Licensing revenue for BI (business intelligence) software is expected to rise from US$2.5 billion this year to US$3 billion by 2009, with the fastest growth in Latin America and Asia, Gartner said Tuesday.
The research firm said a survey of 1,400 chief information officers showed that BI ranked as their highest technology priority. The respondents said they planned to increase their BI budgets, on average, by 4.8 percent this year.
Gartner said businesses have spent US$40 billion on ERP (enterprise resource planning), CRM (customer relationship management) and human-resources applications over the last few years. Those companies are looking to BI to sort through the "torrent of data," Gartner said.
But enterprises haven't incorporated BI into their planning, which is key to using it to share information and make decisions based on it, Gartner said.
For business to use BI to change their operations, Gartner is advising companies train users on the software and develop a culture where information analysis is part of business objectives. Also required are changes to the way BI is meshed into business processes and how it fits around the information architecture and application portfolio, Gartner said.
Through 2009, the market for BI software in North America, Western Europe and Japan will grow between 6.4 percent and 6.9 percent annually, below the world average of 7.3 percent, as organizations rationalize purchases, Gartner said. Latin America and Asia, labeled as smaller, emerging markets, will grow between 11.3 percent and 13.6 percent, Gartner said.
