Business intelligence tools up for the recession

The economic downturn could speed up the deployment of business-intelligence tools to non-specialist staff. But that process of democratisation raises specific problems, as Cath Everett reports.

Some experts think the economic chill will boost sales of business-intelligence (BI) tools, as organisations re-evaluate operations to help weather the recession.

To date, deployment of BI tools has often been piecemeal and confined to certain departments. But that is expected to change as financial-services companies lead the charge towards more enterprise-wide BI. The aim is to identify ways of boosting revenues and segment customer groups more clearly.

Alastair Taylor, a managing consultant at PA Consulting, explains: "Significant business change often triggers big-bang, enterprise-wide BI, and the big change in the economic climate is forcing many customers to rethink their business models."

That climate is encouraging enterprises to explore potential efficiencies across the organisation to enhance cross- and up-selling and identify areas for cost-cutting. Businesses want to find ways of assessing "the relative return on investment today, tomorrow and in the future as the basis of where they put their capital", Taylor adds.

Cheaper BI tools
The economic downturn, combined with a desire to share information more widely in the organisation, is also affecting the tools companies are buying to supplement existing systems.

Dale Vile, managing director of analyst firm Freeform Dynamics, says: "It used to be OK to charge £2,000 per seat for power users, but that's no longer acceptable if you're talking about deployment to thousands of people. So there's been a shift away from high-powered desktop tools for management or performance information and a move towards desktop tools that are already there."

That shift has occurred as operational personnel at all levels have been given increasing responsibility for the performance of the business. Vile says that change has meant information has become almost a right rather than a privilege.

"If you pay someone a bonus based on performance and censure them if they don't hit targets, you have to give them the appropriate tools and information to do their job. So the idea of pushing out information to people has become quite a serious issue," he adds.

While people started buying low-cost products from vendors such as Microsoft about 18 months ago, the downturn has accelerated that trend.

"The financial climate is encouraging firms to go down this route with a low capital outlay. The 'BI for the masses' approach is one of 'give it a go and see how it works', but the cost of having a go has got a lot lower," says PA Consulting's Taylor.

Political obstacles
Many large companies are putting effort into devising enterprise-wide BI strategies, but the problems they face are more political than technical.

Because BI initiatives involve data management, too many firms view them as IT projects, rather than business programmes, and delegate sole responsibility to the IT director without the high-level sponsorship required for cultural change.

Vile explains: "Projects don't tend to fail because of technical issues these days, but because organisations haven't clearly defined what they're trying to achieve and because they haven't got the right buy-in."

In fact, according to Gartner, only five to 10 percent of organisations have a BI strategy, with most preferring to act on gut feeling.

But that ad hoc approach can make life difficult, especially as it can spark departmental infighting...