by Lisa Banks

Australian BI revenues to increase 12.7 per cent in 2011: Gartner

News
Feb 18, 2011
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Influential business users are increasingly driving business intelligence (BI) and deployments will go ahead with or without the consent of an IT department, according to analyst firm, Gartner.

“With ‘ease of use’ now surpassing ‘functionality’ for the first time as the dominant BI platform buying criterion, vocal, demanding and influential business users are increasingly driving BI purchasing decisions,” Gartner managing vice-president, Ian Bertram, said.

“Most often [they are] choosing easier to use data discovery tools over traditional BI platforms — with or without IT’s consent.”

Gartner predicts the business intelligence market will grow 12.7 per cent during 2011 as organisations seek to make clearer business decisions, understand the role of the consumer and make the most of emerging data sources.

The analyst predicts Australian revenues in the BI software market will reach $368.5 million.

Bertram said the rise is due to an increased investment from vendors in the sector.

“It’s a sign of the strategic importance of BI that investment remains strong,” Bertram said.

“This market segment has remained strong because the dominant vendors continued to put BI, analytics and performance management at the centre of their messaging, while end-user organisations largely continued their BI projects, hoping that resulting transparency and insight will enable them to cut costs and improve productivity and agility down the line.”

Check out CIO’s 10 golden rules of business intelligence

BI has been high on the agenda for CIOs in 2011 for the last 12 months, but Bertram said BI deployments are increasingly driven by other parts of the business.

IDC last year reported that only 27 per cent of Australian businesses adopt user-owned IT schemes, but Gartner predicts that demand for mobile and simple BI tools will rise in 2011, with a statement from the analyst stating that “business users are demanding the same experience from their BI tools that they have come to enjoy with their personal tools”.

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