In the last few Industry Insights in this series, I have looked at the market as a whole and what the market drivers are. Hopefully, companies will come to the same conclusions as I have. It will get easier.
That is not groundbreaking news, as if it stayed the same or got harder to do, I should be really concerned.
To see what will come and go and what will remain top of mind, companies must see who is driving the need. Vendor-driven hype will arrive with a bang, and then drift off into the ether unless it speaks to a specific business need.
Fact or fiction?
Remember open source versus Microsoft? So what? So the vendors will continue to build their businesses on technology hype and offer a silver bullet or a single platform and interface, because sadly, after buying five that don't work, the IT guys still believe in it. A bit like Santa, political integrity, the tooth fairy and the rule of law.
What would life be like if there was no way out of the situation other than lots of hard work and a significant investment of effort? Too awful to contemplate. I, personally, have an aversion to hard work. I prefer talking about it, which is why I am in sales. The below categorisations are likely to offend most, if not all, of the market, which is not the intention but is certainly an unforeseen benefit.
Vendor-driven
* In-memory
* Single platform
* Fully integrated (what does this actually mean?)
* SaaS
* SOA
Business-need driven
* Single user interface: no difference between the analytical OLAP, in-memory or reporting interface; users just don't care
* Collaboration: Sharing information across lines of business and across business, outside the firewall
* Single version of the truth
* Business value: Packaged BI by market sector
All of the points above speak to not having to do rework. One tool, one place to go, one thing to learn. Obvious, really. Once BI is running internally, companies soon realise they only have half the picture.
A single version of the truth has been flogged like the proverbial nag that has snuffed it.
Keith Jones is MD of Harvey Jones.
There are upstream suppliers and downstream clients needed to share information with to obtain and provide the full picture. So there will be a drive towards this coming soon. A single version of the truth has been flogged like the proverbial nag that has snuffed it.
This means one repository, with cost allocated to the right level so profitability metrics are valid. The last point, business value, is the same story: no rework. Whatever is being done is almost certainly not new, so there must be some kind of business template or blueprint that can be used as a starting point. Business will ask: "What is everyone else doing?" The solution should offer some kind of quick start to help the business identify the value drivers.
Sweet spot
There are more than a few people howling indignantly at some of the items listed here in the vendor-driven hype sector. The good news is if these speak to some of the actual business needs, there is a proper market and there is what is called a sweet spot.
The golden thread that will run through both the needs will be:
* A single user interface - a single skill to learn for business (they're busy)
* Single platform to reduce the number of technologies supported
* Quick results and an agile system
* Quick response times - through to scalability and extensibility
* Low-risk deployments
* A single version of the truth
* Build once, use many
* Benchmarking - how is the company really doing?
So is BI evolving? Not really. It is slowly converging into one toolset that manages one data set that supports the business and helps it make the right decision. It is accelerating delivery, increasing business value and the time to value is decreasing, which are all signs of any IT market maturing.
So it's a case more of the same, but more complete offerings that speak more to business needs and less to vendor hype. The market of the future does belong to the niche players, though. The big players are not that far behind the curve now, but their offerings will quickly become "old" and outmoded.
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