BI failing to help most business leaders to act decisively

BOSTON: Despite advances in business intelligence (BI) technology and an increasing need to respond quickly to market changes, many businesses feel the time it takes to react to information has increased in the past five years.

Research by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) found that 79 per cent of enterprises believe it is critical for their business to respond to information quickly and effectively.

However, 48 per cent said that the time it takes to respond to business-critical information has increased.

This prompts the question, why is BI software not helping CIOs and CEOs make informed decisions more quickly?

A question of confidence

Chris Webber, senior editor for EIU, told delegates at Progress Software's Progress Revolution 2011 conference in Boston this week that businesses have the skills and tools to analyse and gather information, but when it comes to making decisions they struggle.

"Businesses are generally ludicrously over confident about their performance, and so the best way to look at these surveys is to identify areas where their confidence is lacking," said Webber.

The EIU research asked businesses to rate their organisation's effectiveness at the following tasks: gathering and analysing information; identifying opportunities and risks; understanding the possible impact of change; and identifying disruptive changes earlier than competitors.

More than 50 per cent of respondents said they were very effective at the first task, but confidence levels were generally much lower when it came to the remaining three. For example, only 40 per cent expressed confidence in their ability to respond quickly and appropriately to changes in the market.

"Being able to gather and analyse information doesn't necessarily translate into more certainty about what to do with it when it's in front of you," said Webber.