Business Analytics to fuel Business Reinvention: Gartner

IT must continue to lay the foundations for a world in which business intelligence (BI) and analytics will play an increasingly important role in reinventing business models. According to the recent report generated by Gartner Inc., Analytics has largely been about IT projects up until now.

Gartner analysts are examining the key issues facing the BI market during the Gartner Business Intelligence and Information Management Summit, which is taking place here through Tuesday.

We are rapidly heading towards a world of analytics everywhere. Gartner predicts that analytics will reach 50 per cent of potential users by 2014. By 2020, that figure will be 75 per cent, and we will be in a world where systems of record, systems of differentiation and systems of innovation are enabling IT, business and individuals to analyze data in a much denser fashion than before. Post 2020, we will be heading toward 100 per cent of potential users and into the realms of the Internet of Everything, said Dan Sommer, Principal Research Analyst, Gartner.

There are three factors that can discourage the sustained adoption of BI and analytics by its intended users – ease-of-use, performance and relevance. Many disruptive technologies – Facebook and web browsers being just two examples – have displayed significant improvements in those factors. Now, there is a vast array of new technologies addressing ease- of-use, performance and relevance that unlocks new opportunities for business users. However, the variety of data, channels and business issues that are open to analysis is also continuing to grow, resulting in continual fragmentation of the market.

These trends will be accentuated further beyond 2014, with cloud, social, mobile and information/big data as new channels for bringing analytics to new audiences.