Business Intelligence Still A Problem For Small And Medium Firms

An InformationWeek article released earlier today (US EDT) highlighted the struggles that small and medium size businesses still face in attempting to implement business intelligence (BI). The article, which quoted a survey by BI vendor LogiXML, noted that nearly half of all non-technical users polled were dissatisfied with their BI implementations. The main hurdles are cost and lack of IT staff, cited by 27 and 26 percent of respondents respectively. The 575 respondent firms polled by LogiXML were predominantly small and medium in size.

An Idea Whose Time Has Come (Again)

A press release issued earlier this morning (US EDT) by Star Analytics touts the company's offering. Star Command Center 3.0. Star Command Center isn't really a business intelligence (BI) software package itself. Rather, it sits on top of other vendors' BI platforms, providing a single interface to all your enterprise's BI applications. (Enterprise? Star Command? Hmm . . .)

The Evolution of Enterprise Architecture

Gartner has issued a new press release summarizing its analysis of trends in enterprise architecture (EA). Until recently EA has been strictly an information technology (IT) function that was narrowly focused on the data and technology components of the business organization. According to Gartner, however, EA is becoming a collaborative effort between IT and the business. They project nearly a third of all such effort will be collaborative by 2016, up from 9% currently.

Business intelligence can only benefit from this shift. As EA moves from a data-centric focus to a business and strategic focus, we should expect business intelligence efforts to yield greater value since they'll flow from a more sharply focused strategic vision of the business. Sharpening the strategic focus will be critical as information inputs from social networking channels both inside and outside the business multiply. Failure to do so will increase the risk of decision makers being overwhelmed by information noise.

Especially in larger and more forward-thinking organizations business intelligence and analytics are becoming less a matter of gathering data to make narrowly focused decisions and more about seeing meaning and context to enable long-term strategic planning and contingency analysis. Viewed in this context, I think the emerging trend in EA is a natural evolutionary step forward for business intelligence and analytics.

Mobile Business Intelligence: A Consumer Electronics Perspective

In January 2011 I presented a couple of articles on mobile business intelligence. In my assessment of strategic considerations for mobile BI I noted that, given the ways in which we consume data, tablet devices should provide a better user experience than smartphones for almost all BI-related functions.

This morning I read an analysis of consumer trends in mobile devices that reinforces my assessment. The article, written by mobile industry consultant Eric Chan, makes a compelling argument that data-intensive, cost-pressured consumers will increasingly choose a tablet-feature phone combination over a tablet-smartphone combination. In Mr. Chan's words:

Consumers use smartphones primarily for media and data capabilities, not calling features. That means they're not really 'telephones,' per se; to the average person, they are portable media devices. So why stick with a three-inch screen when you can have one three times larger? And if you do buy a tablet, why continue with a smartphone? At current prices of $200 to $400, the smartphone is too expensive to win the battle against tablets at a mass-consumer level.

There are problems with this analysis. As commentators on the article rightly note, there is a convenience factor associated with the smartphone's combination of small size and functionality that feature phones cannot yet match. But I see two things that mitigate this. First, feature phones are likely to get smarter over time. Second, as smartphones become larger to compete with the superior screen size of tablets (which, as Mr. Chan noted, is already happening), they will squeeze the very pocket space that gives them their current competitive advantage.

All of this reinforces my belief that, for most BI-related knowledge work, the tablet will be the mobile app client of choice.

Site Updates

I've added a static page to the site (see the link at left) that contains links to my posts on the PRIME model from December and January. I feel this is a potentially very useful concept and therefore want to make sure it is easy for you to navigate. If you have not looked at these articles, I encourage you to do so.

Also, I have now completed the "core dump" of ideas that led me to begin this blog and so I won't be posting as frequently. I do plan to make comments on BI and analytics industry trends where I feel there is a business angle and will continue to announce new articles via Twitter (@thisbrucesmith). I'll also continue to tweak the content of this site in an effort to make it more useful and accessible.

Data Warehouse 2.0: In Search Of Meaning

Gartner issued a press release yesterday stating their belief that data warehousing is on the verge of major changes beginning in 2011. Two key changes highlighted by the release are increased demand for new types of information formats and applications, and increased demand for real-time data. Data consumers in the most forward-thinking companies are straining to go beyond mere reporting and analysis of business numbers to get at the context or meaning of business activity.

New formats and applications

In order to find this meaning, it will be necessary to go beyond traditional number-oriented data warehouses and incorporate text and media to a much greater extent than ever before. Companies that had toyed with text and media as data sources will now embrace them as integral to their data warehouses. This in turn will challenge business intelligence architects to ditch traditional ideas of reporting and analysis in order to present the new data in a way that helps the decision maker grasp the meaning he or she seeks. One thing I can easily envision is the increased use of tag cloud interfaces similar to what you now see in many blogs.

More data, faster

The other item, which we've discussed elsewhere on this site, is real-time data and business intelligence. This is what is driving the rapidly increasing interest in columnar databases, such as the one that powers Vertica Systems, whose acquisition by HP was announced and discussed here last week.

Behind the search for meaning

Larger companies will be investing heavily in the new technologies in an attempt to match the nimbleness and responsiveness of smaller businesses without adding large numbers of skilled analysts, who will be too expensive or not available. Growing businesses will need to be aware of the need to transition into these kinds of capabilities as they scale up through time and to plan their investments in new technology and data accordingly.

HP Acquires Vertica

HP announced yesterday that it is acquiring Vertica Systems, a company I had recently highlighted as a highly successful real-time BI and analytics vendor operating "under the radar" while racking up an impressive client list. I see two takeaways from this:

1. Obviously Vertica is "under the radar" no longer, but more importantly:

2. This represents a big pivot for HP.

HP had been widely rumored to be exiting the BI/analytics market. Their NeoView product had failed to gain traction, and they recently announced an alliance with Microsoft to market a business intelligence appliance running Microsoft BI and SQL Server on HP servers. My guess is this means HP is making a heavy bet on real-time BI and analytics as the next growth business in this segment and are buying in through the Vertica acquisition.

It should be interesting to find out whether this ultimately signals HP's intent to focus on real-time business intelligence and analytics as a niche or if there are more acquisitions in the offing as HP seeks to build a new BI portfolio.