30.07.2009

An Intelligent Solution

By: Jeff Reich

Business intelligence software is enjoying a boom as companies seek to make the most of every opportunity – both during the current recession and when the economy recovers.

New IT projects traditionally get put on the back burner during an economic downturn. But IT industry analysts report that many companies are showing a strong and growing interest in business intelligence (BI) software during the current recession. As pressure mounts to cut costs and accurately predict sales and expenses, business leaders are using BI to tap into vast reservoirs of existing data to make better business decisions and to achieve a competitive advantage in an extraordinarily difficult environment.

Setting priorities

BI software includes a number of applications and solutions that pull together a company’s disparate data to generate reports, handle queries, and conduct deep analysis. It enables organizations to better measure and monitor performance across their entire business. Not surprisingly, BI applications and solutions are increasingly being viewed by CIOs and CEOs as a critical investment and survival tool to ferret out cost savings and opportunities. In fact, in a recent Gartner survey of more than 1,500 CIOs, business intelligence was the number one technology priority for the third year in a row. And in a recent report of London-based IT consultancy Butler Group, analysts say that for many companies, delaying BI investments for even a year may not be an option.

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