So the BI standardization movement is afoot. And here's something interesting: It turns out that it's the medium-sized businesses, not the big ones, that have a head start at bringing their BI technology down to a more manageable level.
According to The Data Warehousing Institute, companies with revenue of more than $5 billion annually use, on average, 3.7 BI tools. Businesses with sales in the range of $500 million to $5 billion have 3.1 BI packages. But the smaller firms--those with revenue of less than $500 million--use an average of only 2.3. So as far as standardization goes, the smaller firms are ahead in the race. In short, they've got a lot less work to do than their big, cash-flushed rivals.
As an Intelligent Enterprise story we bring you this week shows, that's not their only BI advantage. It also turns out that medium-sized firms have compiled the same business intelligence wish lists as their larger competitors. They want better BI, and they want to analyze more than just customer data. To that end, they're investing in more infrastructure and searching for new data sources, from both within and without.
Smaller firms shouldn't consider themselves at a disadvantage when it comes to business intelligence. Instead, they should focus on their advantages and make the most of them.