Bank on BI to beat downturn

MUMBAI, INDIA: Amid the current financial downturn, many IT experts strongly advocate and bank on Business Intelligence (BI) tools as the key player to help organizations review the businesses and overcome the monetary crisis.

While talking to CyberMedia News, Bhavish Sood, principal analyst – Software Markets, Gartner India Research & Advisory Services says, “From BI perspective, I see that BI platforms are such that they are more resilient to recession. And people are still going to use it either to contain costs or for profitability.”

“Among BI tools, it’s the analytical solutions that are more statistical in nature or have more predictive or data mining capabilities, which will be more in demand and also used more. That include, forecasting, profitability and risk management-based BI solutions,” Sood explains.

Further he adds that today the focus of BI tools is more around optimizing and innovating rather than the historical reporting.

However, in the current downturn, CIOs are dealing with limited IT budgets and at large a new trend is emerging where companies are cutting their IT spends. It does raise the point about how will CIOs invest in BI solutions and be benefited from it.

Overall, about the BI software market, Sood opines that it will get slow however; still software vendors or companies will have to offer pricing discounts. “Even they are aware of the market situation and premium pricing will not work,” Sood points out.

On investments in research and development (R&D) side in BI applications and tools, Sood says there are two way to look at.

“Some BI companies looks at this time to invest more in R&D and when the market turns, they are ready to cater. While, some are waiting for the market to turn, but since BI tools require a bit of customization, there will be investment to an extent.”

From CIOs perspective, Sood views that even with IT budget constrains, they will have to spend on IT and software upgrades.

“And in case they hold back now, it would cost more in future,” he concludes.