Seeking differentiation
Business intelligence offers huge potential growth through competitive differentiation, according to our research. Seeing this potential, more than 57 percent of CIOs say they want to position business intelligence as a core component for competitive differentiation in three years. There is a still long way to go, since 60 percent of respondents admit that they do not use BI at all.
Respondents also believe competitive differentiation can be achieved through:
- Integrated enterprise data (chosen by 52 percent of respondents)
- Engaging business users (46 percent)
- Analytical applications (44 percent)
Abandoning silos
CIOs realize they need to get data out of departmental silos and into an enterprise-wide system. Although 78 percent say their analytics are somewhat in silos or at a basic reporting level today, 76.5 percent are targeting enterprise-wide integration in three years.
Beyond just analysis, our survey finds executives are choosing to see all management of information as an organization-wide discipline. This vision takes into account all types of data across the enterprise and gives greater access to users. More than 75 percent of respondents say they want to develop an overall information management strategy in the next three years.
Driving change
CIOs pick "cost savings or avoidance" as the most likely catalyst for their organizations to change how they use BI (chosen by 55 percent). Respondents also seek a competitive edge from BI, with 54 percent identifying "customer service/relations improvement" and 50 percent selecting "capability to respond quickly to market situations" as the main drivers for change.
CIOs rank funding as the top obstacle to changing how business intelligence is used in their organizations. As BI has evolved from a departmental to an enterprise capability, obtaining funding and sponsorship becomes more complex and requires the buy-in of multiple stakeholders. By contrast, technology is the least of all concerns: BI tools have matured and organizations have been consolidating their vendors to support this area.
Finding talent
More than 60 percent of CIOs feel that the supply of BI and data warehousing skills meets their current demand and 70 percent feel their demand will be met or will continue to be met in three years. In North America, 94 percent of CIOs plan to meet the increasing demand by using either outsourced skills or systems integrators. European CIOs are twice as likely as North Americans to create BI competency centers with deep skills and standard approaches (34 percent versus 17 percent).
Accenture expects organizations to turn more and more to analytical tools designed to increase competitive differentiation. We believe this will augment demand for experts who have business intelligence and industry-specific knowledge.
Learning to adapt
Organizations are looking to business intelligence for more valuable insights that will enable them to adapt and quickly respond to change. In a study of enterprise systems, we found a strong trend toward organizations becoming more analytical. The research showed that analytics was one of the most consistent differences between high and low performers—65 percent of high performers said they had significant decision support and analytical capabilities compared to 23 percent of low performers.
CIOs realize the need to improve their current understanding, maintenance and management of data. More sophisticated business intelligence and data democratization promise the agility CIOs are seeking in pursuit of high performance.
Learn more about the Accenture CIO Survey.
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