2009 BI Market Prediction #3: The Besieged CIO

This third prediction follows my last two blog posts, which described BI vendor consolidation and technology shifts as the first two predictions for 2009.

My premise for prediction number three is that the Besieged CIO will come under increasing strategy and cost pressure - and continue to look for capable, low cost alternatives wherever they might exist. I call him or her the besieged CIO because the pressure to continue doing more with less, in this top IT role, never ceases. The CEO is applying constant pressure to drive the company to innovate and create top-line growth. The CIO’s budget, however, isn’t growing proportionately and it is a constant challenge to maintain existing IT systems with what amounts to fewer funds so that more resources can be directed to new technology initiatives (to fuel the CEO’s agenda).

So, what’s a CIO to do? Answer: find capable, lower-cost alternatives in all technology categories. This is where I believe new development and delivery models will become even more popular, which benefits open source and software-as-a-service vendors because, in most cases, the up-front and on-going costs are just lower (especially in the case of open source). This phenomenon will continue to expand the high-growth space of virtualization as well as the latest hype area: cloud computing.

Supporting my prediction, very recent survey work by analyst firm Gartner proves that this will be a tough year for CIOs. Among other findings, Gartner’s research shows expected flat IT budgets, the need to restructure to meet the difficult economic conditions, and an on-going #1 technology priority placed on business intelligence. Gartner states that CIOs expect to “invest in business intelligence applications and information consolidation in order to raise enterprise visibility and transparency, particularly around sales and operational performance. These investments are expected to pay extra dividends by responding to new regulatory and financial reporting requirements.”

Lower cost and simpler-to-use BI solutions that enable widespread use of dashboards, interactive reports, and deeper analytics will be the tonic and salve that enable the besieged CIO to make it through these tough times. I’m proud to know that Jaspersoft will be doing its part by delivering the world’s best (and lowest cost) business intelligence products and services.

Brian Gentile
Chief Executive Officer
Jaspersoft