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15 facts about the Business Intelligence market

Published Date
Author Richard Thelwell

The business intelligence market is heating up – and there have been a number of exciting developments over the last couple of years. Here we take a look at some of the key statistics surrounding the industry and explore forecasts into its future. We hope these facts help to shed some light on the direction in which the business intelligence market is going – and they may even help your business prepare for the challenges to come.

Big data

  • It is estimated that approximately 2.7 Zetabytes of data exist in the digital universe today.
  • According to estimates, the volume of data collected by businesses worldwide doubles every 1.2 years.
  • Poor data or ‘lack of understanding the data’ are cited as the primary reason for overrunning project costs and could cost businesses 20%–35% of their operating revenue.
  • Poor data quality costs US businesses up to $600 billion annually/

The Business Intelligence market

  • According to Gartner, the worldwide business intelligence market was worth over $14.4 billion in 2013, an increase of 8% on the previous year ($13.3 billion). This market definition includes all BI platforms, corporate performance management suites, analytic applications and advanced analytics solutions.
  • This figure is predicted to reach $20.81 billion by 2018, equating to a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of around 8.28%.
  • Among the fastest growing markets is the Asia Pacific region where the business intelligence market is expected to grow by 7.4 % to $1.4 billion in 2014.

Business intelligence vendors

  • In 2014, SAP once again dominated the business intelligence market with a market share of 21.3% and revenues of over $3.1 billion. Behind SAP in terms of market share were Oracle (14%) and IBM (13%).
  • The Gartner Magic Quadrant positions the leading companies in the business intelligence market on a grid. The 2014 magic quadrant can be found below.

  • Although the business intelligence market is dominated by a handful of larger organisations, a new breed of vendors is beginning to chip away at this market dominance. A survey by SearchCIO asked respondents whether the future of business intelligence lay with traditional ‘legacy’ vendors or new entrants. Over half (50.89%) of respondents felt that these new vendors would win the ‘BI war’ while only 6.51% felt the future lay with the traditional market leaders.

Cloud Business Intelligence market

  • The Cloud-based business intelligence market is projected to grow from $0.75 billion in 2013 to $2.94 billion in 2018, a CAGR of 31%.
  • The Cloud business intelligence market has seen great success, particularly with smaller businesses. In a survey by the BI Leadership Forum, over 46% of small businesses said they were currently using the Cloud as part of their business intelligence strategy.

 

  • A study by Dimensional Research found that satisfaction rates are significantly higher for Cloud BI users. 80% of respondents stated that they were ‘highly satisfied/ satisfied’ with the adoption of Cloud Business Intelligence compared with just 51% of on-premise business intelligence users.

New technologies

  • With busy executives always on the go, it is crucial that they can easily access management information wherever they are, on a range of different devices. This has led to a huge rise in the demand for mobile BI capabilities – with the market for these tools growing by roughly 42% in the last year.
  • While Cloud BI is the fastest growing segment of the business intelligence market, other technologies are beginning to catch up too. Cloud, mobile and social BI are all beginning to take market share from traditional BI vendors.

 

If these facts have wetted your appetite and you would like to know more about the Business Intelligence market, consider downloading our free E-Book today.