The BIg Discrepancy: the priority vs. the reality of business intelligence

According to Gartner surveys in recent years, BI remains one of the highest IT priorities. Improving decision-making and getting BI in the hands of more users consistently top the list of drivers for BI. However, considering the maturity of BI tools and technologies and the fact that over 60% of organizations state they have a BI strategy, this reveals what we call the BIg discrepancy. Despite the many years experience most organizations have with BI, why aren't we doing better in addressing the fundamental challenges of BI?

There are a number of factors to consider. First, IT remains the primary sponsor of most BI initiatives. This creates challenges in making BI pervasive among business users, because users often view BI as an "IT" initiative. Gartner estimates that no more than 20% of business users actually use BI proactively. This means that BI is not being widely used to manage performance. So IT must look for ways to align BI initiatives with corporate and business objectives. Second, the consolidation in the market and increasing dominance of the megavendors creates additional challenges for IT in managing a BI strategy. Defining a BI strategy doesn't mean just choosing which megavendors you will work with. However, the increasing convergence of BI with business applications will only increase the pressure from business users to adopt the BI solutions from the vendor of "their" applications.

Meanwhile, the speed of technology change is increasing. Many technologies and trends - such as Web 2.0, interactive visualization, in-memory analytics, SaaS and BI integrated search - have the potential to disrupt the BI marketspace significantly. This will create challenges for many existing "strategic" BI technologies that IT is busy deploying. Also, emerging areas like Master Data Management are adding new layers of complexity to managing an information management infrastructure.

The Gartner Business Intelligence Summit 2010 will focus on the actionable advice you need to address this BIg discrepancy. Now in its seventh year, it delivers a wide range of analyst presentations, case studies, panels and guru keynotes. Furthermore, you will have the chance to network with and share the collective experience of delegates from all over North America. It is with great pleasure therefore that we invite you to participate in this flagship event. We hope you can join us!

Webinar Replay

Does BI equal Better Decision Making?
Presented by Gartner Research Director, Gareth Herschel

Organizations collect data in order to analyze it, and they do analysis to make better decisions, so why is decision support such a poorly received concept in the BI space?

This session will outline the latest popular thinking in decision theory and relate it to the contribution that BI can usefully make.

What You Will Learn:
Gartner analysts will discuss the following topics with you:

• How do we use analysis to drive decisions?
• How do we ensure that decisions are driven by analysis?
• What else do we need for good decisions?

Listen to the replay