Survey Finds Growing Importance for Embedded BI in Business Applications -- ADTmag

Survey Finds Growing Importance for Embedded BI in Business Applications

By Richard Seeley
December 18, 2018

Business Intelligence (BI) embedded as a feature in applications is growing in importance, according to the 2018 Edition Embedded Business Intelligence Market Study by Dresner Advisory Services, LLC, Nashua, N.H.

Dresner has been studying embedded BI for six years and 2018 was the first year that embedded BI was rated as "very important" among those surveyed. "Combined 'critical' and 'very important' scores also reach a new high in 2018," the survey noted.

BI tools and technologies include query and reporting, OLAP (online analytical processing), data mining and advanced analytics, end-user tools for ad hoc query and analysis, and dashboards for performance monitoring, according to Howard Dresner, chief research officer for the firm.

Regardless of industry BI can help in decision making from streamlining supply chains to predicting what products consumers will be looking for next year.

"Across six years of study, the overall importance of embedded BI steadily increased to an all-time high ... This puts embedded BI in the range of 'very important' for the first time," the survey states.

As part of Dresner's "Wisdom of Crowds Market Studies," the firm "constructed a survey instrument to collect data and used social media and crowdsourcing techniques to recruit participants." It also included Dresner's research community of more than 5,000 organizations along with the crowdsourcing and vendors' customers.

IT professionals and business analysts are increasingly being asked to include embedded BI in applications, according to the survey. "Internally developed applications are the most important applications targeted for embedded BI, followed by web portals," the report stated. "Central IT departments are the go-to top integration resource for embedded BI, followed by business analysts and departmental IT."

Among other trends and user preferences for embedded BI, the report found:

Adoption of embedded BI is strong at close to 50 percent.
North America reports the highest adoption rates.
Among BI architectures, organizations prefer lightweight integration in preferences for HTML/iframe and Web services/RESTful.
Industry support for embedded BI architecture is robust, increasing in 2018 to strongly or fully supporting user preferences.
Among embedded BI features, users most seek basic interaction capabilities and single sign-on.