While business intelligence (BI) is used by businesses as a way to become more efficient and provide managers with information to make more informed decisions, new research results have uncovered that US and UK businesses aren’t exactly meeting the goals that business intelligence systems promise.

According to a study by market research firm Dynamic Markets, BI systems are actually failing at their job of improving operational performance or impacting decision making for US and UK businesses—and the impact of this is huge in terms of lost revenue for an organization.

More specifically, the survey found that "Fortune 500 companies are losing approximately $250 million per year in missed business opportunities as a result of inadequate business intelligence."

The research, which included a survey commissioned by SeeWhy Software, has unearthed interesting insights into the apparent failure of BI systems.

Including 76 percent of IT executives responding that they were forced to decide on a solution before all the information they needed was available, 63 percent noting their belief that BI reports "end up being simply reference documents to justify decisions that have already been made, and more than 70 percent responding they don’t even receive reports that provide predictions about potential problems or provide potential opportunities.

 

The research also uncovered the fact that managers, who were very aware of the problems that exist with current BI solutions, also realize that increasing intelligence in daily operational processes can bring significant benefit to the business and for this reason, are increasingly looking to 'event intelligence' for real-time actions rather than retrospective 'business' intelligence.

Charles Nicholls, CEO and Founder of SeeWhy Software, commented on the surveys findings, "What is clear from this research is that all is not well in the world of BI. BI tools are perceived as hard to use, reports are out of date and largely irrelevant to daily operational decision making and BI is seen as inherently retrospective. Yet it is clear that managers strive for more, seeking information that can make a difference; that is relevant to operations now; that can give early warning of problems; or can present opportunities for the business."