Business Intelligence and Enterprise Search to Ride Out the Recession - Strategic Focus

Overview 1
Catalyst 1
Summary 1
Key Messages 2
The recessionary climate calls for solutions that maximize returns on investment 2
Integrated BI and ESR solutions will deliver more value than the sum of the parts 2
Technology advances will enable greater collaboration between BI and ESR 2
Smaller vendors will innovate, primarily by shrinking the technology stack 2
The benefits of convergence will extend across multiple business processes 2
Quick deployments that meet immediate needs will succeed 2
Table of figures 4
Table of tables 4
Market Opportunity 5
Next-generation BI solutions need to look beyond structured data 5
ESR can help navigate through unstructured data 7
ESR processes based on indexing and meta-tagging are simple yet effective 7
Indexing can transform unstructured data into partly structured data, helping BI 8
Further advancements in BI, ECM, and ESR methodologies can transform the querying process 9
Given the synergies, BI vendors may try to acquire their way into the ESR market 9
Acquisition multiples point to the value that ESR acquisitions are expected to deliver 12
Integration between BI and ESR will help plug the gaps 13
The inclusion of unstructured data in BI reports will be a significant technological milestone 15
ESR could spread the benefits of BI throughout the organization 15
Business benefits of integration between BI and ESR are substantial 16
Technology Evolution 17
Vendors are exploring various methods to integrate BI and ESR 17
Federated search and querying helps tie existing BI knowledge to ESR 17
Innovative transformation methods may help non-technical users query structured data 18
Guided navigation will provides visual clues to drill down structured information 20
Aduna 21
Groxis 21
Guided navigation will reveal additional data dimensions and relationships 22
Open source ESR projects can be used to search structured BI data 22
Lucene has found widespread adoption among BI vendors looking for ESR functionality 22
Datamonitor advises a thorough evaluation of open source solutions 23
Third-party proprietary ESR solutions can also provide good BI integration 23
Standalone ESR vendors offer connectors to major BI providers' solutions 23
Some ESR applications have built-in modules for enhanced interoperability with BI 24
Google OneBox (OneBox) 24
IBM OmniFind 24
Many BI vendors provide loosely-coupled integration with GSA 25
Information Builders: WebFOCUS Magnify 25
IBM Cognos 8 Go! Search 25
Conglomerates with BI and ESR capabilities can benefit from native integration 26
Some innovative vendors can help propagate alternative methods of analysis 27
Intersystems DeepSee: Real-time embedded BI 27
Kognitio WX2: MPP-based analytical database and easy deployment 27
QlikTech Qlikview: In-memory analysis and association 28
TIBCO Spotfire Enterprise Analytics Platform: In-memory analysis and interactive visualization 28
Security will be a critical factor in integration 28
Conclusion: the rapid evolution of technology could spark innovative offerings 29
Customer Impact 30
Integrated ESR, BI, and EAI will appear seamless to the end-user 30
ESR will help BI reach more stakeholders and processes, enabling rapid change 31
A tailored combination of BI and ESR tools will be required for each process 33
The economics of distributing BI through ESR will need to be carefully evaluated 35
End-users want functionality, but not at the cost of long-drawn deployment cycles 36
In a recession, shorter deployment cycles may be favored over functionality 36
Real-time or near real-time data analysis will gain greater prominence 36
Innovative solutions will balance deployment cycles and functionality 37
Reporting and navigation are critical ESR modules 38
Innovative technologies are opening alternative avenues to analysis 39
Conclusion: the benefits of convergence will extend to users across processes 40
Recessionary Landscape 41
IT budgets will range from flat to marginally negative, and BI will have to step up 41
Larger number of vendors will be targeting the same consumer wallet 43
Project requirements, rather than solution capabilities, will drive purchase decisions 43
Competition will get down to modules and point-solutions 44
Conclusion: quick deployments that meet immediate needs will succeed 46
Go-to-market 47
Go-to-market 47
What to sell: products that maximize returns but deploy rapidly 48
Sell ESR solutions to meet needs and add value through BI associations 48
Market innovative products that flatten the technology stack 49
Who to sell to: Target existing user base for cross-selling 49
How to sell: Maintain existing channel relationships but own the customer 49
Do not shuffle products between channels and create conflict 49
Focus on owning the customer 50
Promote maximum interoperability with technology partnerships 50
APPENDIX 51
Definitions 51
Methodology 51
Further reading 52
Ask the analyst 52
Datamonitor consulting 52
Disclaimer 52
List of Tables
Table 1: BI and ESR solutions are converging on multiple fronts 14
Table 2: Steps in a natural language query transformation 20
Table 3: How do you expect your IT budget to change in 2009? 42
List of Figures
Figure 1: Basic search and retrieval process model 8
Figure 2: BI market size and growth rate (2007-2013) 10
Figure 3: Revenue CAGR comparison of public BI and ESR vendors (2004-2007) 11
Figure 4: Gross margin comparison of public BI and ESR vendors (2005-2008) 12
Figure 5: Process diagram of a query transformation model 19
Figure 6: BI penetration in people-intensive processes is still low 32
Figure 7: Each process requires a tailored blend of BI and ESR 33
Figure 8: Tradeoffs between time to deployment and analysis capabilities 38
Figure 9: Enterprises have reduced their IT budget expectations for 2009 in H2 2008 41
Figure 10: Enterprises are less optimistic about purchasing BI over the long-term 43
Figure 11: Enterprises focus on specific project requirements when formulating IT budgets 44
Figure 12: Vendors across categories will try to fulfill similar customer needs, increasing competition 45
Figure 13: A reference framework for pertinent go-to-market strategies in a recession 47