Business Intelligence and Analytics: Top Predictions for 2015

Business intelligence (BI) and analytics has seen increasing adoption rates in organizations of varied sizes and across different industry verticals in recent years. BI and analytics helps organizations forecast trends, understand customer preferences and plan future operations. To support this trend, a recent report from Redwood Capital estimates that cloud-based BI is projected to grow from $.75B in 2013 to $2.94B in 2018, attaining a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 31%.

This article highlights key trends in the field of business intelligence and analytics in the year 2015, in terms of both technology advancements and user adoption.

Better Usability

As the demand for BI and analytics tools increases, the focus is on making them easily accessible and deployable. In 2015, the availability of BI tools that are easy for end users to implement and eliminate the need for specialized professionals such as data analysts will be key. This will be enabled by the addition of visual aids, interactive user guides and detailed dashboards in BI solutions. BI and analytics tools will strive for simplicity, easy but secure access, and user-friendliness. Improved usability will require these tools to be self-reliant in educating the user as well. To support this, tools will integrate simpler user training modules to promote self-leaning.

Business Intelligence On-The-Go

Next in store for 2015 will be product mobility for BI tools. This will allow for real-time access to business critical information using tablets and/or smartphones. It will not be limited to the display of information, but will encompass full access and usage of all features on the go. Applications will allow business analytics usage to take place on devices other than desktop PCs. These applications will be available on portable electronic devices, not only allowing people to work while traveling, but to also synchronize all devices that are being used to work.

Data in the Cloud

2015 will see cloud adoption of BI tools to support increasing resource requirements for improved performance and quicker access. Cloud computing enables data to be stored online. This allows safe and endless amounts of space to be utilized by BI data. Cloud data is accessible on any device and is of particular importance while working on the go.

Social Collaboration

Also expected to be a part of business intelligence tools in 2015 are online collaboration portals, i.e., there will be social integration to facilitate data sharing. The addition of social features will enable quick sharing of information and quick feedback for a better BI experience. Collaboration with social media will not only help in sharing data, but will also aid in collecting user data from social media websites to analyse user behavior and predict trends. Businesses would gain access to intelligence on customer preferences through behavioral monitoring for offers that are more context-sensitive.

Data Management

One of the primary concerns of businesses in the next three years is the management of enormous amount of data. With improvements in technology and software development, it is predicted that better interpretation and presentation of data will be possible. This will ultimately lead to new and enhanced insights from data. Within this domain, particular attention will be given to data storage as opposed to data analytics. Specifically, the inefficient practices underlying data storage will become a major concern and innovation will focus on resolving these issues.

Marketing Automation

Marketing automation will also be a priority for businesses in 2015 with the widespread utilization of Big Data and the integration of data mining. As a result, online marketing will take precedence and marketing will become more user-centric, allowing better responses and significantly increasing the efficiency of marketing expenditures.

Better Insights

Presentation of massive amounts of data will be revolutionized to include access to business critical information in real time. The way data is presented will change radically because of increased update speeds. As opposed to the daily or hourly changes, data will be available as a changing stream of information in real time.

Indeed, business intelligence has become an essential component of organization’s IT strategy to analyze data and transform it into business insights, which helps in performance evaluation and forecasting of future trends to drive informed decision-making.