Asia remains lucrative BI market
As growth of the global business intelligence (BI) software market starts to slow, the Asia-Pacific region is still set to grow healthily, says Gartner.
Fueled by "greenfield" opportunities and fast economic and structural developments, the region's growth is expected to be higher than that of Europe and North America, said the analyst firm in a statement.
Worldwide growth rates, by contrast, are slowing at a CAGR of 8.6 percent to US$7 billion in 2011.
Gartner predicts BI software revenue for the Asia-Pacific region to reach US$399 million this year, and grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.5 percent to hit US$577.6 million in 2011.
In the latest Gartner Executive Programs survey, some 1,500 Chief information officers ranked BI top on their list of technology priorities for the third year running.
According to Gartner, CIOs feel a proper BI strategy is the foundation to upgrade areas of the business such as customer service and legacy applications.
Bhavish Sood, Gartner senior research analyst said: "The days of strong double-digit growth in the global BI market are over, as the industry enters a state of flux following vendor consolidation, increasing maturity and price erosion.
"However, BI remains critical for businesses as it turns information into an asset for insight and decision making, especially in high-growth markets in Asia," added Sood.
Furthermore, consolidation in the BI market through major acquisitions such as IBM and Cognos, Oracle and Hyperion and SAP and Business Objects is expected to drive increased usage from the large vendors.
Sood said new vendors will try to differentiate by introducing newer technology and products to fill gaps in the larger vendors' product lines. Examples of which may be predictive modeling, enterprise search, and interactive visualization techniques.
Gartner advises customers of recently-acquired players to wait for proper product roadmaps from the vendors, to avoid investing in overlapping products.