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Forrester BI Maturity Survey Results Are In

Posted by Boris Evelson on December 4, 2009

Boris Evelson By Boris Evelson

Our latest BI maturity survey results are in. We used exactly the same questions from our online BI maturity self assessment tool to survey over 200 Forrester clients. Now you can compare your own BI maturity level against your peers by using data from the survey.

In the self assessment tool and in the survey we ask over 30 questions in the following 6 categories

  • Governance
  • Organization
  • Processes
  • Data and technology
  • Measurement
  • Innovation

Our clients rated themselves on the scale of 1 to 5 (5, if they strongly agree with our statement or 1, if they strongly disagree). Here are the overall results. Keep in mind that these results do not evaluate BI maturity accross ALL business, but rather in businesses that are already pretty far ahead in their BI implementations (they are Forrester clients, they read our research reports, they talk to our research analysts):

  • Governance 3.00
  • Organization 2.74
  • Processes 2.47
  • Data and technology 2.73
  • Measurement 2.11
  • Innovation 2.00

Given our weighting of each category the overall maturity average works out to 2.60.

What are some of our conclusions?

  • The good news
    • Slowly but surely, organizations recognize that executive mandate and business ownership are critical to BI success 
    • Modern, scalable BI technologies are catching up with business requirements 
    • More businesses centralize their BI environments under the auspices of BI solutions centers, or competency centers
  • But that's where the good news stop
    • Many organizations are still not investing enough in BI 
    • Even with increased centralization efforts underway, BI data is still implemented in silos 
    • “Pervasive” BI still has a long way to go 
    • BI training, talent, and skills acquisition and retention leave much room for improvement 
    • Supporting processes represent BI’s weakest links today 
    • BI technology standards and best practice architectures to support all BI use cases leave plenty of room for improvement 
    • Few organizations implement metrics and measures necessary for “BI on BI” or course corrections 

Who ever said the BI market is reaching maturity? Still a long road ahead.

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Comments

re: Forrester BI Maturity Survey Results Are In

Comment from Mark Lorion on Tue, 12/08/2009 - 10:03

Boris, interesting observations! Do you think BI with BPM (business process management) can become an engine to drive more pervasive deployments of BI and to address the weak link you mention around “supporting processes”? With this approach BI can bring action to BPM and BPM bring intelligence to BI. You can’t get that advantage with BPM or BI alone.

re: Forrester BI Maturity Survey Results Are In

Comment from Boris Evelson on Tue, 12/08/2009 - 11:21

Mark, you're absolutely correct. BI embedded into and tightly integrated into processes is one of the ways to make BI more pervasive.