Under the microscope

"The next few years will see some large changes, as this market continues to consolidate, moves towards vertical and business-process specific solutions and intelligent process automation begins to drive new spend on business intelligence software and solutions," he said.

Sheedy said compliance, the continuing data explosion and increasingly complex business environments kept driving business intelligence forward. He highlighted a shift towards developing vertical specific analytics as opposed to a simple reporting solution. The development of an anti-money laundering style application within an ERP system is a prime example.

"The next step in analytics is automating the whole business process," he said. "That's the major shift happening at the moment."

Integrating analytics into the ERP and CRM system was another top area of development, Sheedy said. Companies such as Oracle and SAP were working in this space.

Integrated solutions

Specialised partners were best suited to peddle the BI integrated solutions across multiple operational systems, Cognos marketing director, David Merchant, said. They required a high level of expertise and consulting skills.

Its latest release, Cognos 8, offered reporting, analysis, scorecard and alerting in one integrated solution, he said. With the software, the BI consumer, for example, can deliver reports to their desktops with secure Web portal access adaptable to mobile devices. The senior executive, meanwhile, will be able to deliver score carding, dashboards and reports for quick communication of complex data.

Merchant said it could also bring data from different operational systems, including PeopleSoft's HP application and SAP Financials, perform reporting and provide one coherent version.

Cognos partners are specialised, have expertise in change management and maintain fine-tuned relationships with clients in select verticals. Merchant claimed this was a major reason why the company might have an edge over newer entrants such as Microsoft.

"I'd be stupid if I didn't say Microsoft was a threat, they are people to keep an eye on, but it is new to the market and has to prove itself," he said.

"BI is not as simple as it's sometimes portrayed: you don't just suddenly deploy it, you need partners with value-add, who have domain expertise or vertical market expertise. Microsoft has existing resellers with ERP and CRM experience, who may want to get into BI, but they will have to educate them on what BI is all about."

Partners would need to be aware of the latest technology advancements, which have evolved and become more complex over the last few years, Merchant said.

"We use Web services, SOA architecture, and have more data integration because there's a broader deployment across the business," he said. "So there's more services work for a partner."

Understanding a company's business and IT processes is key when implementing BI, Merchant said. For rollouts to succeed, companies need to ensure BI is meshed into business processes and fits around the information architecture and application portfolio, according to Gartner.