Gartner: BI sees global growth despite tough macroeconomy

Europe and Latin America were the worst growth performers due to economic and currency issues, according to analyst

The global appetite for BI, CPM and analytics software remained strong in 2012, according to figures released by Gartner.

But tough macro conditions and confusion around emerging technology terms took its toll and led to more muted market growth than previous years, the analyst warned.

Breaking down into regions, Europe and Latin America showed "subpar" growth due to tough macro conditions and currency headwinds, the analyst said.

But Eurasia, MEA and Asia-Pacific continued to display double-digit growth. In total, revenue for all three technology areas added up to $13.1bn (£8.5bn) last year, a 6.8 per cent increase from the $12.3bn recorded in 2011.

Dan Sommer, principal research analyst at Gartner, said: “After a few historic banner years of spend in the BI software market, which culminated in more than 17 per cent growth in 2011, growth was more subdued in 2012, at seven per cent. While this seems like a dramatic drop, it was in line with our forecasts published during 2012."

The top five vendor players remained the same last year, but some of them swapped places – with SAP holding on to the top spot with 22.1 per cent of the market. Some distance behind with 14.9 per cent of the market is Oracle, with IBM moving into third place with 12.4 per cent of the market and SAS with 12.2 per cent. Fifth was Microsoft, with 9.1 per cent of the market – but it saw the highest growth.

Gartner also identified five key market dynamics that affected BI software spend and growth in 2012. The first two – challenging macroeconomics and term confusion around ‘analytics’, ‘big data’ and ‘BI’ – affected market growth, and the third – BI spending moving outside of IT – had a neutral effect.

The fourth and fifth dynamics, data discovery becoming mainstream architecture and SaaS becoming the preferred option for granular analytics, were drivers of market growth.

Sommer added: “The business intelligence space managed to grow by a reasonable seven per cent in 2012, despite difficult macro conditions, being on the tail end of a spending cycle and confusion related to emerging technology terms causing a hold on purse strings.

"On the positive side, data discovery became a mainstream architecture in 2012 and the vendors built on this paradigm gained market share, while most semantically layered BI platforms grew in the single digits, at best. Cloud-based buying is also starting to make an imprint on the radar, showing substantial growth, although cloud still accounts for a smaller portion of the BI market compared with other application markets."