The research firm, Gartner, Inc. recently disclosed that the Australian Business Intelligence (BI) software revenue will grow to at least 11.7% thus reaching an estimated amount of AU$496.4 million in the year 2012. The predicted revenue includes all BI platforms, analytic applications, and corporate performance management (CPM) software.

Gartner also mentioned that BI will still be one of the fastest growing software markets in the world even though some countries are experiencing economic problems. The reason for this is that most companies would focus in developing BI as a way to implement a smarter, flexible, and more efficient business practice. In terms of worldwide BI software revenue for 2012, Gartner predicts that it would reach an estimated amount of US$12.5 billion.

Chief information officers (CIOs) ranked BI and analytics as their top technology priority for 2012, according to a new Gartner survey[1] of more than 2,300 CIOs worldwide.

Speaking ahead of his keynote address at the Gartner Business Intelligence & Information Management Summit in Sydney this month, Gartner managing vice president Ian Bertram said that during the next 10 years, the explosion of information will be the biggest opportunity for BI and also its biggest challenge.

"The extreme volume, velocity and variety of data will add stress to current approaches to BI and are increasingly capturing the attention of both the BI industry and buyers," he said.

Mr. Bertram said that there was a widening BI maturity gap between organizations in Australia at the moment.

"In Australia, many organizations are still focused on foundational BI concepts that revolve around strategy, skills, competencies and process," he said. "Then we have organizations looking for more advanced analytics capabilities to build on those foundations. This is really where they need to be to set themselves up for the future."

According to Mr. Bertram, the success of business intelligence efforts in organizations will depend on how they handle big data and new styles of advanced analytics.

Big Data

Business intelligence efforts flourish with large datasets. The larger the dataset, the easier it is to uncover hidden subtle patterns and trends and, therefore, opportunities that are likely to evade the competition. BI derived from big data is crucial to business competition and will depend on significant evolution of BI competencies and data warehouse architectures.

"It's not just traditional BI performed on bigger datasets," said Mr. Bertram. "It also tackles data variety, velocity and complexity. The business requirement to conquer and mine big data is here to stay for most enterprises. The potential value is huge, but the technologies and skills to manage big data BI depart drastically from traditional data warehousing, dimensional modelling, BI and OLAP."

Advanced analytics

While BI serves a distinct purpose for sharing, summarising and manually exploring data and metrics, more advanced analytics can aid and even automate decision-making. Pending a convergence of these capabilities, Gartner advises organizations to consider BI and advanced analytics distinctly from one another, recognizing the advantages and unique use cases of each.

Next generation analytics will expand beyond measuring and describing the past to predicting what is likely to happen and optimizing what should happen based on an increasingly varied set of data sources and types. The addition of mobile, social and collaborative technologies to advanced analytics tools will give a broader set of users insight for decision making when and where they need it.

"Organizations will need to put in place new processes and technologies to capitalise on this opportunity," said Mr. Bertram. "Lack of skills will be the biggest challenge to success."

Gartner's forecast for business intelligence software revenue is available in the report 'Forecast: Enterprise Software Markets, Worldwide, 2010-2015, 4Q11 Update' on Gartner's website at: http://www.gartner.com/resId=1866418

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