Dan covered the big changes in BI, and how moving to the cloud can help.\u00a0Traditional business intelligence has been plagued with inflexibility, with only 45% of respondents to an IDC survey saying\u00a0IT\u00a0response times for their analytics\u00a0requests met their expectations.<\/p>\n
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- 50% cite having data from all relevant internal sources<\/li>\n
- 30% cite having an enterprise wide analytics strategy<\/li>\n
- 38% executives emphasize data driven culture, and mandates and incentives the use of data, analytics<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Moving analytics to the cloud makes it easier and faster to respond to changing needs, which helps explain why cloud analytics\u00a0is expected to grow five times\u00a0faster than on-premise, reaching 25% of the total by 2020.<\/p>\n
![\"cloud-analytics-growth-trend\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/cloud-analytics-growth-trend.jpg?resize=608%2C349&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p>\nI was particularly interested in the audience survey responses. Just 12.5% had already implemented cloud analytics, but another 50% were in various phases of evaluation or project deployment:<\/p>\n
![\"cloud-analytics-phase\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/cloud-analytics-phase.jpg?resize=608%2C313&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe biggest expected benefit of cloud deployment was indeed more agility for the business, although cost savings was also clearly an objective:<\/p>\n
![\"value-from-cloud-investments\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/value-from-cloud-investments.jpg?resize=608%2C309&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p>\nBut what was surprising was what was preventing faster adoption of cloud analytics. Data security and privacy\u00a0issues continue to be a concern, but the number one reason cited was “cultural issues”, by 59% of the respondents:<\/p>\n
![\"barriers-to-cloud-responses\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/barriers-to-cloud-responses.jpg?resize=608%2C233&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p>\nIn a post last year, Who’s Afraid of Cloud Analytics<\/a>, I discussed some of the reticence I had seen from the companies I was working with. Several of these came firmly under the notion of cultural issues, including the worry\u00a0of some IT organizations of “disruption” to their own jobs<\/a>. \u00a0I personally view it as a very positive step if we’re now beyond most of the technical arguments and can instead talk about the cultural and change management aspects of moving to the cloud.<\/p>\n
I was also surprised by the relatively low score for “data gravity issues.” Up until now, companies have typically only turned to\u00a0cloud BI solutions when their\u00a0data is already in the cloud, from cloud-based operational applications such as\u00a0SuccessFactors, Concur, or Ariba.<\/p>\n
![\"data-gravity-wanted-to-put-this-in-the-cloud\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/data-gravity-wanted-to-put-this-in-the-cloud-1.jpg?resize=350%2C246&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p>\nIt’s often assumed that this is because of the need to move\u00a0large amounts of data from on-premise applications to the cloud just to do analytics. I’ve countered this in the past by pointing out that IDC research shows that almost\u00a0half the data that business people use is from non-central-IT systems. And that newer in-memory cloud analytics platforms make it easier to flow data directly from transactional systems\u00a0in real-time.<\/p>\n
But the audience survey implies that\u00a0data movement is no longer perceived\u00a0as a big problem. So why is it only companies with cloud apps that deploy cloud BI? Perhaps because they\u00a0have already passed over the cultural hurdles that are blocking others.<\/p>\n
The second half of the webinar was devoted to a demonstration of SAP BusinessObjects Cloud for BI<\/a>, by Ty Miller<\/a>. He showed off the clean new interface:<\/p>\n
![\"businessobjects-modern-interface\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/businessobjects-modern-interface.jpg?resize=608%2C336&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p>\nAnd showed the\u00a0seamless integration of analytics functionality that is\u00a0not easily available in traditional on-premise BI deployments, such as\u00a0geospatial calculations:
![\"businessobjects-cloud-flight-mapping\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/businessobjects-cloud-flight-mapping.jpg?resize=608%2C337&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p>\nBusinessObjects cloud includes fully-integrated predictive analytics at a click of a button. For example, users can easily determine\u00a0the key influencers on any important indicator — behind the scenes, SAP’s powerful automated predictive algorithms<\/a> ensure that users aren’t let astray by badly sampled data or poor choice of algorithm.<\/p>\n
![\"businessobjects-what-influences-budget-consumed\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/businessobjects-what-influences-budget-consumed.jpg?resize=608%2C336&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p>\nFinally, Ty showed how insights with SAP BusinessObjects cloud can lead directly to actions, through the integrated planning and budgeting functionality:
![\"businessobjects-cloud-predictive-forecast\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/businessobjects-cloud-predictive-forecast.jpg?resize=608%2C341&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
![\"idc-white-paper-on-cloud-analytics\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/idc-white-paper-on-cloud-analytics.jpg?resize=200%2C238&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p>\n