Wake up call for manufacturers extols value of business intelligence

While information continues to explode and the pace of business decision making is faster than ever, BI technology is at the intersection of a crossroads, it says. Leading companies are on one path, using BI for operations as well as the traditional strategic decision making. On the other path, average companies are using gut instinct to make important business decisions with their management far behind the leaders in investing in BI technology. Insights in the study ‘Taming Information Chaos: A State of the Art Report on the Use of Business Intelligence for Decision Making’ are fascinating. For example, 66% of leading companies rate their management’s understanding of the need to invest in BI as excellent, compared to only 15% of average firms. Additionally, the leaders are more likely to use BI on their front lines and to push it out to customers and suppliers – and more leaders said there would be immediate negative impact if their BI system was down. Also, leaders are more likely to rate BI as their top business initiative and to measure return on investment from BI. Says John Gantz, chief research officer at IDC and principal author of the report: “This is a wake-up call to companies that are not using BI for their operations, as well as for strategic business decision making.” Says Darryl McDonald, chief marketing officer of BIU specialist Teradata: “Market leaders are making decisions in noticeably different ways from average companies. It is evident from the study that management support for business analytics and dependency on real-time information are critical to taming information chaos and enabling smarter better decisions.”