In a fiercely competitive BI market, size remains a relevant factor. Invariably there are advantages as well as disadvantages to being either small or large. Large businesses generally benefit from economies of scale and smaller companies pride themselves on a customer-focused approach.
Big BI vendors are often criticised for failing to effectively support data analytics through visualisation. Stephen Few in an article titled “Big BI is Stuck,” looks at how big business intelligence vendors have failed to grapple with the demands of the current BI market. According to Few, big BI vendors continue to use the same approaches they used 15 years ago to challenge problems that are now radically different. The BI solution offered by these vendors is based on technology and engineering lacking what he describes as data sense-making. While not making a case against big business intelligence, Few is of the opinion that in order to be more relevant, big BI vendors will need to shift from a techno-centric engineering focused approach to a more human-centric design focused approach.
Small BI vendors on the other hand are lauded for being more agile with the flexibility to respond quickly to changing demands. In many respects, small BI vendors have been quick to identify gaps in the BI market and with the right innovations have filled those gaps. In a lot of ways, it is the small BI vendors who have been driving change due to their ability to respond quickly to what users are demanding from a BI solution. Nevertheless, small BI vendors are no more immune to challenges than their larger competitors. According to Few, many small BI vendors, even where they are able to identify problems faced by the big BI boys often find themselves replicating solutions mired with the same problems.
Being closer to users, smaller companies enjoy the specific advantage of understanding the type of change that is demanded and can quickly create software with design and visualisation capacity for achieving desired outcome. Larger vendors have the capital and the resources needed to invest in the research and development of new BI technology. By both adding to the pool of ideas on business intelligence, players at all levels should be helping to define and redefine BI solutions propelling BI to constant improvements.
However, it would still appear that the big BI vendors are struggling to get to grips with how to make their BI solutions aligned with the modern day requirements of data sense-making, data visualisation or even really with what their customers need. Whilst the smaller players carve out a niche for themselves focusing in on some of these rich features. However, although big BI may still be struggling and be a bit stuck, my guess will be that they’ll eventually just go ahead and ‘un-stuck’ themselves by buying up these small BI vendors and bolting their solutions on to their gargantuan ones – and no doubt poorly!
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