Global BI market set for near double-digit growth throughout 2011

The worldwide Business Intelligence (BI) software market will grow 9.7 percent, reaching US$10.8 billion in 2011, according to Gartner’s latest enterprise software forecast.

Gartner said BI platforms would continue to be one of the fastest growing software markets, with more organizations turning to BI as a vital tool for smarter, more agile and efficient business decision-making.

BI ranked number five on the list of the top 10 technology priorities for chief information officers (CIOs) in 2011, according to Gartner’s annual global CIO survey published last month.

“It’s a sign of the strategic importance of BI that investment remains strong,” said Ian Bertram, managing vice president at Gartner. “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 organizations 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.”

Australian Business Intelligence market to grow even faster

Australia’s BI software market is set to grow faster than the globally forecast 9.7 percent, with Gartner estimating a 12.7 per cent year-on-year increase to US$347.6 million, in 2011.

Business Intelligence: Ease-of-use vs functionality

According to Gartner, 2010 was a frustrating year for many customers acquired as part of the consolidation frenzy of 2007 and 2008, as they upgraded and expanded BI purchases.

Mr. Bertram said the demand side of the BI platform market in 2010 was defined by an intensified struggle between business users’ need for ease-of-use and flexibility on the one hand, and IT’s need for standards and control on the other.

“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, most often choosing easier to use data discovery tools over traditional BI platforms — with or without IT’s consent,” said Mr. Bertram.

Gartner has identified three major demand-side factors that continue to expand use and drive BI platform revenue growth:

1) Consumerization of Business Intelligence

BI tools must be simple, mobile and ‘fun’ in order to expand use and value. Business users are demanding the same experience from their BI tools that they have come to enjoy with their personal tools. The need for more intuitive and interactive BI tools and applications extends to users on-the-go. But, the vast majority of organizations have yet to embrace Mobile BI. This is set to change very quickly with the proliferation of Apple’s iPhone and iPad, and the growing popularity of Google’s Android platform.

2) Extreme data performance and emerging data sources

Capabilities that enable the analysis of large, volatile and diverse data will open up possibilities for a broad range of new, high-value BI applications and will be another driver of BI growth. This includes in-memory technology and social and content analytics. Combining these capabilities with support for extreme data volumes and consumer-oriented tools opens up possibilities for a broad range of new, high-value BI applications and will be another driver of growth. The demand for new-age analytical database technology, such as Ingres’ breakthrough VectorWise database, will also increase.

3) Business Intelligence as a decision platform

Gartner’s user surveys show that ‘improved decision-making’ is the top driver of BI purchases. Capabilities that will evolve BI from an information delivery system to a decision platform will increase the value of BI and drive its growth.