SURVEY REVEALS THAT INFRASTRUCTURE HEADACHES CANCEL OUT POTENTIAL BENEFIT OF REAL-TIME BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

Companies are missing out on the significant benefits that stem from the ability to make quick decisions based on real-time business information because of associated infrastructure cost and complexity, according to a survey conducted by Appfluent Technology, provider of infrastructure software to enable real-time business intelligence.

APPFLUENT TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH NOTE

SURVEY REVEALS THAT INFRASTRUCTURE HEADACHES CANCEL OUT POTENTIAL BENEFIT OF REAL-TIME BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

Companies are missing out on the significant benefits that stem from the ability to make quick decisions based on real-time business information because of associated infrastructure cost and complexity, according to a survey conducted by Appfluent Technology, provider of infrastructure software to enable real-time business intelligence.

The survey was carried out in December 2002 via an online questionnaire completed by 210 U.S.-based companies of all sizes and across industry sectors. More than half of the respondents were from large or very large organizations. Participants held jobs in either business or IT management. Forty percent of respondents were responsible for managing or administering business intelligence (BI) applications in their organizations, while another 40 percent were business users of those applications. The survey's key findings include:

·   Almost two-thirds of respondents listed infrastructure management and maintenance as major pains" in deploying business intelligence systems. And another 60 percent named data freshness and quality as significant headaches. (Participants could choose more than one answer.)
·   Three quarters of respondents indicated that their company would benefit from the ability to make quick decisions based on access to real-time information. Of that group, almost 40 percent indicated that benefit would be significant".
·   One in five organizations need BI data fresh up-to-the-minute, one in 10 need it hourly and 35 percent need fresh data daily.
·   More than half of respondents are likely to implement an intelligent operational data store (ODS) solution to enable real-time business intelligence in their organizations, as a way to reduce the cost and complexity of managing multiple data sources for BI reports and analytics.

"Our survey showed that companies are recognizing the real business benefits of being able to access timely information needed to make sound decisions, but infrastructure headaches are holding them back from wide scale deployments of real-time business intelligence systems," said Frank Gelbart, president and CEO of Appfluent Technology. "But, we address these worries about cost and complexity by dramatically simplifying the infrastructure for timely business intelligence. Appfluent breaks through the information bottleneck."

Establishing an infrastructure that is adequate for real-time reporting, traditionally an ODS, is too costly and complex for most companies. Appfluent Technology's flagship product, the Appfluent Accelerator, gives companies a cost-effective, dedicated infrastructure for business intelligence reporting.

The Accelerator offloads reporting traffic from production systems to give users access to real-time data without any impact on performance of the system. It uses artificial intelligence and automation to reduce system cost and complexity, and at the same time, it improves both the user experience and the productivity of business users.

Appfluent Technology conducts monthly surveys to keep a finger on the pulse of enterprise application trends and issues. To see summaries of past research visit www.appfluent.com
Contact Sherrilynne Starkie, PR Director, 703 284 0835, sstarkie@appfluent.com for more info.

January 14, 2003.