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Business
Intelligence & Data Warehousing Trends for
2008
 Let’s
look into the crystal ball for 2008. What industry
trends will affect our industry during the next
year and beyond? I'll be discussing eight trends
in my blog over the next few weeks. These trends
are NOT product pitches, nor are they all positive.
There
are two underlying themes across all these trends.
First, total cost of ownership (TCO) is
a significant factor in the adoption of trends.
TCO is not merely license costs, but how much
time, resources, skills and change is necessary
to implement a trend. Budget costs are often trivial
in the overall TCO calculation. Trends that lower
the TCO for BI, DW and performance management
will accelerate their adoption.
The
second theme is that most enterprises
need an evolutionary approach rather than a revolutionary
approach. Enterprises (that are real
operating businesses) have data and people reporting/analyzing
that data to make business decisions. They might
not be doing it well (getting the data), but they
are doing it now.
Trends
where the underlying systems, data and people
can evolve will have a greater chance for success.
The big bang, i.e. replace everything approach,
sounds great, but most times it is cost-prohibitive
and people are not going to be able to absorb
that much change anyway.
Enterprises
are ready for changes, but not wholesale replacements.
And it often gets lost on the technologists, but
enterprises are in the business of selling product
and services not building IT systems. These systems
are support functions only. No matter how cool
the new tool is, it is only useful if it helps
the business sell more or make more profit.
The
8 for ’08 trends that should be making significant
impact on our industry:
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Dazed and Confused: Product Roadmaps, Upgrades
and Migration
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The Song Remains the Same: Data Shadows Systems
continue to be the pervasive reporting and analytic
platform
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No Quarter: Data Integration Suites enable EDM
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Houses of the Holy: ELT lite continues to build
momentum
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Ramble On: Traditional BI vendor shortlist expands
- Stairway
to Heaven: Cost- and Resource-effective tools
rule
- Dazed
& Confused (again): Emerging technologies
remain emerging
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Nobody's Fault but Mine: Data governance slowly
continues to emerge
Click
to read the first trend and add your two-cents
to "Dazed
and Confused: Product Roadmaps, Upgrades and Migration."
Rick
Sherman, Athena IT Solutions
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