Why Half of Business Intelligence Users Are Dissatisfied
Business Intelligence spending may be on the rise, but not everyone is happy with their purchase, if a recent survey is any indication.
The survey, by online business intelligence vendor LogiXML, outlines a number of reasons why many companies suffer from failed business intelligence (BI) implementations and face BI underperformance.
Among the key findings is that a lack of IT resources and the inability to meet the needs of end-users leads to business intelligence dissatisfaction.
When LogiXML conducted the survey with 575 professionals across several industries about their BI experiences, it found that dissatisfaction with existing business intelligence solutions was fairly widespread.
According to the survey results, 49 percent of respondents who identified themselves as a non-technical senior executive, business manager or business user said they were dissatisfied with IT's ability to deliver BI functionality; and 33 percent of respondents who identified themselves as a technical manager, executive or developer also voiced dissatisfaction.
In commenting on the survey results, Brett Jackson, CEO of LogiXML said, “The findings we've compiled suggest that the overall need for BI continues to grow, but that companies are bogged down by traditional BI approaches that contain complex and costly platforms and data manipulation or tool sets with long development cycles — all of which require significant IT involvement.”
When asked what their greatest impediment to successfully deploying BI was, a combined 42 percent said they didn't have the IT staff resources available or that it was technically challenging, while 27 percent stated it was cost prohibitive. Company IT departments that were seeing an increased demand for BI within their organizations were, for the most part, adding more technologies or not meeting the demand.
Another issue brought to light by the survey results is that companies are using multiple business intelligence products and implementation times are high. As noted by LogiXML in its survey results, 95 percent of companies use between one and four business intelligence products. When asked how long it took to implement their last BI initiative, a combined 63 percent said it either took months or it took too long to remember.
In discussing business intelligence trends with respondents, only nine percent said they currently use mobile BI, but web-based business intelligence technologies were considered very important by 66 percent of respondents. Other important capabilities in BI systems noted in the survey included feedback, collaboration, sharing, commenting and annotation.
Overall LogiXML's survey indicates that despite seemingly widespread discontent with BI implementations, 45 percent of respondents said their company's spending on BI would increase over the course of 2011 (compared to 2010) and 33 percent said it would stay the same.
Easy-to-use and self-service business intelligence has been a goal of BI vendors even as their offerings have grown in complexity. MicroStrategy, Panorama, QlikTech and Information Builders are among the vendors who have touted ease of use in recent BI software releases.
The survey is available at LogiXML's website.
For more on business intelligence, see Six Ways Business Intelligence Software Can Help Your Business.
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