Although it’s difficult to get a consensus growth figure, most analysts see business intelligence (BI) as a relative bright spot in the IT spending forecast, with a projected growth rate of between 2% and 10% (vs. the 9–12% projected in early 2008).
The least disruptive way to update business computing applications is through an incremental approach to application modernization, says evolveIT’s (www.evolveit.com) vice president of client technical resources, Dan Hogan. Headquartered in Tustin, California, evolveIT focuses on IBM i platform modernization and RF warehousing technology.
ERP, CRM, and other business systems have been around for 30+ years. Historically, these systems were implemented as large monolithic systems focused on running large portions of your business. Over the past decade, technology and industry standards had evolved that has finally made these technologies available to smaller less cash rich companies. But unfortunately, these systems have not lived up to their promise of automating business processes and entire businesses. All too often they have become too large and difficult to use, and thus have not returned the value that was promised. In addition, these systems provided little value within the space of unstructured ad-hoc information workers. The requirements of these information workers proved to be too unstructured, collaborative, and fluid to be met by the large monolithic business systems.
Effective product sourcing from emerging markets can be a complex undertaking. Long lead times and demand volatility can disrupt a company’s supply chain operations; customers are all too often unsympathetic to supply problems that result.