MicroStrategy hosted a Business Intelligence (BI) Forum this morning, 18 October 2011 at the Radisson Blu Gautrain Hotel, Johannesburg, South Africa.
MicroStartegy, founded in 1989 is a NASDAQ listed global provider of Business Intelligence (BI) software. In 2010, MicroStrategy’s revenue exceeded US $454 million.
Mark Bannerman, MicroStrategy South Africa Country Manager says 2011 has been the beginning of a transformational era.
“The future of BI is very exciting. The stock exchange price on NASDAQ is up by 60% in just 9 months. This shows the level of appetite consumers have for technology,” says Bannerman.
What does MicroStrategy do?
We make sense and knowledge out of the information and data that companies have residing within their premises.
At the moment we are South African based. Over the next year we will drive northwards into the hubs of West Africa and East Africa, as well as into the Middle East.
Companies will find enhanced presence in the African continent in the next 18 months.
What is MicroStrategy’s definition of BI ?
BI allows an individual to make sense and understand their organisation or their company by simplifying data and information.
It takes out the complexity and allows you to see a snapshot from a high level as to the performance of the organisation.
BI allows you to understand where you need to focus your efforts, to remedy potential issues as well as to maximise the investment and to make the most benefit out of that. It is all done by understanding data, the transactions and the operations of a business.
BI Global Trends
Over the last couple of years, the trends have shifted from management dashboards. We are seeing a key move towards mobile technology. Today a tablet has become a business tool.
Bannerman says tablets and smartphones are BI enablers, as one no longer needs to be desktop bound in order to answer critical business questions in real time.
“Tablets and smartphones shorten the decision cycles and business processes,” he says.
Bannerman highlighted that another key trend is the massive growth in social media.
“Social media has engaged more people globally than any other form of IT before it,” says Bannerman.
“The final trend is cloud computing. Historically organisations were limited and had to have all their hardware and infrastructure onsite at their local operation. This made it difficult to expand at a particular time.
“With cloud computing, the company’s solution is looked after by experts on the field.”
“With BI you don’t need to have all the components that were previously onsite there anymore, some of them can now be hosted at a remote location, like a cloud platform,” concludes Bannerman.
Bontle Moeng – ITNewsAfrica Online Editor
