Business Intelligence

Business Intelligence

Business Intelligence, or BI, is a broad category of applications and technologies for gathering, storing, analyzing, and providing access to data to help enterprise users make better business decisions. BI is a part of decision support systems, reporting, online analytical processing (OLAP), statistical analysis, forecasting and data mining. The term was used as early as in 1996 by Gartner Group, which stressed the importance of sound business decision-making and the role of information technology that automates data aggregation and analysis.

The market for Business Intelligence is one of the fastest in terms of both growth and adoption, as companies rush to identify and implement solutions that help businesses notice important trends and new opportunities, as well as provide sound basis for conclusions and business decisions.

In its 2010 „Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms” Gartner forecasts that the market for BI platforms will remain one of the fastest growing software markets in 2010 and onwards, despite the economic downturn. Companies turn to BI as a significant tool for a more flexible, informed business. According to Gartner's annual survey of CIO technology priorities, BI remained among the top five priorities in 2009 (No. 1 in each of the previous four years). However, the recession, commoditization and consolidation are expected to reduce BI platform growth from more than 20% in 2008 to single digits in 2009 and beyond. Software-as-a-Service Business Intelligence is, however, on the rise, as increasingly more organizations feel the accelerating need to deploy intuitive BI tools and applications cost-effectively to more users. SaaS BI reduces time to value and lowers capital expenditures. A new IDC report (cited here) finds the SaaS BI market will experience triple the growth of the market overall through 2013.

Gartner concludes that the market for BI tools is populated by mature solutions by major vendors. It plots BI platforms according to their ability to perform and predict market needs. Again in the upper quadrant, Microsoft®’s Business Intelligence solutions and platforms have been praised by the companies surveyed as very attractive in terms of technologies, capabilities, packaging and pricing. Lower pricing, bundled packaging and focus on "information worker" productivity make it an attractive proposition for organizations that want to make BI capabilities more pervasive across a wider range of users and reduce their annual software maintenance bills. The company has been consistently investing in its BI offerings: Microsoft® Office, Microsoft SQL Server® and Microsoft SharePoint® product lines, as well as the Microsoft Dynamics® family of enterprise resource planning solutions, which build on the abovementioned technologies and offer front-end BI functionality.

The Microsoft Dynamics® suite of products, built to work like and with Microsoft® technologies, offers several solutions for business intelligence and reporting. Integration with Microsoft SQL Server® enables optimal access to business intelligence information. For example, you can generate reports within Microsoft Dynamics® using SQL Server® Reporting Services, build and analyze data warehouses, and organize and use data efficiently – all in one solution.

Financial data and analytics play a key role in helping to optimize organizational performance. With effective financial planning, budgeting, and reporting tools, your organization can take a strategic approach to monitoring and measuring business results, aligning performance to goals, and improving the bottom line. Microsoft Dynamics® solutions help automate and simplify budgeting and planning so you can create accurate budgets and meaningful financial predictions. Powerful analysis and reporting capabilities provide deep insight into every aspect of your business to help drive efficiency, aid effective decision making, and consolidate reporting for multisite and other complex organizations. Learn more about Microsoft Dynamics financial planning, budgeting, and reporting software.

Read more of Gartner’s 2010 Q1 “Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms” here.

We offer the following business intelligence solutions:

HD SaaS | Microsoft Dynamics NAV

HD SaaS | Microsoft Dynamics AX

HD SaaS | SharePoint