News - 20 Jul: BI Tools Can Help Control Costs

Business Intelligence Tools Can Help Control Costs
By Jennifer LeClaire, newsfactor.com

With tightened IT budgets, business intelligence tools can be used to help companies trim costs and even survive. While useful for driving revenue anytime, business intelligence tools are especially important for analyzing expenses during tough times, and can even be used to increase ROI in unexpected ways.

There have been many predictions about IT belt-tightening in a down economy. But some business intelligence (BI) software observers say companies can't afford to ignore analytics tools in the midst of a recession that demands cost cutting.

BI tools aim to simplify information discovery and analysis so decision-makers can access, understand, analyze, collaborate and act on information. BI software deals with measuring, managing and improving the performance of everything from individuals, processes, teams and business units.

Worldwide BI platform, analytic applications, and performance-management software revenue reached $8.8 billion last year, a 21.7 percent increase from 2007 revenue of $7.2 billion, according to Gartner. The research firm expects single-digit growth this year and in 2010 despite tighter IT budgets.

"BI capability today is as critical as e-mail and word processing, yet only about 40 percent of companies are using BI," said Franz Aman, vice president of intelligence platform marketing. "In the midst of a recession, BI is not just a matter of competitive differentiation. It's a matter of survival."

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