By Anne Widjaja
The Australian Business Intelligence (BI) market surpassed its expected growth in 2011, according to IDC.
From 2010 to 2011, the BI market grew by 5.4 per cent, generating $324.12 million in software licensing and maintenance revenue.
The recently released IDC report, Australia Business Intelligence Software Market Analysis and Forecast, 2011-2016, discusses the key factors driving the BI market in the period between 2011 to 2016. The future looks bright for BI, with the market expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 8 per cent in this period, continuing a pattern of steadily rising adoption rates from over the past few years.
IDC market analyst, Natalie Ng, believes that the rising popularity of BI tools is a response to an increasingly complex business environment.
Ng said that businesses are using sophisticated BI software to navigate through these challenges, “leveraging [BI] to make intelligent, better-informed business decisions.”
A huge challenge within this complex environment will be the upcoming introduction of the carbon tax.
“With the forthcoming carbon tax, Australian businesses will look to employ analytic tools in an effort to improve business efficiency to reduce carbon emissions,” Ng predicted.
Ng also explained that the unexpected growth in the BI market had been primarily driven “by the continuous efforts of Australian organisations to consolidate existing IT infrastructure.” This consolidation has included continuous “upgrades on existing BI tools, as opposed to purchasing newer solutions,” Ng added.
End-user query and analysis software, with built in report building capabilities, has been the most popular BI product in the market. It currently dominates the BI marketplace with 82.8 per cent of the overall market share.
Advanced analytics software is also a significant component of the BI market, with a 17.2 per cent share of the overall market for BI.
However, the report found that its premium price tag, and the low number of business users with appropriate analytical skills to use this software, has meant that advanced analytics growth will remain inhibited.
In the near term, IDC expects pre-packaged analytic applications and business analytics appliance offerings to be favoured by small to medium businesses (SMB). These packaged applications, as well as SaaS solutions, will be attractive for SMBs to adopt for their ease of use and low cost of deployment.
