Searching for Intelligence
Broad dissemination of business intelligence tools and reporting has brought higher expectations for search. New users who are used to navigating the Web with ease have high standards that carry over to the workplace. Ventana Research's recent report on the integration of BI and search finds that while "BI tools are maturing in response to this broader demand, gaining ready access to business intelligence data is still problematic for many companies."
Fewer than one in three organizations have provisioned integrated BI and search technologies to users. Of those that have, two in three consider themselves mostly or partly successful; only one in 10 claim complete success.
Almost 90 percent of companies believe that unstructured and semi-structured data is somewhat or very important to decision-making. While the greatest benefit of search to BI processes is found in structured ad-hoc queries, analysis of textual data and finding unstructured data that adds qualitative context are the next-highest priorities.
Jim Ericson is editorial director of DM Review, a SourceMedia publication. You can reach him at Jim.Ericson@sourcemedia.com.
