BI 2.0

BI 2.0, also known as Business Intelligence 2.0, is a phrase gaining more wide-spread use among the information technology (IT) and business communities that refers to the next generation of business intelligence systems.

As with Web 2.0— a second generation of Internet-based services such as social networking sites, wikis and blogs— BI 2.0 shifts the creation and control of BI content such as reports, queries, and structured information analysis, from the network managers (IT) to the network users (business people) while leveraging the prior generation’s information management advancements.

Current first generation business intelligence approaches have helped to effectively establish valuable data management policies and infrastructures, such as data warehousing, but they have been criticized by business end-users as being too IT department-driven and too constraining for responding to unforeseen questions that arise in the course of daily business. With their accomplishments in controlling data access and optimizing and standardizing corporate reporting, first generation business intelligence systems have now paved the way for the next generation of BI technology.

BI 2.0 signifies a considerable shift to “people-centric” business intelligence that will emphasize unprecedented user control, interactivity and flexibility. This next generation of business intelligence will deliver to business users the ability to access data flexibly, beyond what has been preconfigured by the IT organization, and creatively interact with data to ask and answer their own questions - questions that were not preconfigured in standardized corporate business intelligence reports. Ultimately, this will enable users themselves to be able to configure their own specific analysis workflows and easily interact with data.

Enabling the evolution to BI 2.0 are technology advancements such as service oriented architectures, interactive visualization, in-memory reporting and analysis architectures and simplified workflow development tools.

Like the term Web 2.0, BI 2.0 will likely be somewhat controversial as a buzzword. However, its current increasing usage in the business community and availability of emerging technologies suggests that a shift to user-driven business intelligence is well underway, despite what formal title is eventually accepted.

Internal Links

Business Intelligence<br />
Business Analytics<br />
Web 2.0<br />
Scientific Visualization<br />

External Links

BI 2.0 article in DM Review<br />
Gartner BI Coverage<br />
Discussion of BI 2.0 in CIO Magazine<br />
BI 2.0?<br />
Dashboard: Web 2.0's Effect on Business Intelligence<br />
BI and CPM markets to get cozy in 2007<br />