Gartner Forecasts India Business Intelligence Market to Grow 16 Percent in 2011

Mumbai, India, April 6, 2011 - The market for business intelligence (BI) software in India is forecast to reach revenue of $65.4 million in 2011, up 15.7 percent over 2010, according to Gartner, Inc. Worldwide BI software market revenue is forecast to grow 9.7 percent to reach $10.8 billion in 2011.

BI ranked number five on the list of the top 10 technology priorities in 2011, according to Gartner's annual global CIO survey*.

“It's a sign of the strategic importance of BI that investment remains strong,” said Bhavish Sood, research director at Gartner. “This market segment has remained strong because the dominant vendors continued to put BI, analytics and performance management at the centre of their messaging, while end-user organisations largely continued their BI projects, hoping that resulting transparency and insight will enable them to cut costs and improve productivity and agility down the line.”

Gartner's view is that the market for BI platforms will remain one of the fastest growing software markets despite sluggish economic growth in most regions. Organisations continue to turn to BI as a vital tool for smarter, more agile and efficient business, and they increase the current usage scenario from just a information delivery mechanism

Decision making in India historically has been based on either "gut feelings" or on the business experience of managers. BI will allow enterprises to make more fact-based decisions. BI promotes revenue growth and faster innovation through shorter product and service life cycles and the ability to find where value is being created in the business.

Mr. Sood said the demand side of the BI platform market in 2010 was defined by an intensified struggle between business users' need for ease of use and flexibility on the one hand, and IT's need for standards and control on the other.

“With ‘ease of use’ now surpassing ‘functionality’ for the first time as the dominant BI platform buying criterion, vocal, demanding and influential business users are increasingly driving BI purchasing decisions, most often choosing easier to use data discovery tools over traditional BI platforms — with or without IT's consent,” said Mr. Sood.

Gartner has identified three major demand-side factors that continue to expand use and drive BI platform revenue growth:

1) Consumerisation of BI

BI tools must be simple, mobile and "fun" in order to expand use and value. Business users are demanding the same experience from their BI tools that they have come to enjoy with their personal tools. The need for more intuitive and interactive BI tools and applications extends to users on the go, but the vast majority of organizations have yet to embrace mobile BI. This is set to change very quickly with the proliferation of Apple's iPhone and iPad products.

2) Support for Extreme Data Performance; Emerging Data Sources

Capabilities that enable the analysis of large, volatile and diverse data will open up possibilities for a broad range of new, high-value BI applications and will be another driver of BI growth. This includes in-memory technology and social and content analytics. Combining these capabilities with support for extreme data volumes and consumer-oriented tools opens up possibilities for a broad range of new, high-value BI applications and will be another driver of growth.

3) BI as a Decision Platform

Gartner's user surveys show that "improved decision making" is the top driver of BI purchases. Capabilities that will evolve BI from an information delivery system to a decision platform will increase the value of BI and drive its growth.

Additional information about market trends and the leading vendors in the business intelligence market is available in the Gartner report Forecast: Enterprise Software Markets, Worldwide, 2008-2015, 1Q11 Update. The report is available on Gartner's website at http://www.gartner.com/resId=1589919.

-The worldwide CIO survey was conducted by Gartner Executive Programs from September to December 2010 and represents CIO budget plans reported at that time. The survey includes responses from 2,014 CIOs representing over $160 billion in corporate and public-sector IT spending across 50 countries and 38 industries.

About Gartner

Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT) is the world's leading information technology research and advisory company. Gartner delivers the technology-related insight necessary for its clients to make the right decisions, every day. From CIOs and senior IT leaders in corporations and government agencies, to business leaders in high-tech and telecom enterprises and professional services firms, to technology investors, Gartner is the valuable partner to 60,000 clients in 11,000 distinct organizations. Through the resources of Gartner Research, Gartner Executive Programs, Gartner Consulting and Gartner Events, Gartner works with every client to research, analyze and interpret the business of IT within the context of their individual role. Founded in 1979, Gartner is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, U.S.A., and has 4,400 associates, including 1,200 research analysts and consultants, and clients in 85 countries. For more information, visit www.gartner.com.