Time for New Year’s Resolutions & 2012 BI Predictions

It’s that time of year again, when pundits across the technology landscape begin to make their predictions and resolutions for the new year. Some of our favorite BI observers have chimed in about how they hope 2012 will bring peace on earth and goodwill to men — not to mention better BI delivery!

We certainly share the view of Boris Evelson of Forester, who expects organizations will “learn to live with multiple BI tools” and further movement of BI “into the hands of end users.” We’re all for increasing the user-centricity and business focus of BI – as we point out here and here.

Not surprisingly, there are lots of big claims about tablets, mobility and, of course, the rise of big data for 2012. For example, IDC’s crystal ball says,

Big Data will earn its place as the next “must have” competency in 2012 as the volume of digital content grows to 2.7 zettabytes (ZB), up 48% from 2011.

We broke down what big data means to BI in a few recent posts.

As we simultaneously look back on 2011 and ahead to 2012, we think our resolutions for BI from last year could use reinforcing. They were:

1. Strengthen the delivery of BI essentials.
2. Use rapid prototyping to shrink the report backlog.
3. Engage with business leaders to become the go-to team for answers.

We saw some successes in these areas last year, but plenty room for further improvement remains for 2012. The bottom line is that BI teams will mitigate many common pitfalls and threats to BI success if they focus on these relatively simple steps.

But, since the holidays are a time for optimism, we’ll add a few more of our favorite ideas for how BI teams can rethink BI delivery:

• Take advantage of “continuous engagement” – which is the highly collaborative and iterative process by which BI development teams and end-users (usually business analysts, managers and executives) should work together to develop and refine useful business intelligence apps.
• Get more from your BI budget. In our experience, companies can find real savings – up to 40% – on their BI project expenses, even as they build more quality into their processes and toolsets. For more details on this perennially hot topic, you can check out our recent Webinar here and article here.
• Focus on shrinking the two big gaps in BI. The first is the delivery gap, which occurs when development teams can’t deliver tools fast enough to keep up with ever-shifting business requirements. The second is the “insight gap,” which occurs when companies lack the processes and expertise to understand the data they’re collecting.

So, an early happy new year to all BI pros out there! Here’s hoping your 2012 is filled with satisfied end users, high adoption rates and projects that come in on time and under budget.