Some of the pillars of business consulting can even be traced back to classical Greece. Aristotle is credited with saying that "intelligence consists not only in knowledge, but also in the skill to apply knowledge in practice," and 2,400 years after his birth, this approach is as valid for our daily lives as it was in his time, if not more so. This is the case with Business Intelligence (BI), where knowing how to apply that knowledge to achieve new goals is more important than knowing your industry.
This is one of the topics covered in one of the most reputable reports in the sector, recently published by the specialist company Dresner Advisory Associates. This is the tenth edition of the Crowds Business Intelligence Market Study, based on more than 5,000 surveys of professionals from multiple sectors, from all types of organizations, their suppliers and customers, and even qualified professionals identified through social media.
According to summaries available in prestigious publications such as Customer Think and Forbes, the most notable insights from this study are as follows:
– Improving revenue using BI is the most popular goal pursued by companies in 2019.
– Reporting, dashboards, data integration, advanced visualization, and end-user self-service are currently the most strategic BI initiatives.
– Operations, executive management, finance, and sales departments are primarily driving the adoption of Business Intelligence (BI) in today's companies.
– In turn, the Operations and Sales teams of technology companies are the most effective at driving BI adoption across all industries surveyed, while advertising is the main driver of BI adoption among Marketing departments and teams.
If we look at the details, and despite the fact that these solutions were initially positioned as a means of compliance and risk management, today the main reason for their adoption is to improve results. Revenue is the primary factor for executive management, marketing/sales, and operations departments. In fact, nearly 50% of companies expect business intelligence to improve decision-making, to the point of elevating reports and dashboards to the level of "must-have" features.
It also provides a foothold in the migration of business models. For example, in the 12 to 18 months prior to the research, there was an increase in technology companies that, in light of BI policies, decided to switch from product revenue to service revenue. For example, by introducing smart, connected products that provide real-time data that serves as the basis for future service strategies.
Who is in charge of business intelligence? More than half of the companies surveyed see the four teams mentioned above (Operations, Executive Management, Finance, and Sales) as the main drivers of Business Intelligence solution implementation. In fact, it is believed that over the last seven years, Operations departments have increased their influence on BI adoption more than any other department. This was already evident in the previous edition of this survey. They are closely followed by Marketing and Strategic Planning, as departments with a great capacity to sponsor business intelligence pilot programs and seek new ways to introduce BI applications and platforms into everyday use.
In turn, the Sales department leads the way in commercial companies, both retail and wholesale, and especially in technology companies, in the adoption of intelligence solutions. But there are many other striking facts in light of the results. For example, in the healthcare sector, the need to recruit qualified human resources is one of the main drivers of BI, while consulting is the main driver among corporate elites at the management and executive administration level.
As already mentioned, reports, dashboards, data integration, advanced visualization, and end-user self-service are the most strategic BI initiatives currently underway in companies. Alongside these, "second-tier" initiatives such as data discovery, extraction, storage, and storytelling, as well as the use of advanced algorithms for data interpretation, are also noteworthy. While reporting remains at the top of the priority list (and is even becoming more established), there has been a significant push in recent years toward data governance and cataloging.
The target audience for BI software providers is always at the executive level, with the exception of business services companies, where the target audience changes radically and is located at the consumer level. Customers occupy a prominent second place in sectors such as technology, advertising, and consulting, while middle managers occupy that second place in the financial services sector, and also, but far behind the executive level, in education and healthcare. In the case of manufacturing and retail/wholesale, line managers are the second target chosen by BI providers.
And since leading is not the same as adopting, another fact is also striking: the highest levels of adoption are occurring in departments such as R&D. In other words, some departments have the resources, while others apply themselves to the task. However, executive management and operations teams are also among those who most frequently adopt these solutions. According to the information gathered, this is due to the "increasing complexity of products and business models in technology companies," as well as "the growing reliance on analytics and BI in retail and wholesale to streamline supply chains and improve shopping experiences."
Are there differences between BI software depending on the available budget? Yes, there are: if the budget is large, the main items are dashboards, reports, and data integration; when budgets are small, the main focus is on open source big data, the end user, and collaborative support for decision-making and planning. And among all departments, the ones that "bite" the most from different varieties are Marketing/Sales and Operations. In fact, they are the ones who are most familiar with the types of tools available. This is the first step in being able to boast about "intelligence," if we heed the lessons of Alexander the Great's teacher and author of more than 200 treatises on a wide range of disciplines: logic, metaphysics, philosophy of science, ethics, political philosophy, aesthetics, rhetoric, physics, astronomy, and biology.
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