I recently went through the results of a survey by BizTech Reports, “2012 Global Business Intelligence Software Survey: Companies Desire Smaller, Better Targeted End-User Solutions”. While the title seems to present a slam-dunk case (and one that I believe is a real problem in most organizations), the results contained an interesting disparity between the responses from IT and Line-of-Business (LOB) roles.
In fact, IT and LOB respondents were typically 20-30 points apart and never closer than 11 points – while some differences seemed intuitive, in other cases they were the opposite of what I would have expected. Here are couple illustrative examples:
Q: Analytic/Decision/Operational Tools Are Easy To Buy, Low Cost And Can Be Modified/Changed Easily To Quickly Impact Operational Change:
IT = 78%; LOB = 51%
Q: If All Business Users Had Direct Access to BI&A (Business Intelligence and Analytics) Tools Tailored to Specific Operational Needs, Organization Would Be More Competitive:
IT = 84%; LOB = 47%
While I’m not surprised by the results of the top question (based on technical nature of many products in the market), I would have expected the responses to the 2nd question to be the reverse of what is shown above; throughout this survey, the results to the survey questions that showed a clear difference in perception between IT and LOB roles. Unfortunately, this survey lacks any qualitative analysis of the results, but my own assessment is that there is a some skepticism among business users in terms of how they can benefit from the use of analytics to assist in making better decisions – most likely, this is a case of being over-promised and under-delivered in their analytics initiatives.
What does this mean for companies like PivotLink that are providing LOB-focused analytics solutions? As the results of the BizTech report show, a healthy percentage of business users do see the value. And at PivotLink, we are helping to increase those numbers by delivering on the promise of self-service business analytics to more users every day. I’m really looking forward to our upcoming PLUS annual user summit in October, and getting the opportunity to meet in-person with a variety of roles from our retail, distribution and consumer products client base to get their feedback on how they are using (and benefiting from) analytics. And I know that our customers will get value from the group interaction sessions we will have at the event, including the opportunity to guide our product roadmap so that we continue to provide solutions that address their business issues.
