ITWire

According to the latest survey of the BI market by IDC, the growth for BI tools in 2011 has been primarily driven by the continuous efforts of Australian organisations to consolidate existing IT infrastructure. "In addition, there has been more upgrades on existing BI tools seen as opposed to purchasing newer solutions," IDC Market Analyst, Natalie Ng, said.

"An end-user survey by IDC has found over the past years, adoption rate of BI tools has increased in importance. Businesses are recognising the benefits BI tools can deliver in an increasingly complex environment, and is leveraging them to make intelligent better-informed business decisions."

IDC reports that end-user query and analysis software is primarily used for its report building capabilities and has 82.8 percent share of the Australian BI market. “Advanced analytics software is also a component of the BI market, but a growth inhibitor has been its perceived premium price tag and insufficient supply of business users with appropriate analytical skills to use such tools.  In spite of this, Advanced Analytics applications in Australia have 17.2% share of the overall market for BI,” Ng says.

"With the forthcoming carbon tax, Australian businesses will look to employ analytic tools in an effort to improve business efficiency to reduce carbon emissions."

In the near term, IDC expects pre-packaged analytic applications and business analytics appliance offerings to be favoured by SMBs for its ease and low cost of deployment, and SaaS solutions for its low total cost of ownership (TCO).