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Business intelligence software sales have not been immune to the economic downturn. But as businesses seek ways to improve their operational performance and gain a better understanding of their customers while they maneuver through these difficult economic times, business intelligence technology remains a priority on many IT executive to-do lists.
First, some numbers: Worldwide sales of business intelligence platform, analytical application and performance management software reached $9.3 billion last year, up 4.2 percent from $8.9 billion in 2008, according to Gartner. The market-research firm is forecasting that sales of those products will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 8.1 percent through 2013.
Forrester Research, which put business intelligence software sales at $8.5 billion in 2008, is predicting growth to $12 billion in 2014.
Economic uncertainty, in fact, is proving to be something of a catalyst for adoption of BI reporting, analysis and performance management software among small and midsize businesses. Not only are SMBs looking for tools to help with strategic and tactical decision-making, they want to get more value out of their information assets.
"We think that's really driving adoption of BI in the midmarket," said Jayne Landry, senior director of product management for SAP's BusinessObjects line of business intelligence software, in an interview. "We've seen tremendous growth in the SME [small and midsize enterprise] market in the last five or six quarters," she said, adding that BI software sales to small and midsize customers are growing at two or three times the rate of sales to big companies.
"We're seeing a lot of uptake in the midmarket," said Ben Plummer, director of IBM's business analytics midmarket business unit. "They realize they can't run a business on a spreadsheet anymore."
Midsize companies "are trying to get a better understanding of what's going on with their business and how they can capitalize on that," said Ken Dixon, executive vice president of marketing at Kogent, a Santa Clara, Calif.-based solution provider that focuses exclusively on business intelligence solutions and resells BI products from SAP, Microsoft and QlikTech.
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