One business sector weathering the current economic downturn is that of business intelligence. In fact, Hans Hultgren, director of the Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence program at Daniels College of Business, says that business intelligence is growing and will continue to do so.
"The industry has not been impacted as much by the recession," said Hultgren. Business intelligence, he predicts, will become a core IT component. "I think it's growing. The field itself is definitely growing."
In particular, Hultgren has noticed growth in operational business intelligence and a demand for audit-friendliness. Audits need to be able to support business intelligence. He also sees an increased demand for the integration of unstructured data.
"Maybe 80 percent of corporate data is in unstructured formats," Hultgren estimated. Although there is a long way to go in that area, he said companies are definitely looking at how to integrate unstructured data. Hultgren also sees growth in master data management initiatives and the appliances sector.
