Some companies still use spreadsheets for business intelligence. Others have moved on to business intelligence applications with some form of dashboards. But most have yet to fully embrace the potential of visualization.
Does visualization matter to business intelligence? After all, isn’t the data the same, just the format different? Visualization is important to business intelligence – and will become a key driver of pervasive business intelligence. Why? Because of the demographics of today’s — and tomorrow’s — workforce.
According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 24 million workers will leave the workforce by 2014; a great many of these leaving will be baby boomers retiring. Those baby boomers – essentially the IT pioneers, worked through the IT evolution from green screens to spreadsheets to today’s business intelligence dashboards.
Younger workers – particularly those entering the workforce today and beyond – see technology in a completely different way. Today’s entry-level IT worker – or even business intelligence specialist – were born after Atari pioneered the video game market. In 2008, 37% of US consumers played video games, according to Forrester Research. How many of your business intelligence specialists – let alone your overall knowledge workers – have the visual dexterity of a gamer?
These workers – both those in the marketplace now and those entering it – will demand business and enterprise applications present information visually. Just as the workforce today looks at “younger” workers as those most social media savvy, the workforce will begin to see “younger” workers as more “visually” savvy.
Business intelligence applications must be the “pioneer” in driving visualization. The technology is there today, but the uses still tend to be siloed; either in the department of business intelligence specialists, or in vertical industries. If end user companies want to truly take advantage of the productivity gains of business intelligence, and/or transition more of its employees into knowledge workers, the companies must embrace visualization as a core technology for information.
OK, having visualization technology through business intelligence applications and other enterprise applications won’t mean work is as fun as playing Guitar Hero, it will certainly be better than having to find the “intelligence” in a spreadsheet.
Kelley Kassa
Spotfire Blogging Team
