Where is BI heading?

Between a few recent briefings, last week’s BBBT Incubator session, and my attendance at SAP TechEd change seems to be in the air. Granted, the nature of the BI market is one of growth, change, and the continuous adoption of new technology on the vendor side, while many organizations continue to use BI more traditionally. However, the concept of disruptor technologies and a stronger push towards mobile use of business intelligence and business applications should have a general affect on how organizations can apply BI within their companies.

Looking at SAP specifically, their focus on mobile, cloud computing, and in-memory processing isn’t unique to what the rest of the BI market is focused on developing and providing to customers. Their goal of creating business systems that cross the boundaries of any one type of solution with a focus of addressing business challenges and increasing the decision making capabilities of the organization may be unique to BI but due to the breadth of their resources and current offerings seems like a logical next step.

For the organizations that are not SAP customers or that do not subscribe to their philosophy and mix and match their solutions with varying BI tools, the ability to rely upon a variety of best of breed solutions to come to the same finish line might be the way to go. Whether incorporating data visualization, targeted analytics, or robust data integration, organizations that are unable to take advantage of a one stop shop approach can still get their questions answered and problems solved by taking advantage of newer solution offerings within the market.

Due to advancements in technology, more storage, faster processing speeds, and the like, BI entry points are no longer prohibitive – meaning that with the increase in competition and the increasing levels of unstructured data sources, no business can overlook the need to evaluate their data on a deeper level and gain additional insights into their daily processes.