Top Trends in Business Intelligence and Analytics for 2015

TARGIT takes a look into the future to predict the rising trends of the next year in BI and analytics.

Each year around this time we at TARGIT like to hash out what we believe the landscape of business intelligence will look like as the next year unfolds. Last year we were hot on mobile BI, the Big Data explosion, and a shift to in-memory and cloud-based BI architecture. And 2014 saw just that.

As 2015 roars closer, we have some ideas of what will become the new focus points for the business intelligence and analytics market.

1. Increased data governance

With the increased investment that companies are now making to set their data free to decision makers throughout the organization, there’s an obvious need for a new role to control that data.

Companies are creating, accessing, and using drastically more data from more data sources than ever before. This requires a position to not only manage data, but understand how it’s being used throughout the company as well as filter the clutter for what’s most important. Today’s BI solutions are so extensive, now is the time to clean up and focus on the critical objectives.

According to Gartner, there is currently more than double the number of Chief Data Officers serving in global organizations than there was two years ago, and they expect by 2015, 25 percent of all global companies will have some sort of data governor in place. Your data is invaluable. Make sure it’s used optimally by the right people at the right time.

This video on the Information Consumer describes the profile one of the four possible BI users in your company and why it’s so important to understand how BI is being used by each persona.

2. The rise of embedded BI

Everyone has their daily business routine. Adding a new process into that might at first seem disruptive, despite whether or not it’s good for business. And as everyone knows, the more complicated a process becomes, the less likely it is to be executed.

If you’re invested in a business intelligence environment that isn’t being satisfactorily adopted throughout the organization, the problem might not be the platform, but the way in which reports, dashboards, and analyses are being delivered.

The solution is to provide access to the right information where people are working. Embedding an analysis on the product card in your ERP system or on the customer card in your CRM system is an easy way to ensure BI is consumed when and where people need it most.

Check out this blog post to see why embedded BI will lead to higher BI adoption rates in your company.

3. Simplified data visualizations

As we’ve written about before, the average attention span is shrinking. With the daily bombardment of information, it’s no wonder our attention is pulled in every which way, lingering typically on a single task for just 8 seconds before something else demands our attention.

Dashboards and analyses then, are going to become increasingly simplified in order to convey the most critical information in the fastest, most efficient way possible. With the number of roles and variety of ways different personas prefer to consume information, an analysis that’s built for everyone is guaranteed to portray so much that very little value will actually be gleaned in the time employees devote to it.

Data visualizations must be designed for each specific persona and display only the most critical KPIs. Every dashboard and analyses must be designed with the Goldfish Effect in mind.

See this blog post for inspiring before and after visualizations.

4. Increased data experimentation

In 2014, 73 percent of companies either had already invested in or planned on investing in Big Data solutions, according to Gartner. That didn’t mean, however, that companies knew what to do with it. Gartner found that despite the dramatic rise in investment in Big Data, there was no corresponding rise in Big Data projects, signaling that companies weren’t sure what to do with it.

As the interest in Big Data has risen, so have the tools to capture it. It’s now easy for users to pull in relevant external data to analyze independently or to mashup with an organization’s existing internal data. 2015 will be the year of experimentation as companies not only get their Big Data feet wet, but play with new and exciting ways that Big Data can change their world views.

This video will show you how tools like Data Service and Data Mashup make experimentation fast and easy.

2015 is going to be an exciting time for business intelligence and analytics. Everyday we see instances of more organizations, governments, and social agencies embracing analytics and changing the way they operate for the better. One of our recent blog posts highlighted nine ways we see big data and analytics changing the world.

Becoming data-driven has never been more important. Are you a part of the future or the past?

For a more interactive look into the future of BI and analytics, check out the slideshare below.

Source : http://www.targit.com/