India BI mkt to grow 15.6 p.c. in 2012

MUMBAI, INDIA: The market for business intelligence (BI) software in India is forecast to reach revenue of $81.5 million in 2012 a 15.6 per cent increase over 2011, according to Gartner, Inc. Worldwide BI software market revenue is forecast to grow 8.7 per cent to reach approximately $12.7 billion in 2012.

Gartner analysts said the market for BI platforms will remain one of the fastest growing software markets despite expectations of an economic slowdown. Organisations continue to turn to BI as a vital tool for smarter, more agile and efficient business, and they are increasing their current usage scenario from just an information delivery mechanism.

“The BI market has remained strong because the dominant vendors continue to put BI, analytics and performance management at the centre of their messaging, while end-user organisations largely continue their BI projects, hoping that resulting transparency and insight will enable them to cut costs and improve productivity and agility down the line,” said Bhavish Sood, research director at Gartner. “It's a sign of the strategic importance of BI that investment remains strong.”

Among the sub segments, BI platforms is still expected to be the largest in pure revenue terms, while Corporate Performance management (CPM) suites is expected to grow the highest. Adoption deadlines of IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) and XBRL —Extensible Reporting Language (which have already seen deadline extensions) will further drive demand for CPM suites in India.

Decision making in India historically has been based on either 'gut feelings' or on the business experience of managers. BI will allow enterprises to make more fact-based decisions. BI promotes revenue growth and faster innovation through shorter product and service life cycles and the ability to find where value is being created in the business.

“The demand side of the BI platform market in early 2011 was defined by an intensified struggle between business users' need for ease of use and flexibility on the one hand, and IT's need for standards and control on the other,” said Sood.

“With ‘ease of use’ now surpassing ‘functionality’ for the first time as the dominant BI platform buying criterion, vocal, demanding and influential business users are increasingly driving BI purchasing decisions, most often choosing easier to use data discovery tools over traditional BI platforms – with or without IT's consent,” said Sood.

Gartner has identified three major demand-side factors that continue to expand use and drive BI platform revenue growth. They include:

1) Consumerisation of BI

BI tools must be simple, mobile and 'fun' in order to expand use and value. Business users are demanding the same experience from their BI tools that they have come to enjoy with their personal tools. The need for more intuitive and interactive BI tools and applications extends to users on the go, but the vast majority of organizations have yet to embrace mobile BI. This is set to change very quickly with the proliferation of Apple's iPhone and iPad products.

2) Support for Extreme Data Performance; Emerging Data Sources

Capabilities that enable the analysis of large, volatile and diverse data will open up possibilities for a broad range of new, high-value BI applications and will be another driver of BI growth. This includes in-memory technology and social and content analytics. Combining these capabilities with support for extreme data volumes and consumer-oriented tools opens up possibilities for a broad range of new, high-value BI applications and will be another driver of growth.

3) BI as a Decision Platform

Gartner's user surveys show that 'improved decision making' is the top driver of BI purchases. Capabilities that will evolve BI from an information delivery system to a decision platform will increase the value of BI and drive its growth.