Business Intelligence (BI) Group on LinkedIn conducted a survey on BI Procurement in November 2009. The presentation gives the summary of the Survey Results. Around 200 members of the BI-Group participated in the 5 minutes survey.

1. Business Intelligence Procurement Survey 2009 Results Summary

2. Survey Background Survey developed by Business Intelligence (BI) Group on LinkedIn to understand Business Intelligence Procurement trends: Department in a company which needs / uses BI maximum Key Buyer in BIpurchase decision Evaluation period or purchase cycle for BI In-house BI / MIS competency or Outsource Change in your strategy after BI market consolidation Online survey developed using internally developed data entry form Survey was open from October 10 until November 11 to reply More than 200 members completed the entire survey successfully

3. Findings

4. Which department in the company, BI need/use is maximum?

5. The percentage in the above chart indicates respondents who considered Top Management and Finance followed by Marketing and IT & CRM as the departments who need / use BI the maximum What our survey respondents (BI-group) members have to say: “All departments can benefit from BI. Surely this question depends on the business cases involved. The business cases will indicate the priority. Generally BI is most beneficial to the weakest link in the supply chain.” “BI tools are used to manage risks by better information management and the information can be later used for financial and customer analysis.” “In most of the deals that I have come across, Finance and Management is seen to be one, i.e. focusing on pretty much the same sets of financial related KPIs.”

6. Who is key buyer in the BI purchase decision?

7. The survey results indicate that CIO is the key buyer in the BI purchase decision. The participants also indicated that CEO and CFO have significant power in making BI purchase decision followed by Functional Head. What our survey respondents (BI-group) members have to say: “The executive / senior manager who needs to know what is happening in the business that is above the budgeting line. He has the ability to turn projects on or off and allocate budget to BI if they have the need. And by need I mean that they aren't seeing what they need to run their business and are not in control or get the BI or MI so late that they are running in a time-lagged fashion.” “I have seen deals where the entire decision lies with the functional head, who in turn influence the CFO and the CIO. So, it depends on the political landscape really. Otherwise, these are the usual suspects to cover.” “I believe that the key buyers should be less of the CXO's decision and more based on the needs of the other 95% of the users in an organization.” “The true buyers are the Business controllers on different departments even if CFO and CMO decide.” “Key buyer for IT tooling is mostly IT, but preferably the business owners own the BI-usage and the application.” “In my experience, it is usually a marketing / business lead that derives the need and the appropriate sponsorship for a BI initiative.”

8. How long is the evaluation or purchase cycle procurement for BI software?

9. Participants of the survey have indicated that average BI purchase cycle is around less than six months. In some organizations, BI purchase cycle is either more than six months or in some cases its even lesser than a quarter What our survey respondents (BI-group) members have to say: “Evaluation or purchase-cycle procurement for BI depends on the scope of the BI application. The wider the scope, the longer the purchase-cycle. Generally more stress in the organization the faster the purchase.” “In my opinion, the cycle time is subject to several key factors such as: 1. Nature and scope of the BI project, whether it is an enterprise-wide BI project or just departmental. Enterprise project at times, will mean more feedback from the various stakeholders such as ease of use, feature & function specific requirements etc. 2. Whether the customer is purchasing just the BI tool (normally shorter cycle time) as oppose to purchasing an industry specific BI solution e.g. banking analytics (which requires more time for evaluation).”

10. What do you prefer in-house BI-MIS competency or outsource BI-MIS?

11. Many a times, if BI initiatives are not working well, managers may believe that they can fix the problem by hiring an outsourcer that they expect will do a better job at a lower cost. Here the verdict is very clear that most of the organizations prefer in-house BI / MIS competency.Remember the ‘golden rule’ of outsourcing: Outsource only those things that are not a core competency orcore business. Business strategy formulation and feedback on its results must be a core competency. Our participants have clearly considered in-sourcing these services. What our survey respondents (BI-group) members have to say: “Need the ability to create ad-hoc views and drill down for root cause analysis real-time. Need ease of use for execs or senior management to drill down or create customer views as and when necessary through the day. The business needs to be empowered to do this not have to create and IT project to change views. Real-time single version of the truth is essential.” “We prefer outsource BI-MIS which gives us Cost control and payback evaluation.” “We can Outsource non-core-competency activities but BI solutions have tremendous potential to deliver the right value & performance management. The fact remains that the core competency of an ERP vendor lies in building & support new business models that involve shared-services and outsourcing.” “You can actually make a strong case for both. In many cases, it is easier to outsource the 'heavy lifting' aspects (coding, ETL, etc) and leave the in-sourcing for those key areas of competency or when they will be re-used.”

12. Has the merger and acquisition of independent BI vendors affected your BI strategy?

13. Here there is a clear verdict that BI strategy has been affected with the merger and acquisition for some and for others the BI market consolidation hasn’t affected at all What our survey respondents (BI-group) members have to say: “After financial deal, the real challenge for the large BI vendors is the technical integration of their tools. It is easy to make a presentation of where this newly acquired application fits in product portfolio – but making it work with other tools is a far more difficult thing to do. “These BI mergers & acquisitions are usually about buying either client list, a sales force or maintenance revenue stream. Financial numbers of two companies may integrate with such merger & acquisitions, but what about BI product integration with the parent solution? Overlapping, not talking to each-other. “Prices of the Software has gone upwards due to merger and acquisition of independent BI vendors.” “Post merger and acquisition of independent BI vendors, there are less large players on the market now. Although support for the software during these acquisitions has suffered.” “I think mostly all CIO's will still prefer to purchase BI from an independent vendor but it will affect on Performance Management, Enterprise Reporting and Analysis, and Data Integration as these areas will present significant choices to be made as a result.” “It was much easier to work with smaller, independent BI vendors back then.” “The integration of the whole stack takes at least 2 more years to complete. Until then buying a ‘stack’ is useless and very expensive.”

14. About BI-Group Professional group for CIO, BI professionals, consultants, Vendors, Mds, Directors, CMD, CEO, CFO, CTO, COO, Presidents & VPs 21000+ members & still growing - dedicated to sharing, supporting and promoting interests of individuals involved in any aspect of BI & reporting. Interests of all are represented - whether as information users or suppliers Provides a platform to reflect business intelligence and reporting issues for all those with shared interests, and to develop networking opportunities. Members get the benefits of to interact with like-minded interest groups within the broader marketing arena Visit http://www.maia-intelligence.com/bi-group.htm Visit Business Intelligence Blog: http://blog.maia-intelligence.com

15. THANK YOU We thank all the members of the BI-Group on LinkedIn