Emerging technologies may marginalise IT teams for business intelligence

That’s among latest warnings from analyst Gartner. Rsearch director Kurt Schlegel says that much of the innovation in BI will come from emerging technologies that make it easier for users to build and consume their own reports and analytical applications. He specifies five key technologies: interactive visualisation, in-memory analytics, search integrated with BI, software as a service (SaaS) and service-orientated architecture (SOA). “However, as a result of this innovation, individuals and workgroups will be less dependent on central IT departments to meet their BI requirements,” says Schlegel. “BI teams need to understand how to leverage these emerging technologies to drive BI adoption, but do it in a way that doesn’t undermine the organisation’s existing BI architecture and standards.” He expects interactive visualisation to be quickly accepted over the next two years – providing a common front end to analytical applications. “With its attractive display, it should be more widely adopted by users who aren’t accustomed to the grid style of analysis and reporting offered by relational databases and spreadsheets. “By definition, interactive visualisation enables users to perform typical BI tasks, such as data filters, drill-down and pivots, with little training – by interacting with the visual, such as clicking on a pie wedge, or circling the dots on a scatter plot.”