Earlier this week Dresner Advisory Services published their 6th annual report on Cloud Business Intelligence (BI) titled 2017 Cloud Computing and Business Intelligence Market Study. This report provides insights into trends and feelings toward cloud business intelligence. What is cloud business intelligence? Cloud business intelligence applications are hosted on a virtual network, such as the internet. They are used to provide organizations access to data like dashboards, KPIs and other business analytics. Companies are increasingly turning to cloud-based tools, like Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications, online file collaboration and storage (Dropbox, Box) and help desk software (UserVoice, Zendesk).

According to Dresner’s report, 34% of companies are planning to increase spending in the public cloud sector and 40% are planning to increase spending in the private-cloud sector. This is one of the largest predicted periods of growth we’ve seen. So where is this money going to be spent?

  • Executive Management, Marketing, and Sales, and Business Intelligence Competency Centers (BICC): They value the insights cloud business intelligence provide. These insights help them better target their customers, retain clients, and prepare for the future.
  • In 2012, only 13% of companies relied on public-cloud based business intelligence applications. Today, 33% of companies are relying upon public-cloud based BI applications. Although there is still some resistance to adopt public-cloud technologies, the urgency for insights from Sales and Marketing teams is forcing early adoption.
  • Applications like Google Analytics and Salesforce are the most desired third-party connector applications. These applications are responsible for providing key insights on consumer behavior. More companies are relying on advanced pricing strategies to up-sell and cross-sell existing customers while improving lifetime customer value.
  • 60% of companies are either using or plan to use public-cloud applications this year.

  • 44% of companies with 100 employees or less are already using cloud business intelligence applications to drive growth in their business.
  • “Reporting, dashboards, end-user “self-service,” advanced visualization and data warehousing are the top five technologies that are strategic to business intelligence today. Cloud computing is considered by respondents to be more critical than big data, social media analysis and the Internet of Things (IoT).” – Forbes, 2017

The cloud comes in all shapes, sizes, and applications. If you think you are not using the cloud directly, odds are one of your applications relies on the cloud to function. Check out Forbes’ full recap of Dresner’s report here and contact us to join the cloud movement.

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