Integrated Business Intelligence Report

From outlining our model of IBI, the task of positioning BI technology components becomes much easier. Perhaps the best example of this is the use of packaged applications. Vendors such as Informatica and Business Objects have been aggressive in this space, both now claiming to be able to offer end-to-end packaged solutions that overcome the build versus buy dilemma. Whilst it may be possible to 'componentise' certain analytical requirements in terms of source data, models, and reports, this will not satisfy the business' greater requirement for performance-driven IBI. Thus, the packaged route will only, at the very best, act as a springboard for further extension of the BI environment.

This highlights one of the features of the BI marketplace. No one vendor has a solution that is appropriate in every instance. In addition, from a feature and function perspective, there is often very little to choose between the offerings - just about all of them do the basics, and do them very well. This puts the onus on the organisation to be able to set out its vision or strategy very clearly, in order that vendor selection can be based on strategy fit as well as technical fit. Our advice is to look to work with a vendor or vendors whose core competencies are in alignment with the needs of the business. For example, in situations where the onus is on the integration of vast amounts of data from an extremely diverse range of sources, then selection should be biased towards vendors such as Informatica, SAS, and Sagent, that have established and proven capabilities in similar scenarios.

One area of potential technical differentiation that seems to have been overlooked by the BI market relates to the organisation's unstructured data sources. While it is generally accepted that the value contained in unstructured information is considerable, the work and expense to bring structure to it is also significant. Because of this many BI vendors may feel that it is difficult to deliver a credible Return On Investment (ROI) model. Currently many BI vendors have fought shy of tackling this problem, preferring to make their technology investments in more visible and easily justified applications. However, without access to all relevant information, organisations can be operating at a disadvantage, like a car engine working on one cylinder rather than four, or a boxer fighting with one hand behind his back.

Technical differentiation is not easy. In many cases, vendor approaches are uncannily similar both in positioning and technical capability. Any differentiation tends to be short-term and unsustainable, due to the ability of the rest of the market to replicate. Currently, there is a very visible trend towards becoming an end-to-end enterprise player, which is leading pure-play BI vendors towards building platform-based suites of end-user tools and analytical applications, thus providing them with the ability to deliver larger deployments across user communities and business areas, but at a cost. We are now seeing similar offerings from most of the leading players including: Business Objects, Brio Software, Cognos, Information Builders, MicroStrategy, and SAS etc., as they push their solutions forward in the race to provide the first enterprise-wide IBI offering, supporting closed loop operational and business process integration and the holy grail of EPM.

BI solutions are moving on from being the information assimilation toys of technologists and power users, to the stage where everyday business users are looking to use the powerful and flexible information flows that BI solutions can provide. Because of this wider usage, and if businesses are to gain real value from their BI strategies, there is a genuine and growing need for solutions that can be fully integrated with the organisation's other main infrastructure systems.