Business tools smarter than users
Software for mining and analysing data has matured substantially over the years, but the users themselves are still immature, says BMI-TechKnowledge analyst Iain Machanick.
Last year South African businesses spent R450m on business intelligence software, and the market will be worth at least R892m by 2009 — a big investment if the end results are lacking because of human failure.
“The tools are mature but users are still maturing,” says Machanick. “They need to understand how to use it and what it can do for them.” That will become even more important as business intelligence tools filter down from management to reach more workers.
The software is designed to tell you what you do not know about your business by analysing the mass of information stored in various silos, Machanick says.
Fast and accurate decision making can be a competitive advantage, so companies need an insight into numerous aspects of their operations — what their customers want and who are the most profitable, which prospects to target, who the best suppliers are, which products are experiencing problems and where expenses are rising faster than sales.
Although the technologies are mature, they are still changing. Software that can dredge up and analyse data from a variety of hardware platforms and a mixture of databases and enterprise resource planning systems is increasingly necessary. That will lead to more consolidation among vendors, Machanick says.
One problem is some customers have not seen the benefits expected of the tools and are loathe to spend more on them, he says.
The return on investment is notoriously difficult to prove and a wide choice of vendors has led to a confusion of products. And the people in charge of a company’s data are often reluctant to give others access to it, in case it undermines their own position.
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