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Sarvesh Kumar, European head of Satyam’s Business Intelligence team:
"Modern Business relies on data; be it for customer acquisitions, improving operational performance, reducing customer attrition, understanding competition et al. In recent times the data that flows into the organisations has multiplied many hundred times when compared with the data that was available for analysis in the last decade. Also the variety of sources of data has gone up significantly necessitating robust business intelligence solutions for data integration, storage and analysis to support effective decision-making."
Ian Berman, Director, EDS CRM Service Line:
"Through technology advancements it has become easier to capture and cheaper to store data than previously. While BI tools in the past typically have been used for “single-shot” analysis as input to campaign runs (e.g. determining customer segments for targeted campaigns) we see BI tools now being used as integral part of an on-going continuous improvement of the way you deal with your customers."
Steve Cowell, Director of Business Intelligence and Performance Management, Hitachi Consulting UK:
"When it is all said and done, one of the most significant things that has changed in recent years has been that the price point at which a BI solution can be purchased, deployed and supported has lowered and made BI more “affordable” to a wider audience. BI has been commoditised to the mass market. Hitachi Consulting believes the BI software market is now mature. With the current rounds of consolidation and acquisitions, triggered by the entry of significant new players, like Microsoft, the software vendors have been forced to adopt new sales strategies and channels to market. These have allowed much greater volumes of organisations to exploit this technology layer and unlock the data they have been gathering in their Accounts, ERP, CRM and Data warehouses."
Mike Hawes, Head of Office of the CFO, SAP United Kingdom and Ireland:
"Our ever-increasing ability to capture and store more information in structured (such as ERP Finance systems, and business systems) and unstructured (such as spreadsheets, Word, PowerPoint) form has finally led decision makers within businesses to seek one version of the truth for better reporting and planning."
Christopher Livesey, IBM Software Information Management UK Executive:
"In my view, the reason for the renaissance of the term business intelligence (BI) in recent years is threefold: Firstly, there’s a lot more data around, both within the average organisation or “out there” meaning that people can get hold of a lot more data and do a lot more analysis with it. Secondly, the software tools that enable people to do this are now much more capable. Finally, the world is moving faster and organisations are under pressure from regulators, competitors, customers, new entrants to existing markets, the challenges that emerging markets bring, M&A activity, and more."
How Things Have Changed
Not so very long ago, business intelligence software was confined mostly to a small group of highly-trained experts in the average business. But today more and more business people have access to intuitive BI tools. So what has driven that trend, and how has the technology evolved to help in this change?
Sonia Perez, Head of Marketing and Promotion, Obis Omni:
"With the evolution of business intelligence products, organisations are able to deploy BI tools to a wider user base. As a result the need for traditional BI specialist is no longer necessary. What has driven this trend? Organisations are continually looking for ways to cut cost whilst increasing productivity; therefore the demand for more intelligent tools has compelled BI vendors to develop easy-to-use and easy-to-deploy solutions."
Christopher Livesey: "Thirty years ago, management information was generated laboriously by hand-cranking figures into mainframe-based planning and reporting tools. With businesses now managing greater amounts of data coming from more sources, it is critical that business insights get into the hands of more decision makers. This means that the access to information and with the ability to analyse that information must expand beyond the core group of business analysts. IBM has introduced a term for this – Dynamic Warehousing – which provides a new approach to companies who want the ability to rapidly analyse and act upon the hidden benefits of their business information."
Steve Cowell: "BI technology has matured and focused on making the basic BI functions; slice and dice, drill down, exception alerts, etc are easy to do for most businesses familiar with desktop productivity tools, such as Excel. The deployment mechanism for most BI tools has also been simplified; desktop or web. Simple robust web-based solutions make it easier to deploy BI applications to more people regardless of location.".
Alison Whitby, Consultant, Business Intelligence Practice, Morse:
The technology is now reaching a point where it can actually be joined up enough and respond quickly enough to deliver useful BI. Put simply it is now much easier to provide the right data at the right time to the right person and thus empower them to make the right decision. There is also a massive drive for managers to be empowered and to “own” their data and thus make better business decisions on the ground.
What Is The Most Widespread Business Intelligence Tool Todate?
The most widespread BI tool today is, far and away, Microsoft's Excel. But analysts are noting more and more that it does have its limitations when it comes to corporate-wide use. What in your view does it lack as far as more collaborative, enterprise-wide BI requirements are concerned?
Andy Honess, UK MD, QlikTech:
Actually, I'm in no way convinced that Excel is a BI tool at all. In fact, it’s only because Excel was all the things that BI wasn't that it became so pervasive. It's simple, easy to use and understand and anyone could use it. It was the only choice for people who actually wanted to analyse data, and as such it became one of the most over-used and misused tools in the office arsenal. Excel anarchy reigns supreme! It’s now estimated that around 49 per cent of all Excel documents have errors in them - so how can it ever work as a reliable form of BI?
Herman Wimmer, President EMEA, Teradata:
Spreadsheets can cause havoc for data stewards and the IT department as they try to maintain a single version of corporate information. It’s not necessarily the fault of Excel, rather the bad habits developed by users who extract information from a central data warehouse, make changes but don't update the centralised version of the data.
Nobby Akiha, Senior VP of Marketing, Actuate:
"Excel lacks nothing if you think of it as what it is, it is a tool for individual use. It is the most prevalent way for people to share data, so why do away with it? One of our key products enables users to embrace Excel rather than following the old BI adage to replace Excel. We enable those Excel spreadsheets for corporate-wide use."
Steve Cowell: "Hitachi Consulting recognises that the problem with Excel as a BI tool was the data resided in the Excel workbook, however, the combination of Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services and Excel 2007 now enables business users to create powerful BI solutions that were once the domain of the traditional BI vendors. Combine this approach with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server/Excel Services and you have the start of a collaborative, enterprise-wide BI solution."
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