BI and analytics poised for lightning growth

Market to grow to $18.3bn this year as 'modern BI and analytics' solutions come to fore, according to Gartner

The business intelligence and analytics software market will grow by 7.3 per cent this year as it continues to move towards more "modern" solutions, according to Gartner.

Global revenues will reach $18.3bn this year, before continuing to grow to $22.8bn by 2020, the analyst said.

Traditional BI spending based around IT-led, system-of-record reporting is declining, according to Gartner.

But the analyst added that this is being offset by rising sales of "modern" BI and analytics that meet new requirements for accessibility, agility and deeper analytical insight.

Modern BI and analytics growth has already peaked, however, and will fall from 63.6 per cent in 2015 to 19 per cent in 2020, Gartner said, adding that this reflects the fact that data and analytics are becoming mainstream.

"Purchasing decisions continue to be influenced heavily by business executives and users who want more agility and the option for small personal and departmental deployments to prove success," said Rita Sallam, research vice president at Gartner. "Enterprise-friendly buying models have become more critical to successful deployments."

New innovative vendors will help drive the next wave of market disruption, Sallam added.

"Organisations will benefit from the many new and innovative vendors continuing to emerge, as well as significant investment in innovation from large vendors and venture capital-funded startups," said Sallam. "They do, however, need to be careful to limit their technical debt that can occur when multiple stand-alone solutions that demonstrate business value quickly, turn into production deployments without adequate attention being paid to design, implementation and support."