MicroStrategy, one of the largest public Business Intelligence (BI) vendors has partnered with AccTech Systems, a software specialist firm, to provide new BI analysis and profitability reporting dashboard, Visual Insight for the small medium enterprises (SMEs) sector.
Visual Insight allows SMEs to explore and understand data without any information technology (IT) assistance. SMEs can analyse, report and forecast their entire business data.
“It’s important to have visibility for your business,” said Mark Bannermann, MicroStrategy Country Manager for Sub-Saharan Africa.
Bannermann was speaking today, 13 March 2012 during MicroStrategy's official AccTechSystem's partnership launch at the Melrose Arch Hotel, Johannesburg.
Bannerman highlighted numerous challenges that traditional companies face, using the recent Kodak business collapse as an example.
“Traditional companies haven’t had the opportunity to change. Kodak failed due to a lack of insight into their business and the inability to change and adopt new technologies.”
He says the current global economy is in tatters and that most companies are battling to come out of the economic recession.
“If you know what the customer wants you can get the visibility for your business,” he advises.
Accoridng to MicroStrategy, the new tool can provide access for SMEs to the same analytics and reporting tool used by major corporate companies at a competitive price.
What makes the BI architecture different?
According to Brent Aitken, MicroStrategy Alliance and Channel Manager, users can flawlessly navigate all 5 styles of BI as needed including scorecards and dasboard reporting, Alerting and proactive notification, Advanced and Ad hoc analysis and OLAP analysis.
“The strength of the platform comes from its architecture,” emphasised Aitken.
Four major BI trends
Aitken discussed four major trends within the company’s BI marketplace including big data, social, cloud and mobile.
“Currently more sophisticated systems are required to manage larger and more complex big data,” stressed Aitken.
Aitken indicated that in 1990, the largest BI database was 200GB. In 2011 children can upload 200GB videos everyday.
Another key trend is mobile, in my mind it’s the most exciting thing, says Aitken.
“The mobile application platform delivers all 3 core capabilities including intelligence, transactions and multi-media. There are no coding or technical skills required.”
Cloud statistics
According to the latest IDC report, cloud services are growing 6 times faster than the total IT spending. By 2014, 31% of net new IT spending will be invested in the public cloud. By 2014, the total market for public cloud services will be $56 billion, up from about $17 billion in 2009.
“Cloud demand is high and growing fast,” predicted Aitken.
Game Changer
Marc Gower, AccTech Systems Divisional Director for Sales and Marketing says 2012 is potentially going to be the most transforming time in IT.
“The impact of mobile, social, cloud on the world economy could be 50%,” says Gower.
According to the October 2011 Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers Internet trends, in 2007, the world population was about 6.6 billion with nearly half of the population having no access to a mobile phone.
In 2015 the population will be about 7.2 billion with only about 100 million with no smartphone. About 4.6 billion people will have a smartphone.
“The mobile phone is becoming intrinsic to the way we do business,” says Gower.
Personal Computers (PCs) are becoming the second computer. In the fourth quarter of 2012, mobile computers began out-shipping PCs.
“About 50% of all printed documents today are being delivered on mobile devices. This will have a major impact on the way we do transactions.
“Betting on mobile is a good bet,” says Gower.
Gower concluded his presentation by highlighting that cloud services would be a dominant consideration for businesses.
“Organisations are becoming more innovative and need to move faster. They will adopt cloud services,” concludes Gower.
Bontle Moeng – SME South Africa Online Editor
