5 BI and Data Visualization Trends for 2010

5 trends we have identified in the BI and Data Visualization world this year are:

1. Growth of the Data Warehousing Market

Recently we’ve seen a trend toward consolidation and building a centralized enterprise data warehouse. As a result, a massive modernization drive intended to improve overall decision-making is now taking place. Within the past year, data warehousing solutions have continued to become more and more popular because of their high levels of performance, ability to incorporate analytics, and their integration within larger BI platforms. As the costs of space and processing speed become lower, vendors can give organizations more powerful offerings but with lower price tags. This has helped to expand the use of data warehouses within organizations, both by the number of companies adopting data warehouses, and by the types of applications that can be used.

2. Social Media for BI

Providers are slowly integrating social networking functions into their solutions. Customers are beginning to expect rich interactive experiences that mimic their internet use, and BI can match these expectations if it draws on the information from interactions that occur in social computing environments. Due to the ability to create powerful interactions and improve ease of use, more providers are focusing on developments that mimic social media and Web 2.0 interactions. In doing so, the role of BI has become increasingly popular and more widely applied within organizations because of the assumed ease of use.

3. Increased Use of Different Data Sources

The reality of today is that in order to stay ahead of competitors, companies are required to integrate various information sources to get additional value from their data and a full operational view of the organization. Vendors are now developing business-focused applications that take these requirements into account and offer customers a ready-made solution that targets business issues being faced by companies within different markets.

4. Renewed Focus on Fraud Detection and Security

Because of the amount of media coverage of fraudulent activities, the ability to detect fraud and to maintain a secure environment is an area constantly at the forefront of IT. Organizations are required to make sure that information within the firewall is not left at risk. So as threats against IT security have continued to augment, organizations have been more committed to tightly monitoring their environments and the information within them. Providers have done a good job ensuring security – however, because of increased risk, organizations and vendors alike will focus more on maintaining high level security within their information centers, especially due to all the new forms of data being integrated into analytics platforms.

5. Advanced Data Visualizations

Data visualization offerings keep expanding, and the inclusion of geo-spatial analysis has helped bring analytics to the forefront of visualization. For organizations looking at product, geographical or customer data, the ability to identify trends using maps has helped them to recognize trends a lot faster. Although this technology has been around for a while and is not “new” as such, it is only recently that companies have started to integrate this type of functionality on a regular basis within their overall dashboard use.

The pressure is on!

Within the BI space, constant advancements in technology means trends are always shifting. Depending upon economic and market factors, organizations may not adopt improved offerings from developers. On the other hand, early adopters often look to BI for inspiration on ways in which they can help their business overtake the competition. Overall, 2009 saw many releases within back-end databases and front-end visualizations. On top of this, there has been serious demands for low-cost solutions with quick implementation times, and solution providers are under pressure to improve upon their current products throughout the rest of 2010. Here in Montpellier, we have been continuously updating Bime to bring you all of these things, as well as top-of-the-range features, simplicity of use and a beautiful, clean interface.

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Author:  Kirsty coordinates the Web Marketing for We Are Cloud. She holds a BSc from Manchester Business School.