Ten Top Business Intelligence Trends to Expect in 2016

Business intelligence continues to be one of the fastest-moving areas in the enterprise, and the techniques that organizations are using to drive adoption and get value from their data are multiplying. Those are among the conclusions of a new report from Tableau Software.

“Among these trends are an increasing appetite for more advanced analytics to answer deeper questions, and new approaches emerging for governance of self-service BI,” the firm noted.

As part of its report, Tableau also offered its predictions on the top trends in business intelligence for 2016. They are:

Governance and self-service analytics become best friends

“Organizations have learned that data governance, when done right, can help nurture a culture of analytics and meet the needs of the business. People are more likely to dig into their data when they have centralized, clean, and fast data sources, and when they know that someone (IT) is looking out for security and performance.”

Visual analytics becomes a common language

“As data usage grows, even more people will turn to data with both professional and personal questions. And employers will look for candidates who can think critically with data. Visual analytics will serve as the common language, empowering people to reach insights quickly, collaborate meaningfully, and build a community around data.”

The data product chain becomes democratized

“In 2016, people will seek empowerment across the data continuum, especially as more millennials enter the workforce. For business users to stay iterative, they must be able to shape certain data on the fly.”

Data integration gets exciting

“In 2016, we’ll see a lot of new players in the data integration space. With the rise of sophisticated tools and the addition of new data sources, companies will stop trying to gather every byte of data in the same place. Data explorers will connect to each data set where it lives and combine, blend, or join with more agile tools and methods.”

Advanced analytics is no longer just for analysts

“Non-analysts across the organization are becoming more sophisticated. They’ve come to expect more than a chart on top of their data. They want a deeper, more meaningful analytics experience.”

Cloud data and cloud analytics take off

In 2016, more people will transition to the cloud thanks, in part, to tools that help them consume web data. Early adopters are already learning from this data, and others are realizing they should. And more companies will use cloud analytics to analyze more data faster. They’ll come to rely on it just like any other critical enterprise system.”

The Analytics Center of Excellence (COE) becomes excellent

“Through enablement programs like online forums and one-on-one training, the centers empower even non-experts to incorporate data into their decision-making. Over time, these centers enable data to inform workflow across the entire organization.”

Mobile analytics stands on its own

“Mobile analytics has grown up and moved out. It’s no longer just an interface to legacy business intelligence products.”

People begin to dig into IoT data

“As the volume of IoT data grows, so does the potential for insights. Companies will look for tools that allow users to explore the data, then share their findings in a secure, governed, and interactive way.”

New technologies rise to fill the gaps

“There are a number of new technologies in the BI ecosystem. As these go to market, we’ll see gaps that need to be filled. There will be new companies to do just that. Hadoop accelerators, NoSQL data integration, IoT data integration, improved social media—each of these provide an opportunity for a new company to start up.”