Australian businesses will be spending more on business intelligence tools over the next five years, according to analysts International Data Corp, with companies seeking a single vendor to provide an integrated suite of products.

The Australian Business Intelligence tools market was valued at AU$64.72 million in 2002, according to a recent study by IDC, and is forecast to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 9.4 percent from 2002 to 2007.

According to Bharati Poorabia, senior analyst, enterprise applications at IDC Australia, local businesses are looking for a single vendor who can provide an integrated suite which includes business intelligence, in order to save on implementation costs. This is forcing "best-of-breed" vendors to expand their portfolio to include more enterprise-wide functionality, according to Poorabia.

Although businesses are becoming increasingly interested in business intelligence technologies such as data warehousing, OLAP (online analytical processing) and data mining, IDC stated that vendors need to focus on the following key areas to increase the business intelligence market:

• increase focus on improving existing BI Infrastructure;
• educate the market about the benefits of real-time analytics;
• accurately market the message about business performance management; and
• use emerging technologies (web services) to foster further growth.