Business Intelligence - IT or Business driven?

Business Intelligence is one of the fastest-growing sectors of the IT software market.
According to IDC -in 2006 the business analytics market is accounts for approximately $18.25 million in global revenue. Over the next five years it is forecast to grow another 10% a year. In the past, BI projects were given o IT departments which did not really understand the goals of the business units. Statistic show that this is not a successful formula for BI projects.

Betsy Burton, vice president and seasoned analyst at Gartner surveyed 350 organizations about their business intelligence projects. In the study she found that only 10% reported their projects had a C-level executive sponsor. Twenty-five percent said their projects were sponsored by an IT manager, and 25% did'nt have an executive sponsor.During this study she reported that 40% of those polled said their business intelligence projects were owned by lower-level business executives. Her conclusion was that IT lead BI projects have a tactical approach rather than a sound strategic business approach. This usually results in less desireable results-if not total failure. The one thing that was stated is that 65% of those Burton polled said they viewed business intelligence technology as too complex and unusable . Another 69% said they lacked the skills necessary to use it anyway.

The take away here is that BI projects are more effective strategically developed, managed and owned by senior level business executives that fully understand the requirments and use for the BI data.