Vowing to continue acquiring vendors of analytics and BI software, the head of IBM's business analytics group said he believes "information-driven transformation" will become bigger and more important than the ERP and CRM categories combined.IBM general manager for business analytics Ambuj Goyal said surging client demand is driving IBM's intention to continue adding new technologies and capabilities that help customers make better decisions by being able to predict future outcomes, according to an itpro.com article:

"Our investment in this particular space will continue and we will build by partner," [Goyal] said. "There's so much demand. It's an investment trend. Not only IBM is behind it. When we went to Wall Street, we said this is our growth strategy."

And that demand, Goyal said, is only beginning:

"Information-led transformation has just begun," said Goyal. "We are way ahead, but to me we are just beginning, because everybody is going to follow us. I say this is bigger than ERP and CRM combined."

He added: " . . . . Every day, clients are telling us what kind of problems they can't solve."

IBM had around 15,000 new clients in the business intelligence space, and Goyal said that it was looking ahead with a huge research department doing first of a kind projects.

Goyal's comments underscore a broad trend in the IT business whereby CIOs are realizing that while they must have strong internal IT operations, the real business value they need to unlock lies outside their enterprise in the marketplace of customers and prospects and new products and services.

The leading ERP vendors-SAP and Oracle-have begun stepping into the traditional BI space, but IBM is pushing out beyond that with a strong emphasis on predictive analytics and the ability to help clients see what's coming and take the steps to capitalize on those opportunities.