PLANNING AND LEADERSHIP FOR A BETTER WORLD
PLANNING AND LEADERSHIP FOR A BETTER WORLD For years, business intelligence (BI) was the purview of large enterprises. But that’s no longer the case. Small and medium businesses (SMBs) have, over the last few years, increasingly adopted BI to improve operations, increase revenues, and be more competitive in today’s dynamic business environment.
A new study by the market research and analyst firm Techaisle quantifies this trend. The company found that the use of BI by SMBs will more than double between this year and next. Specifically, Techaisle found that 22 percent of SMBs currently use business intelligence and another 27 percent are planning to use BI in within the next year.
This finding mimics the increased use BI, in general, and business analytics, in particular, in large companies. For example, the the 2011 Business Analytics and Optimization study, conducted by the IBM Institute for Business Value and the MIT Sloan Management Review, found that 58 percent of organizations now use analytics to create a competitive advantage within their markets or industries. That’s up from 37 percent just one year ago.
Techaisle also found that many SMBs are turning to cloud-based BI usage. Like their enterprise counterparts, SMBs must support the BI efforts of workers in multiple locations and they must keep an eye on the budget when rolling out new initiatives. Cloud-base BI solutions help in both areas, and as a result, SMB use of cloud-based BI is expected to grows in the next one year as 47 percent of users plan to shift to cloud from spreadsheets, a jump of 59 percent from 2011.
Barriers to adoption of cloud-based BI by SMBs include data security, privacy, data integration, and customization issues. The study found that ease of use, real-time analytics, and integration across applications will accelerate adoption.
Two segments of the BI market that are of great importance to large companies today are also getting the interest of SMBs. But for some SMBs, the technology is not yet as widely embraced.
One segment is mobile BI. To give today’s highly mobile workforce the necessary information to make fast, critical business decisions anywhere at any time, mobile BI is on the rise. As noted in a past Smarter Technology article, 31 percent of companies have a mobile BI app or dashboard, up from 23 percent in 2010.
In contrast to their larger counterparts, mobile BI is in its infancy, for SMBs. Techaisle found that 18 percent of SMBs using business intelligence are planning to adopt mobile BI this year. The barriers to adoption for SMBs are that they are unsure on how best to utilize the application and its associated costs.
The other segment gaining the attention of SMBs is BI related to big data. Techaisle found at least 18 percent of mid-market businesses are seriously considering big data analytics.
Related Smarter Technology stories:
> Business Analytics Slideshow: Big Data, Business Analytics and Mobile BI
> Program Aims to Meet Growing Demand for Analytics Skills
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