Top 10 ways the 2009 Gartner Business Intelligence Summit will help businesses cut costs and survive in this volatile economy

• Identifying the "right" performance metrics to cut costs without jeopardizing growth
• Developing a BI Strategy that embeds a cost effective model into your architecture
• Working with service providers to help cut costs and optimize your current platforms
• Using corporate performance management (CPM) solutions to help the business identify areas that can benefit from a more effective cost structure
• Identifying the drivers of profitability through deployment of technology that can help drive the business to more cost effective and profitable behavior
• Learning how to negotiate better deals with technology providers
• Building a business case for cost effective BI and PM platforms
• Jump starting your response to regulatory initiatives (such as the 21st Century Disclosure Initiative) to create optimal technology approaches
• Learning how to leverage a BICC to gain control over BI and PM costs and establish effective project execution
• Curtailing rogue BI efforts that create hidden cost pitfalls

Click here to view targeted sessions on cutting costs with BI and PM.


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 2009 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!

Hot Topics

The conference will focus on several key Business Intelligence issues:

• Key steps to making Business Intelligence strategic
• Creating a BI and performance management strategy to widen the use of BI
• The evolving role of corporate performance management
• Role, structure and organization of the BI Competency Center
• Identifying the right metrics to measure performance
• The Data Warehouse in a time of data explosion
• New delivery models: Open Source and BI "as a service"
• The impact of SOA on BI
• Trends in Enterprise Information Management (EIM) and Master Data Management
• Difficult choices in the Data Quality tools market
• Portal strategies for BI integration
• Business Activity Monitoring and the rise of process-driven BI
• Determining the "return on BI"
• Performance management and compliance
• BI market trends and the increasing impact of the mega-vendors
• Best practices in budgeting, planning & forecasting

Webinar Replays

Employing Business Intelligence About and Within Your Business Processes
Presented by Bill Gassman, Gartner Research Director
(Hosted in conjunction with ebizQ)

This webinar presents BI, BAM and BPM latest trends, and explains why these technologies are converging. You'll also learn how BI technologies can improve business processes, and what specific tactics can be used to successfully link BI and BAM with BPM.

• Learn how to leverage current BI investments to improve business processes
• See examples of how others use business activity monitoring to react to process alerts
• Come away with recommendations on how to make your business more agile

Listen to the replay >


Negotiating with BI Vendors
Presented by Kurt Schlegel, Gartner Research VP

Despite strong competition, most BI vendors are still able to negotiate favorable contracts for themselves by bundling licenses; ignoring discounting practices; or imposing maintenance fees. Join Kurt Schlegel, Gartner Research V.P., as he helps businesses to navigate their way through the maze of BI vendors and software and provides insight into the following:

• What negotiation tactics have the greatest impact on TCO?
• How can businesses identify the hidden traps often overlooked in BI software and service negotiations?
• What best practices can business apply to their negotiations?

Listen to the replay >


Using Corporate Performance Management to Drive Profitability and Deliver on Strategy
Presented by John Van Decker, Gartner Research VP

How does corporate performance management form part of a BI and performance management strategy? How will profitability modeling and optimization techniques evolve? How can CPM help to link strategic planning, financial budgets, and operational activities to aid strategy execution? Get the answers to these important questions and others.

Listen to John Van Decker, Gartner Research VP, as he shares his expertise on how CIOs, CFOs and other C-level executives can use corporate performance management applications to better understand profitability drivers in their organizations. He describes how CPM applications enable senior leaders to model the effect of changes in performance metrics, and explains their effect on strategic goals.

Listen to the replay >