Why BI Deployments Won't Be Slowed Down by the Recession

With everyone finally admitting that we are in a recession, now the speculation has turned to where spending will be cut. Just as important though, is where it should NOT stop.

Analyst Mike Schiff, from Current Analysis, provides some great insight into why BI deployments will continue to be critical for organizations hoping to come out of this recession ahead.  Specifically, in his report on Business Intelligence: How Will the Recession Affect Its Deployment? he claims that, "While in times of economic growth companies may seek to upgrade their operational systems in order to accommodate expected increases in customer demand, during an economic slowdown these efforts may be delayed in order to fund analytic, BI-based projects for the purpose of identifying new revenue opportunities, retaining existing customers, and finding areas where expenses can be reduced."

He also cites government usage of BI technologies on areas like national defense and homeland security as areas that are not likely to see cutbacks...although I'm not as sure about this with coming change in administration.

However, the fact is, business intelligence tools are critical for organizations to make better, faster business decisions, with a greater level of confidence. Whether it is about which customers to focus on, identifying new revenue opportunities that require minimal additional investment, where to reduce costs with the least impact on revenue, or how to better identify and reduce risk.

You can bet that executives want to be more confident in their business decisions than ever before. And that will lead them to want more information, and accurate information, upon which to base those decisions. There is also increased scrutiny on regularly monitoring business performance so that executives can stay ahead of the curve. This will lead to increased demand for the Performance Management aspect of business intelligence.

In this environment, companies will need to generate new intelligence to survive, let alone create competitive advantages. And Business Intelligence and Performance Management tools are one of the best ways to accomplish this.

Comments

[Jacqueline Coolige]

Thanks for sharing. Madam Sheine of Ovum also wrote a piece on the imperative for investing in BI during challenging economic times. His piece titled, Business Intelligence: A Bull in a Bear Market, is exceprted at this link.

http://www.ovum.com/news/euronews.asp?id=7562