For Business Process Professionals

The Forrester Wave™: Open Source Business Intelligence (BI), Q3 2010

Actuate BIRT Leads, With Jaspersoft Enterprise, SpagoBI, Pentaho Enterprise, And Pentaho Community Close Behind

by Jeffrey S. Hammond, Boris Evelson, August 10, 2010

Comparing open source BI technologies is often an apples-to-oranges comparison: 1) not all vendors include the same functionality in the free community versions of the software versus commercial open source versions that carry license and/or support cost, . . .

For Business Process Professionals

BI Service Provider Short-Listing Tool

by Boris Evelson, Liz Herbert, July 21, 2010

Firms should use the Forrester BI Service Provider Short-Listing Tool to input details about geographic scope, technology needs, and type of third-party support (i.e., consulting versus implementation versus hosting/outsourcing). The tool will then output . . .

For Business Process Professionals

Agile BI Out Of The Box

Reduce Development Time And Effort With Metadata-Generated BI Applications

by Boris Evelson, April 22, 2010

Complexity represents one of the toughest challenges facing traditional business intelligence (BI) applications. Multiple components must be considered including data integration, cleansing, modeling, warehousing, metrics creation and management, reports, . . .

For Business Process Professionals

Latest BI Adoption Trends -- Still Strong And Going Ballistic

by Boris Evelson, March 9, 2010

This set of data charts highlights BI-related findings from Forrester's recent Enterprise And SMB Software Survey, North America And Europe, Q4 2009.

For Business Process Professionals

BI In The Cloud? Yes, And On The Ground, Too

Why, When, And How To Select A BI SaaS Vendor

by Boris Evelson, January 26, 2010

Slowly but surely, with lots of criticism and skepticism, the business intelligence (BI) software-as-a-service (SaaS) market is gaining ground. It's a road full of peril — at least two BI SaaS startups have failed this year — but what software market . . .

For Sourcing & Vendor Management Professionals

Buyers Of BI Services Navigate A Crowded Landscape

Sourcing Professionals Sift Through Choices With Multiple Dimensions

by Boris Evelson, Liz Herbert, January 24, 2010

Forrester sees strong interest from technology buyers in business intelligence (BI), including the significant expansion of existing BI initiatives as well as new projects. Key areas of investment range from implementing domain-specific dashboards through . . .

For Business Process Professionals

BI Maturity In The Enterprise

by Boris Evelson, December 4, 2009

This set of data charts present the findings from Forrester's Q4 2009 Global BI Maturity Online Survey.

For Business Process Professionals

Forrester's BI Maturity Assessment Tool

by Boris Evelson, September 11, 2009

Business intelligence is a set of methodologies, processes, architectures, and technologies that transform raw data into meaningful and useful information used to enable more effective strategic, tactical, and operational insight and decision-making. . . .

For Business Process Professionals

The Business Case for BI: Now More Critical Than Ever

by Boris Evelson, August 25, 2009

Even as IT reduces or holds budgets steady in many enterprise software sectors, business intelligence (BI) initiatives remain front and center in most enterprise business and IT agendas. As the demand for pervasive and comprehensive BI applications increases, . . .

For Business Process Professionals

Business Intelligence (BI) Polishes Its Crystal Ball

IBM's SPSS Deal Nudges Analytics Industry Toward Deeper Predictive Focus

by James G. Kobielus, Boris Evelson, Leslie Owens, August 18, 2009

Enterprise strategic, tactical, and operational decision-makers want to understand past and present activity but also anticipate the future to avoid being blindsided by seemingly hidden events. How do companies build a competitive "crystal ball"? They . . .

For Business Process Professionals

Latest BI Adoption Trends -- Still Ripe In Opportunities Across Regions, Company Sizes, And Industries

by Boris Evelson, August 6, 2009

This set of data charts examines BI adoption trends from Forrester's recent Enterprise And SMB Software Survey, North America And Europe, Q4 2008.

For Business Process Professionals

Fit Your Data Architecture To Your Analytical Needs

Forrester's Business Intelligence Data Architecture Decision Tool Helps You Make The Right Choice

by Boris Evelson, Rob Karel, July 9, 2009

Delivering business intelligence (BI) effectively depends on a data management architecture that fits your reporting and analytical requirements. Unfortunately, many data warehousing (DW) and BI professionals overlook the need to optimize an end-to-end . . .

