How Big Is The BI Backlog?
by Paul Sonderegger
The unending requests for custom reports and new data is a problem. But how big? In a new survey of 226 BI decision-makers, Forrester Consulting takes its measure.
The trigger for this work was the TDWI World Conference in Las Vegas earlier this year where the BI backlog was a big topic on one of the customer panels. When asked, all five of the directors of BI on the panel said they had a backlog of requests. One said plaintively, “It’s not something to be proud of.” This seemed like a big and widespread problem, so we thought we’d commission some actual research on it.
There’s a lot of rich data in the report, but here’s just a taste. On average, knowledge workers fulfill 54% of their requests for data on their own, but have to ask data or BI analysts for help 46% of the time. That’s basically a 50/50 split. So how you feel about that simply depends on if you’re a glass-half-empty or glass-half-full kind of person. But then we asked how long it takes to get a response for the half that requires help from IT. On average, only 23% of those requests are fulfilled in hours. Almost 80% take days or longer to get an answer. If you need a drink from the empty half of the glass, you better not be too thirsty.
But it’s not all bad news. The research goes on to analyze how agile BI – a new approach using new technologies – helps the BI team respond more quickly with less effort to the huge variety of demand for custom perspectives on the data. This is not just about Endeca. Agile BI is more than just a technology and is a big theme in Forrester’s research overall. Check out the report.
Paul Sonderegger
on April 30, 2010 at 12:31 pm
Permalink
[...] report concludes there is “an extensive backlog of BI requests” that requires knowledge workers to continually look for alternatives for getting the [...]