Business intelligence programmes not delivering

UK enterprises are wasting millions of pounds on unsuccessful business intelligence implementations, according to research by data technology company Kognitio.

money down drain

One in four companies said that they had spent more than a million pounds on business intelligence implementations and more than half of those questioned had spent at least half a million. Furthermore, despite the investment, the research revealed that these implementations are not providing the value companies expect, with 62% admitting they receive a barrage of complaints from their business users.

The survey was carried out by Vanson Bourne to understand how companies approach business intelligence implementations and their perceptions of them and questioned 200 IT directors at UK companies with more than 1,000 employees.

It also revealed that implementations are taking too long to provide companies with any intelligence, with 78% stating that it takes over a year to see any meaningful results. Kognito says that this means by the time marketers receive actionable intelligence, the market has changed and the data is obsolete.

Roger Llewellyn, CEO, Kognitio, says: “Marketers need to look very closely at why business intelligence isn’t providing the insight and guidance that it should, or risk losing one of their most powerful tools.”

However, the survey also highlighted that there is a lack of communication between marketing departments and IT with 88% of enterprises admitting that business departments, including marketing, do not properly define what they want to achieve from an implementation, as they expect the IT department to do this for them.

Llewellyn says : “The clue is in the name – for the success of an implementation it is critical to involve business users and departments from the start. When done correctly, business intelligence provides immense value to marketers and is even the difference between success and failure. However, it is critical that the marketing department understands what it wants to achieve and that it communicates this to IT, otherwise the business might as well be throwing money down the drain.”

The failure of Business Intelligence is also leading 65% of companies to consider implementations to be too expensive.

This is due to the manpower and time required from the IT department, the cost of hardware acquisition and deployment and the cost of software licenses and deployment, as well as the cost of outside consultancy firms.