Agile BI and BI self-service on the rise, BI pervasiveness still lacking

Forrester Research’s 2010 global Business Intelligence (BI) maturity survey has found that organizations are turning to Agile BI and BI self-service in an effort to boost user adoption heading into 2011.

Increase in Agile BI and BI self-service

“Traditional BI approaches, processes, technologies and architectures are no longer enough to continue to drive higher levels of BI adoption and increase BI maturity in enterprises,” wrote Boris Evelson, principal analyst at Forrester Research.

“New approaches such as Agile BI and BI self-service by the business users are needed to supplement traditional BI.”

The survey – BI Maturity In The Enterprise: 2010 Update – made up of 173 technology professionals familiar with their respective organization’s BI efforts, showed that over 43 percent of respondent organizations are employing Agile BI and BI self-service – a notable increase on 2009 survey results.

Pervasive BI: As an industry we’re still not there…

However, the study found that only 35 percent of organizations are currently employing pervasive BI (Forrester defines pervasiveness as the ability of most strategic and operational decision-makers to access the BI application).

The report also revealed that the recruitment, training and retention of BI experts leaves something to be desired, with 46 percent of survey participants dissatisfied with some aspects of their organizations’ processes in this regard.

Forty-three percent of respondents considered the reporting times of their current BI tool to be acceptable, with 56 percent deeming their organizations’ data refresh latency to be satisfactory.

Conclusion: Yellowfin ahead of the field

Yellowfin, an agile and highly intuitive BI solution that encompasses leading mobile, collaborative, location intelligence and data visualization features, is driving BI pervasiveness and maturity.

But, as a whole, it remains clear that the BI marketplace is still a long way from reaching maturity and living up to the mantra of “BI for the masses”.