As with all markets, COVID-19 has had a major impact on business intelligence market. Epidemic restrictions forced companies to implement several solutions that reduced social contact, closed offices, restricted entire factories, or institutions. These companies have made/are making increasing efforts towards digitalisation. Within that, they have seen technological innovations – such as business intelligence – that can help them get through this challenging period.
The knowledge of analytics or BI experts has become more valuable during the pandemic, as they help business leaders make business decisions. Business intelligence allows companies to take a closer look at their own internal operations by assessing where they are performing well, in which areas and where they can improve.
The virus has also caused companies supplying BI solutions to be stymied by the restrictions. However, the economy is starting to recover, and BI projects are starting to take off again, which could lead to increased competition in the market. Changing employee habits (e.g., widespread use of home working) have led to a shift towards the use of cloud solutions. The pandemic has increased the demand for data visualisation solutions, as patient data is tracked daily with such solutions.
Although BI applications offer many benefits and positive returns, the ROI (return-of-investment) of their development remains relatively high. The initial investment in the software or platform, implementation, maintenance, and training all come at a cost. BI tools are still maturing and will not become obsolete any time soon. They are already widely used in large enterprise environments, but recently they have started to enter the SME sector. These companies are usually deterred by the relatively high entry threshold or by what they perceive as a lack of skills (e.g., data scientist or IT infrastructure specialist) in their organisation. Often these companies underestimate their own capabilities. In addition, the implementation and deployment of cloud services is a major challenge. IT security is a frequent problem area – there are many questions about data security. The integration of various analytical software: business intelligence, Master Data Management (MDM), big data and analytics applications is also a problem in these areas.
The growth of the market is supported by several factors, such as the increasing digitalisation of companies, the allocation of resources to these areas, including a greater focus on analytics. The largest suppliers in the market:
- Microsoft
- IBM
- Oracle
- SAP
- AWS
- Salesforce
Forrás: Gartner