The Future of Business Intelligence!

Business analysts are forecasting that Business Intelligence will develop into a main function which will aid the accomplishment of many organizations. But my question is: Isn’t BI already a main function in the accomplishment of an organization? All the major companies are already using Business Intelligence and more and more medium and small size companies are starting to implement its processes every day. This is happening because more and more business managers are realising that Business intelligence and its tools are imperative for increasing productivity and the quality of work and with that, the profit will grow as well. These companies are beginning to see the rewards of spatial information analysis and reporting through BI Tools. All these lead to smarter, more efficient decision-making. Using data warehouses, companies can store a huge amount of information about their clients. Using the data from the DW, taking it through several analysis applications and then through a reporting software, companies can get precious information that would improve the decision making process and the odds of success. These information can include attaining customers, refining the company’s operations, handling income more efficiently, minimizing hazards, predicting prospective problems and maximizing the profit.
Due to a continuous altering of the customer's lifestyle, companies nowadays need to track their customers’ daily activities and needs. We can take as an example the development of the location’s intelligence - which is a great decisional factor in customer targeting. Technical innovations also became a serious issue on any company’s agenda.
Companies these days use BI tools to collect, organize and analyze data about customers or future consumers via all sorts of smartphone and tablet applications. Customers are using their phones for search queries more often nowadays. These queries are stored in databases where all this valuable data can then be analyzed and transformed into useful information which companies can use in their predictions. In addition, marketing and advertising methods have been developed in order to attain an edge in targeted markets. This has triggered a decline in marketing cost, which in return has produced more effective and productive marketing methods.
As a result, an international market has been created, with no geographical boundaries. By the year 2015, it is estimated that one billion men and women will access social media communities, and most of them will use an area based software. Marketers have always put great value on the ability of talking straight to their clients, focusing on the customer’s needs and demands. This strategy has provided a competitive edge by detecting the clients’ expectations and predicting potential trends. Therefore, they were able to implement even more powerful business techniques, which provided superior opportunities to reach financial accomplishment. Also, the companies are now able to anticipate potential issues before taking place. 
  There are elements of majority of people’s life, like social, cloud and cellular computing which will allow companies to control this technology. These techniques and tools can be used to attain prospective clients. Incorporating promotional offers, advertising, playing the consumer loyalty card, assessing the level of purchase into applications is a great way to benefit from the customers’ love for technology. These techniques, combined with the use of real time BI tools to attain instant reports about the customer’s needs and expectations, might be essential to achieve success in today’s dynamic business environment.
Social computing allows a better insight over the customers’ needs and trends through a close exchange of informations. For example: a customer encountered a problem with his computer. Typically, he logs on the social network of a popular computer parts supplier and writes his problem down. The company will help him solve his problem, but in the same time it will be able to recognize the customers’ purchase pattern and also make him an offer for the spare parts that he might need.
Cloud computing. There are lots of things that can be said about cloud computing, but there are two main ways in which a company can use this tool. The first of its uses it’s all about the needs of the consumer - it provides a way of identifying the customers’ trends. The second common use it’s about the company’s ability to access applications and storage space remotely through a Internet connection. Companies can use it for data storage and they could access it from anywhere in the world. This way they can analyze and use the resulted informations in real time, without being confined to the company’s headquarters, where the main server is. They could implement reporting software applications and reports and send them in all kinds of formats.
Cellular computing (or mobile computing, as it’s called today) grants a company the ability to analyze a client's needs and demands. People nowadays use smartphones and tablets on a daily basis. Analyzing their queries, companies can identify the trends and implement the best possible marketing techniques.

In the end, businesses who can’t keep up with this burst of technology innovations will be at a severe disadvantage. As for Business Intelligence, its processes and tools are advancing every day. And this technology and tools have become crucial for any company which is planning to turn out a profit. As I already said, big business and enterprises already use BI and the small and medium sized ones will have to adapt as well.