DEVELOPMENTS IN BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE SOFTWARE

Abstract

In today’s economy the requirements in Business Intelligence environments are changing dramatically. This research paper tested underlying constructs. Hypothesis one sought to test if vendors seek to provide complete BI solutions following all four stages of the CI cycle. The evaluation of BI vendors indicates that all vendors examined do not support planning & directing phase, except for Astragy that gives users consultations to plan and arrange their CI, its absence did not influence the overall performance score.  The second hypothesis sought to test if BI vendors fail to provide good enough solutions for the analysis part of the intelligence cycle. The research findings indicate that only two BI vendors, SAS and QlikView, delivering the analysis phase of the intelligence cycle in a proper way. The third hypothetical construct concerns BI vendors’ attempts at making considerable changes in software each year, with each new upgrade. By tracing and comparing the developments of the vendors selected it has been concluded that all BI vendors, irrespective of whether it is a leading traditional vendor or small innovative BI, follow the same tendency in introducing BI enhancements by striving to make its software cost-effective, simpler, faster and flexible for use, scalable to manage increasing amounts of data in businesses, accessible to employees at all levels of organization. Hypothesis four sought to find out if the BI vendors’ software tested can be divided into a number of meaningful subgroups. With reference to evaluation and analysis and empirical findings, it has been concluded that the BI vendors can be divided into sub groups and hence has been classified based on their support of the phases of the intelligence cycle, their developments and market information. The subgroups range from advanced, competent, partially competent, and inadequate to absolutely inadequate. Among the BI vendors assessed, none satisfied the criteria in the advanced category. Hypothesis five aspired to determine if the BI software evaluated should fall under a different term as some of them do not follow the entire BI cycle. The analysis of empirical findings identified that QlikView and TIBCO Spotfire deliver the so-called next generation in-memory analytics, which is faster, much simpler, more flexible and scalable and meet the present-day business needs to a far greater extent if compared to traditional BI.