* Per Clayton Montarroyos
As a professional who has been working for a few decades in the Brazilian Analytics and Business Intelligence (BI) market, I have been following the growing interest of companies in Brazil for software and platforms in the segment.
This growth has been confirmed by data, such as the Brazilian Software Market Study – Panorama and Trends 2020, produced by ABES (Brazilian Association of Software Companies) in partnership with IDC, which pointed out that BI and Analytics platforms and applications moved US$ 1.196 billion in 2019, with a growth rate of 20.3% over the previous year.
The pandemic raised doubts, however. We needed to know if companies would maintain their investment in digital technologies and how they would allocate these resources, given the uncertainties and impacts on business, which varied according to the economic sector.
In the balance of 2020, there is a consensus that the new coronavirus pandemic has promoted an acceleration of the digital transformation, either to keep the company running or to obtain more competitive advantage over competitors.
The disclosure of the results of the 32nd Edition of the Annual IT Use Survey, conducted by FGVcia, which involved a significant sample of 2,636 medium and large companies, provided a current picture and trends in this situation, very favorable for BI in light of the digital transformation accelerated by the pandemic.
According to the results released by FGV, the main IT projects in the companies are focused on Analytical Intelligence (Analytics), understood as BI, BA and CRM projects, and on the “new” ERP (Migration, Implementation and Integration).
I believe this result confirms that Brazilian companies are investing in data-based digital transformation, which is very promising and relevant. The upward trend in BI investments that was identified in previous years is continuing.
Business intelligence aims to support business decision making, from systems that support decisions with the use of technologies, processes and applications that mainly analyze internal and structured data and business processes, while competitive intelligence gathers , analyzes and disseminates information with a focus on the company's competitors, in a broad view of business intelligence. BI technologies provide historical, current and predictive views of the operations and market in which the company operates.
A piece of advice for companies that have just started in the world of BI and even for those that are pioneering this world for a longer time is: it is not enough just to invest in tools or platforms. Before and during implementation, it is very important to review the available data to assess the quality of the data and whether data collection and storage is being performed correctly. You need to know if the data is of sufficient quality, as any BI implementation will fail if the foundation is bad. Digital marketing generate data. Internet of things generate data. Artificial Intelligence needs good data.
Invest in technologies, but also invest in training your team, invest in Data Literacy, so that your employees understand, analyze and use data with confidence, resourcefulness and producing valuable insights for the business.
*Clayton Montarroyos, CEO of IN – Business Intelligence, awarded Master Reseller of Qlik in Brazil
Notice: The opinion presented in this article is the responsibility of its author and not of ABES - Brazilian Association of Software Companies
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