Six trends in business intelligence
Trend 4: Silos will proliferate
At a very high level, there may be a number of different analytical systems within a particular enterprise, each of them focused upon a particular line of business or business function. Take, for example, the analytical functionality appearing in supply chain and customer relationship management applications. While each of these "silos" or "smokestacks" may meet the particular business need, they don't give an overall picture of the entire business, at least, not without a lot of customisation.
"Applications are being built with analytical components embedded in them. It's good when they work, and bad when they don't," says SAS' Milley. "You need to be sure that the algorithm making the analysis is well thought out and that you understand and agree with what's going on behind the scenes," she adds.
There are those who question the overall value of such application add-ins, because the application is only analysing the data that it maintains.
Of independent silos, Mirani claims, "Nobody [outside of the system in question] has the same view. [You need to] consolidate at the data layer and give everyone the same view. Yes, it's a fundamental architecture change. Silos are justifiable tactically, but not strategically."
Len D'Amico, VP product marketing at Alphablox, puts it more bluntly. "The growth in packaged applications with analytic capabilities is encouraging, but it doesn't tell you the whole story. There's no view across the business. It doesn't allow insight into the broader problem."
What it all means
Understand the strengths and vulnerabilities of your prepackaged competition. Determine how the overall business can utilise the information being generated from those independent systems.
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