BI--users don't really care. (IT News).Business Intelligence is great for sales & marketing, but users don't really care An Ovum-TNS survey reveals, a significant disconnect disconnect - SCSI reconnect between vendors' positioning and customers' expectations. Business Intelligence (BI) vendors' current sales positioning-to pitch BI software by highlighting the sales and marketing benefits to an organisation--is misguided mis·guid·ed adj. Based or acting on error; misled: well-intentioned but misguided efforts; misguided do-gooders. mis·guid . The research into the attitudes and perceptions of UK IT decision makers, reveals that only six percent of respondents in large organisations see improving marketing effectiveness Marketing Effectiveness is the function of improving how marketers go to market with the goal of optimizing their marketing spend to achieve even better results for both the short-term and long-term. Also related to Marketing ROI and Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI). , as a business priority for IT. The survey shows that the priorities for current and potential buyers of BI software are for more mundane operational activities such as using the customer base, improving budgeting or increasing production efficiency. While vendors across the board are getting it wrong, it will be niche companies that are likely to suffer, not the IT giants with strong brand recognition. Comment: 'Niche players' misguided positioning and unclear messages put them at risk of losing their customer base to IT software giants," says Chandra Chaterji of TNS TNS transcutaneous neural stimulation. .. "The prominence of the IT software giants is no surprise, but the scale of their lead is shocking." For example, 47 percent of BI users believe that IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries) has a 'superior ability to evolve with the marketplace' as compared to 27 percent for Business Objects, and 17 percent for SAS (1) (SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC, www.sas.com) A software company that specializes in data warehousing and decision support software based on the SAS System. Founded in 1976, SAS is one of the world's largest privately held software companies. See SAS System. . To really start meeting the needs of users BI vendors need to change their approach. To survive, focused BI vendors must differentiate themselves from the industry giants such as IBM and Microsoft See Microsoft and IBM. . And to achieve this, they need to change their own sales and marketing approach. It is crucial that they focus on specific business needs, in some cases even going to a full vertical sales approach. Currently these vendors are too horizontally focused and fail to understand users needs, or to be able to articulate their value to BI buyers. Further evidence of this can be found in the survey: * Only 10 percent of respondents in large organisations think that forecasting sales and revenues is an IT business priority. * Only 18 percent of respondents in large organisations think that efficiency of distribution processes is a top business priority. www.ovum.com |
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