quadrant report authors, John Hagerty , Rita L. Sallam and James Richardson.
The 201 2 BI platform Magic Quardrant surv ey showed that ease of use has c arried ov er from 201 1 as the new number one priority for business users when selecting a
BI product (5 2%). Howev er, respondents identify ing themselv es as IT ranked functionality as their number one purchase criteria.
Data discov ery [or end-user oriented] alternativ es to enterprise BI platforms offer highly interactiv e and graphical user interfaces built on in-memory architectures to
address business users unmet ease-of-use and rapid deploy ment needs, stated the report. Sales results for v endors in this sector hav e been stellar and well abov e the
market av erage.
The driv e for data discov ery tools by business users will see enterprises harbor an increasing number of BI solutions.

10. T he rise of independent inform ation gatherers

201 2 will see the rise of the independent information gatherer. Business users wont just be able to access part of a BI tools functionality by themselv es. In 201 2, they will
be able to c reate, modify reports and interpret that intelligence independently . This trend represents more than simply finding the answers v ia self-serv ice BI It
represents true independent data ex ploration.

11. An analy tics talent shortage

A s reporting and analy tics is applied to many more business functions, an increasing number of job ty pes will require a working knowledge of analy tic s, whic h in turn,
will lead to a skills shortfall. A 201 1 research report by Mc Kinsey Global Institute predicted that by 201 8, the US job market would ex perienc e a shortage of around 1 .5
million managers and analy sts with the know-how to use the analy sis of big data to make effec tiv e decisions.
12. In-m em ory capabilities will grow in im portance
Demand for real-time insights, shrinking business timeliness and an inc reasingly competitiv e global marketplace is placing increasing pressure on acceptable query
speeds. A s such, in-memory c apabilities will grow in importance as organizations demand answers to critic al business questions at Google-like speed.

13. Collaborativ e BI will ex perience notable m arketplace penetration

Collaborativ e or Social BI the integration of information sharing features and func tionality of popular Web 2.0 technologies and soc ial media platforms within a BI
platform will ex perience steady uptake and significant interest in 201 2. Interest and uptake will intensify as organizations realize the ability of in-built collaborativ e
dec ision-making (CDM) modules to bridge the gap between insight and action producing better, faster decisions and stronger ROI for BI projects.
Gartner predicts that by 201 3, 1 5 percent of BI deploy ments will combine traditional BI and collaboration c omponents in a singular decision-making env ironment.

14. More software solution prov iders will take adv antage of em bedded BI
BI is a rapidly growing industry . Organizations from all backgrounds are turning to BI to streamline operational efficiencies and increase competitiv e adv antage by
placing better, faster fact-based information in the hands of more decision-makers. The proliferation of BI means that clients of a wide range of enterprise software
solutions now ex pect reporting and analy tics functionality as a standard checklist item in their ex isting enterprise software package.
For more on the benefits of an embedded reporting solution, check out this SlideShare presentation: http://www.y ellowfinbi.c om/Y FCommunity News-Why -y ouneed-to-embed-BI-into-y our-software-applic ation-1 021 02

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