BI revenue to jump ten per cent

Revenue from business intelligence platforms is set to jump ten per cent, says research firm Gartner, but companies must focus on better using the ensuing data.

Business intelligence (BI) platforms - software used to gather and analyse business data - are set for revenues of €1.5 billion in Europe, the Middle East and Africa this year.

But companies using BI applications should also look at choosing better metrics and educating their employees, rather than just investing in software.

Betsy Burton, vice president at Gartner, said that 80 per cent of companies are using a variety of metrics, but have no idea how those numbers drive their financial results. "A big trend is trying to pull together the metrics that matter," Burton told attendees of this weeks' Gartner BI Summit in London. "You can't just take technology and throw it at your problems."

BI applications have advanced, she said, but they can't solve management and people issues, especially with more users involved in the equation.

Dan Sommer, a senior research analyst at Gartner, told the conference that Gartner expects usage of BI to expand in organisations and including customers and members of the supply chain as well as executives and managers. More midmarket companies will be using BI techniques, as opposed to just larger corporations, and there will be more BI tools available.

Gartner also forecast that the market for BI applications will become more competitive, with major software vendors such as Oracle, SAP and Microsoft increasing their share by as much as three times.

"The big software companies are well positioned because they have embedded BI into their platforms and they are selling into a large installed base," said Burton.

Despite the "mega vendors" increasing their share, Gartner expects smaller, specialized BI vendors will continue to hold the majority of the market in the next few years.

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