Tech Companies See 41% Increase in Demand for Business Intelligence

Shifts in the tech landscape in 2020 are driving increased revenue, the adoption of business intelligence and data-driven decision making in 2021, according to "Trends in Software Development and Analytics 2021". This is the second annual survey from Reveal, the embedded analytics platform from software maker Infragistics.

Reveal surveyed 124 software developers and IT leaders over the two-month period, beginning in November 2020. The survey investigated the health of the software industry, as well as emerging trends in technology adoption and the growing role of data analytics in fueling business intelligence.

Notably, companies in the software space approached challenges in 2020 as opportunities to explore new technologies, invest in digital transformation and redefine their market offerings. Thirty eight percent (38%) of respondents, for instance, saw increased revenue. And of those, more than a third saw a revenue increase of more than 30%.

But while many took advantage of opportunities, 50% reported having to make do with less in 2020. Of those, 23% saw projects canceled or postponed, with some respondents indicating lost funding (14%) and staff reductions (14%).

Other highlights from the research includes:

● Business Intelligence is becoming a mainstream offering. More than a third of respondents (39%) said they increased their investment in data analytics tools and technology, and 41% saw an increase in customer requests for access to data and analytics.

● Companies look to achieve continuous intelligence by using embedded analytics to fuel data-driven decision making. Embedded analytics are already in use by a third of respondents. Respondents cited the ability to gain a competitive advantage (33%) as the top motivation for embedding analytics, while 23% selected “data-driven decision making” as a key motivator.

● Developers’ plans to implement machine learning more than doubles, compared to last year’s survey. Sixteen percent of respondents indicated plans to implement machine learning in the near future, a strong increase over the 6% of respondents who are currently embedding it. Respondents also indicated plans to embed these advanced technologies: predictive analytics (14%), edge analytics (10%) and natural learning (7%).

● Nearly a fifth of tech companies (18%) plan to expand into new markets as part of their 2021 growth strategy. Almost a quarter (22%) of respondents reported that they expect to take on new projects. Seventeen percent plan to adopt new applications/technologies and 11% anticipate hiring additional staff.

“While 2020 was a difficult year for many businesses, including the transition to remote work, lockdowns and budget freezes, we have seen rapid software innovation and acceleration of digital transformation as a result of the pandemic,” said Jason Beres, SVP of Developer Tools at Infragistics. “This allowed many technology companies to thrive in 2020 and we expect an even better 2021 as the need for new applications burgeons.”

“We’ve seen major breakthroughs -- not only in the way data is collected but also in the software used to analyze it,” said Casey McGuigan, Product Manager at Reveal. “And those advancements validate a growing trend toward continuous intelligence to gain insights that will shape the ways we solve business problems in the future.”

To download the Reveal 2021 survey report, click here.

About Reveal
Reveal is an embedded business intelligence platform that makes it easy for end users to interpret, visualize, and share relevant insights from an organization’s data. Launched in 2019 by software maker Infragistics, Reveal reimagines what business users can achieve with self-service business intelligence visualization, enabling developers to build beautiful visualizations into their apps and connect anywhere at any time from the cloud, desktop, or on mobile devices using Reveal’s native iOS, Android, desktop and web SDKs.

About Infragistics
Infragistics provides the world’s largest enterprises with tools and solutions to accelerate application design and development, and foster team collaboration. More than two million developers worldwide use Infragistics’ enterprise-ready UX and UI toolkits to rapidly prototype and build high-performing applications for the cloud, web, mobile and desktop. Infragistics’ Reveal reimagines what business users can achieve with self-service business intelligence visualization, while its newest application, Indigo.Design, introduces design-to-code efficiencies during the designer-to-developer handoff. Infragistics clients represent 100% of the S&P 500, including global software providers who rely on Infragistics when reliability and performance are non-negotiable.