I was reading an article in DM Review, on the emerging applications of business intelligence tools and the transformation expected in the future as 'information inventory' in enterprises gather pace over the next decade. While there are interesting trends on how BI applications will grow( which I have put together as a presentation), I would likely to slightly digress a bit and pick-out some thought-provoking points that has been made in the article:
I found a particularly interesting point that can have a profund impact on many business models which many business managers tend to dismiss or miss many a times:
"This is the trend that Nicholas Carr identifies in his book “The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google” (W.W. Norton & Co., 2008). This refers to the trend of businesses switching from the internal deployment of software to the outsourcing of large-scale information processing systems, also known as software as a service (SaaS).SaaS is normally thought of as a simplification and economization of the installation, management and maintenance of software.
Carr’s argument is simple: during the industrial revolution, every factory had its own power plant – initially, water wheels and subsequently steam engines. As electrical service became widely available, a big switch took place, and as we know, few factories today have their own power plants because it became more economical for them to use electrical power supplied by utility companies. Carr’s point is that in a similar fashion today, most industries operate their own computer systems but soon will switch to having them managed by outside parties because it is more economical."
How's the BIG switch going to affect your business?
Is it possible for you to envision the big switch in your business that can become a game changer? I personally think this is happening to the so called analytical and marketing applications that I work with everyday. It's increasingly all about finding common business issues across business verticals, developing a common methodology to develop insights, identifying a platform to capture trends that the enterprise business users can access and getting them together quickly to create business impact. We need to have the ability to combine mass customization with scalability in our analytical marketing business.Am sure it's applicable to your business too!
THE BIG switch in BI applications
Coming back to the topic where I started,the article goes on to mention that Diagonal BI applications will substantially extend the benefits of SaaS and will accelerate the outsourcing trend in BI.
