The business intelligence (BI) segment of the enterprise software market is forecast to grow 10pc in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) in 2007 to reach €1.5bn, new research has claimed.
According to Gartner, BI platform revenue will grow at an annual compound growth rate (CAGR) of 9.7pc to reach €1.9bn in 2010.
The research house said that while increasing investments in BI present good opportunities for software vendors, the market will get tougher in 2007 with increased competition from the major software vendors such as Oracle, SAP and Microsoft.
It predicted that BI revenue from these ‘mega vendors’ will grow three times faster than revenues from the BI pure-play vendors in 2007.
“BI has become a strategic initiative and is now recognised by chief information officers (CIOs) and business leaders as instrumental in driving business effectiveness and innovation,” said Andreas Bitterer, research vice-president at Gartner.
“A preview of the results from Gartner’s annual survey of 1,400 CIOs worldwide shows that BI is the No1 technology priority in 2007 – for the second year running.”
However, Bitterer cautioned that while BI is recognised as a strategic priority at management level, BI is not well understood among company employees. He said an increased focus on training would be crucial in 2007.
According to a Gartner survey conducted at the BI summit in January 2006, large organisations who already invest in BI spend an average of €1.16m per year purchasing BI software.
For many of these organisations there is now a significant shift towards bringing BI ‘to the masses’. This means making BI tools available to increasing numbers of employees as well as customers, business partners and suppliers.
Nigel Rayner, research vice-president at Gartner, said: “Companies that have invested heavily in enterprise resource planning (ERP) are now realising they need to invest in BI to extract value from the massive amount of data they are storing as a result of ERP.
“BI is transformational in improving business effectiveness at all levels. Once people know what factors impact business performance, they can change what they are doing. ERP helps you do things better but BI helps you do better things,” Rayner added.
By John Kennedy
