In the last few years, Business Intelligence has progressed into a driving force for business development, and with the impacts of Covid-19 accelerating further progress, we are likely to see BI transform into an essential part of an enterprise.

Augmented Analytics

This year we are likely to see BI and AI collaborating to develop augmented analytics and augmented data systems. With augmentation, businesses will be capable of determining data types automatically and gathering information directly from the source. With AI and BI working together, jobs will be easier and quicker to complete. Users will be able to apply natural language techniques to ask questions and generate key insights in a matter of seconds. With the support of AI, industry experts believe we will see more users with less technical experience gaining more analytical insights by 2021.

Storytelling

Storytelling or Automated insights will enable support businesses further throughout 2021. Rather than spending time understanding insights which will impact their business, innovative storytelling will emphasise specific findings. The system will monitor changes and create a narrative that is easy for the user to understand and to detect key findings. Industry experts suggest that while storytelling will have a direct impact on businesses, it will need to be integrated in a manner that enables insights to be delivered from regular business tools. Enabling storytelling to be available in this format i.e. an email or a chat will be vital in driving the progression of storytelling BI.

Self-Service BI

Embedded and Self-Service BI are anticipated to grow considerably during 2021. Embedded analytics enables end users the potential to manipulate their data, allowing a business to produce advanced analytics, rather than just traditional static reports. The progression concerning the adoption of embedded BI has grown over the years and interactive filtering will become more commonplace in the future.

With embedded BI, users will be able to generate actionable insights and business applications with analytical tools will become more integrated. Self-service BI will provide businesses with AI solutions to automate search engine reporting, insights, unified analytics and more. It has become even more important for businesses to be able to connect to all data points and have a holistic view of their business insights.

Cloud and Mobile BI

With the pandemic and surge of remote working driving cloud adoption, the connected cloud will be a major influence on BI this year. Businesses will be seeking vendors that provide cloud-based BI and other vendors that offer self-managed cloud networks or private cloud servers. Mobile BI will likely become more prevalent in 2021, enabling access to insights to work alongside the ability to work from anywhere.

The demand for cloud and AI-enabled BI is anticipated to surge, as remote working continues to be the norm for many businesses this year. Regardless of the working conditions, the benefits of BI in supporting businesses remain ahead of the curve, to predict market changes and improve services will be hard to ignore. Senior leaders should focus on investing or enhancing their digital and market intelligence plans.