For Business Process Professionals

SharePoint And BI Survey Q&A: The Last Mile To Business Intelligence Users

The Forrester Perspective On SharePoint And Microsoft BI Survey Responses

by Boris Evelson, May 19, 2009

By nature, business intelligence (BI) transforms raw, meaningless data into meaningful, tangible, and actionable information. But successful BI requires multiple components and steps that must be executed in perfect choreography. While the data sourcing, . . .

For Business Process Professionals

To BW Or Not To BW?

Migration Paths Are The Burning Question For SAP BI Users

by Boris Evelson, James G. Kobielus, May 13, 2009

The January 2008 merger of SAP and Business Objects created numerous opportunities and challenges for business intelligence (BI) and data warehousing (DW) professionals. The good news was that SAP now offers several leading, best-of-breed BI and DW products. . . .

For Business Process Professionals

Enterprise BI Survey Q&A: BI Professionals Recognize The Need To Focus Beyond Tools

Forrester's Perspective On BI Survey Client Responses

by Boris Evelson, Rob Karel, March 17, 2009

Business intelligence (BI) remains a top priority for many enterprises, but delivering successful BI capabilities goes far beyond just the tools and enabling technologies. Historically, foundational BI best practices in data governance, data quality management, . . .

For Business Process Professionals

BI Belt Tightening In A Tough Economic Climate

Practical Advice Applicable To Any Economic Condition

by Boris Evelson, February 20, 2009

As an economic downturn becomes a sobering reality, enterprises look for various ways to increase revenues and reduce costs. While overall IT budgets become targets for cost cutting, business intelligence (BI) applications and infrastructure need not . . .

For Business Process Professionals

Forrester's Business Intelligence Data Architecture Decision Tool

by Boris Evelson, Rob Karel, January 12, 2009

This decision tool will help I&KM professionals evaluate their options for logical data architectures to support Business Intelligence, such as physical BI repositories vs. federated data access to operational data stores, enterprise data warehouses . . .

For Business Process Professionals

Latest BI Adoption Trends In Enterprises: Bright Future, But Off To A Slow Start

by Boris Evelson, January 12, 2009

Our latest data shows that enterprises are slowly but surely beginning to adopt the newest BI features like open source, end-user self-service, and search-BI convergence.

For Business Process Professionals

Current State Of BI Adoption In Enterprises: Plenty Of Room For Growth And Improvement

by Boris Evelson, December 18, 2008

Current State Of BI Adoption In Enterprises: Plenty Of Room For Growth And Improvement

For Business Process Professionals

Topic Overview: Business Intelligence

by Boris Evelson, November 21, 2008

Business intelligence (BI) is a set of methodologies, processes, architectures, and technologies that transform raw data into meaningful and useful information. It allows business users to make informed business decisions with real-time data that can . . .

For Business Process Professionals

OLAP: In Fashion Or Old-Fashioned?

by Boris Evelson, James G. Kobielus, November 7, 2008

Online analytical processing (OLAP) is a core component of a complex business intelligence (BI) architectural stack. Even as vendors begin to explore alternative technologies for "slicing" and "dicing" large data sets, OLAP engines, servers, and models . . .

For Business Process Professionals

Implementing Your Business Intelligence Solutions Center

Mitigate Common Pitfalls To Optimize The Return On Your BI Investment

by Boris Evelson, James G. Kobielus, November 4, 2008

The increasing pervasiveness, complexity, and criticality of today's business intelligence (BI) applications have led enterprises to recognize the need for something more formal than a traditional IT support center to maximize returns on their BI and . . .

For Business Process Professionals

I&KM Pros Brace For DW Industry Consolidation

Microsoft's DATAllegro Acquisition Is The Tipping Point

by James G. Kobielus, Boris Evelson, August 4, 2008

Many information and knowledge management (I&KM) professionals consider the data warehouse (DW) appliance niche as distinct from &mdash and a bit less mature than &mdash the market for enterprise-grade DW solutions. There is still some validity . . .

For Business Process Professionals

The Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Business Intelligence Platforms, Q3 2008

by Boris Evelson, July 31, 2008

In Forrester's 151-criteria evaluation of enterprise business intelligence (BI) platform vendors, we found that IBM Cognos and SAP Business Objects maintain their leadership positions, while Oracle and SAS Institute move into leadership positions in enterprise . . .

For Business Process Professionals

BI Workspaces: BI Without Borders

Solving An Age-Old BI Dilemma: Enabling End User Self-Service

by Boris Evelson, June 23, 2008

For years, traditional business intelligence (BI) technologies have provided tools for reporting, analysis, and visualization of information. While these technologies continue to remain the core staples of enterprise-grade BI solutions, Forrester recognizes . . .