Is there (still) a future for Business Intelligence?

In the world of Big Data and Analytics, developments are moving at breakneck speed. Terms like 'machine learning' are the order of the day. Is there any room for old-school Business Intelligence (BI) within all that technological violence, or is it doomed to an existence on the margins? 

Self-service, doing things smarter and smarter

Due to the abundance of data that organizations are faced with today, we are seeing a growing hunger among 

professionals to relevant data. In addition to the classic BI user groups such as business analysts and IT professionals, a large group of (new) data users has emerged among our customers over the years.

A good example of this is data scientists who use the BI platform to process large amounts of data. Combined with different sources, this data is converted into useful information. Finally, everything is integrated with the BI system.

Not only is the number of users growing, but so is the amount of data sources.
This requires a robust BI platform that can handle these developments in a solid manner.
The most important aspect here is that all available data remains scalable and controllable for any user.

One of the trends that people talk about in the world of BI is self-service. It is an undeniable fact that employees have to be smarter with data and do not want to be dependent on a central IT or BI department.

On the other hand, we also see that too much self-service can quickly turn into unmanageable data chaos. Gartner indicates that only a limited number of self-service BI initiatives actually have good governance.

One of the main reasons for this is that managers like to keep the reporting strings in their own hands. However, they do not always know where the data they obtain comes from and how reliable it is.

Especially with the advent of Big Data as part of business intelligence, where data from outside the company's own walls is often included in the analyses, the risk of incorrect interpretations is great.

Self-service is fine, but only on a platform that is suitable for it. Manageable and clear.