Technology Spending Puts Focus on BI

It’s no secret that technology is becoming a bigger part of business across nearly every industry, and companies are wising up to this growing trend. A recent report from the International Data Corporation examined technology spending across 12 different segments in the United States between 2012 and 2017.

It’s no secret that technology is becoming a bigger part of business across nearly every industry, and companies are wising up to this growing trend. A recent report from the International Data Corporation examined technology spending across 12 different segments in the United States between 2012 and 2017. The results showed that overall spending is expected to reach $330.7 billion by 2017, up from $236.6 billion in 2012.

Business intelligence becomes key sector of tech spending
The researchers at IDC looked at technology spending in finance, customer service, engineering, human resources, IT, marketing, sales, security and other areas of business, to determine where all the business funding was going. One of the four main sectors of spending was business analytics, emphasizing the growing importance of business intelligence

“The connection between technology and business is accelerating at lightening pace as business users adopt what IDC refers to as the ‘four pillars’ – cloud, social, mobile and analytics,” said Eileen Smith, a program manager for IDC’s Global technology and Industry Research Organization. “Investments in these key areas are driving business-funded technology to reach $275.2 billion in the United States in 2014, accounting for 55 percent of total technology spending.”

Companies concerned about finding BI experts
The most recent quarterly survey of IT leaders by TEKsystems, an IT staffing company, revealed that there is a growing concern surrounding the ability to find and hire technology experts, especially those with BI, Big Data and analysis expertise. While at the end of the first quarter of 2014, 72 percent of survey respondents had confidence their IT departments would be able to meet business demands, they were also wary of their ability to find the right employees to meet these demands.

At the end of 2013, BI and Big Data experts ranked as the seventh most difficult employees to recruit. After the first quarter of 2014, they jumped to third place, behind security experts in second place and programmers and developers as the least available employee pool.

BI solutions can reduce need for large IT staff
Companies don’t need a large team of BI experts to understand business analytics thanks to software like Panorama’s Necto 14. This program pulls data together and creates easily understandable data visualisation and infographics that can be manipulated by the user. Necto 14 is designed to be accessible to people who may not have BI and data analysis expertise, making it easier for companies to access this technology without needing to hire a slew of BI experts.