Consumerisation can boost BI: Gartner

The consumerisation of business intelligence (BI) via mobile devices could help companies reach many more users and drive greater adoption, according to Gartner, reports Microscope.co.uk.

The market research specialist reports that less than 30% of potential users of BI tools use them today because they are often difficult to use, slow to respond and deliver content of limited relevance.

According to the Times of India, analysts say people's experience of interacting with Internet-powered technologies changes their expectations of IT. BI users want to be able to just pick up and use the technology - they don't want to have to read the manual.

This places a high degree of importance on the human and computer interaction aspects of BI product and deployment design.

The fact of the matter is that BI is not pervasive and adoption is not in line with the investment made by most firms.

“Almost every organisation could improve, if its stakeholders had easier access to well-integrated information, and if they analysed that information to manage performance and make decisions,” said James Richardson, Gartner's research director.

“The consumerisation of BI technology offers a means for it to break out and reach many more users by offering faster, more user-friendly and more relevant BI.

Gartner recommends that IT shops adopt a portfolio management approach to support these new consumer BI tools, writes Redmond Mag.

That means having to manage different metadata models. Moreover, data can get lodged in different silos. Those are some problems, but IT shops should take an accommodating approach, according to Gartner.