BI growth explosion dampened by big data confusion - Gartner

Analyst claims business intelligence is on the brink of massive growth

The business intelligence (BI) market is on the cusp of unprecedented growth, according to Gartner, but the analyst warned uncertainty about the technology's value in a big data world is raining on the market's parade.

Last year, the global BI and analytics software market grew eight per cent annually to $14.4bn (£8.57bn), but Gartner said the market was being confined to single-digit growth due to confusion about the technology's benefits.

"Overall, just like last year, the market is shifting gears, which is keeping growth in the single digits," said the analyst's research director Dan Sommer.

"Confusion still reigns around how to best leverage analytics on big data. Much big data investment happened outside traditional BI in experimental silos, infrastructure and services."

Gartner added that a challenging global economy has also held BI back and that not even emerging markets could boost interest in the tech due to economic restraints.

"No region in the world grew faster than 12 per cent, which breaks the strategic assumption that many of the large vendors have held for years – that emerging markets are growing at a much faster rate," said the market watcher.

But despite a range of factors dragging the BI market down, Gartner said the technology was inching closer to a growth explosion.

"Paradoxically, we're at the cusp of a series of tipping points which will facilitate unprecedented interest and adoption of analytics," Sommer added.

"As the market shifts gear, we see a series of tipping points in 2014 that will accelerate adoption.

"These tipping points are that half of BI and analytics spend will be business driven, half of new licence spend will be driven by data discovery requirements, and half of organisations will consider deploying BI in the cloud, at least tactically."