WINDSOR, U.K., October 03, 2007 -- A study conducted by market research firm Dynamic Markets has today revealed that business intelligence systems are failing to improve operational performance or impact decision making within US and UK businesses. The research, based on interviews with 218 operational executives and front line management and conducted between November 2006 and August 2007, provides a snapshot of current use and satisfaction with Business intelligence systems and their impact on operational performance.

Although many organizations have adopted BI tools in quantity, buying thousands of user licenses, results of this research show that the majority fall short in meeting the expectations of their promise. For example, in many cases, IT executives find themselves forced into a position where they have to make decisions before all the information they need is available (76 percent), believe that BI reports end up being simply reference documents to justify decisions that have already been made (63 percent), and do not receive reports that provide predictions about potential problems or provide potential opportunities (more than 70 percent).

The impact of inadequate intelligence on the business is huge. The average cost - discovered by the research – in lost revenue to an organization is $478,686. In fact, one operations manager admitted to a direct $5,000,000 cost to his area of the business. By extrapolating this annual average as representative across the market, then the survey indicates that the Fortune 500 companies are losing approximately $250 million per year in missed business opportunities as a result of inadequate business intelligence.

Business intelligence was developed to help make businesses more efficient, and to give managers the information they needed to make smarter decisions. However, the research, commissioned by SeeWhy Software, has unearthed interesting insights into the apparent failure of BI systems. Charles Nicholls, CEO and Founder of SeeWhy Software, commented, “What is clear from this research is that all is not well in the world of BI. BI tools are perceived as hard to use, reports are out of date and largely irrelevant to daily operational decision making and BI is seen as inherently retrospective. Yet it is clear that managers strive for more, seeking information that can make a difference; that is relevant to operations now; that can give early warning of problems; or can present opportunities for the business.”

Although managers were very aware of the problems that exist with their current BI solutions, they were also aware of the potential benefits of moving to event driven approaches that provide real time operational ‘event intelligence’ rather than retrospective ‘business’ intelligence. Almost all managers surveyed (90%) believed that there would be significant benefits to the business if they could embed greater intelligence into daily operational processes. Benefits mentioned included:

• 72% believed that their company would employ more efficient processes.

• 71% felt that there would be an improvement in customer service.

• 65% thought that there would be an increase in revenues and 65% saw an increase in profitability.

• 59% believed there will be lower levels of risk to the business.

• 57% felt it would make them more competitive.

• 52% said that it would enable better compliance with regulations.

Alerting technologies disappoint

The survey also examined use of alerting technologies in daily business operations, and these too are failing to deliver what is required in the majority of cases: 55% of all managers stated that their current operational alerts arrive after the event, are not specific enough, or are not delivered in an operational context. This means that the alerts cannot be acted upon to improve business performance.

Nicholls commented, “This research has highlighted the need for a new, better and more business focused way to aid decision making. SeeWhy gives customers an easy way to inject intelligence into their business processes and to gain a competitive edge from doing so. Building in-memory analytics into business processes produces dramatic results.”

A surprising result from the research was the difference between the US and the UK. The survey found that more UK managers compared to US managers receive reports to help them run their respective parts of the business. UK managers also receive a greater variety of reports that can be used in an operational context for daily tactical decision making:

• 68% of UK operations managers receive snapshot reports with only 44% of their US colleagues doing so.

• 62% of UK managers receive reports alerting them to problems that have already occurred compared to only 44% in the US.

Notes to Editors:

A full research report is available on www.seewhy.com/bisurvey.

About the survey

The survey was conducted between November 2006 and August 2007 in the US and the UK. The total sample size was 218 interviews, using both quantitative and qualitative surveys. Where any differences exist that are significant at a 95% confidence level, they are described accordingly in this report.

Margin of error at a 95% confidence level: The following statistical confidence at a 95% level has been used when analyzing the data.

Sample size     50     100     200     300     400     500     1000   
5% or 95%   ±6.2   ±4.4   ±3.1   ±2.5   ±2.2   ±1.9   ±1.4   
10% or 90%   ±8.5   ±6.0   ±4.2   ±3.5   ±3.0   ±2.7   ±1.9   
25% or 75%   ±12.5   ±8.7   ±6.1   ±5.0   ±4.3   ±3.9   ±2.7   
50  %   ±14.1   ±10   ±7.1   ±5.8   ±5.0   ±4.5   ±3.2   

About Dynamic Markets

Dynamic Markets is an independent market research consultancy that has been carrying out national and global research for blue chip clients like Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco, Vodafone, Egg, M&S and many others for the past 8 years. It operates to a strict code of conduct, as defined by the Market Research Society (MRS).

About SeeWhy Software

SeeWhy is the first Event Intelligence platform. By continuously analyzing every business event and initiating automated corrective actions, SeeWhy enables the business to become proactive to increase sales, reduce costs and avert risks. SeeWhy combines the power of Event Stream Processing technology with the ease of use of desktop applications, so that business operations teams can build and deploy powerful closed loop Event Intelligence applications for the first time. SeeWhy is one of the top private European software companies, as a Red Herring 100 Europe, named Global Innovator by Guidewire Group and highlighted as a cool company by Gartner. SeeWhy Software was incorporated in 2003 and has offices in the U.S. and U.K. More information can be found at http://www.seewhy.com/.

Terminology

BI – Business Intelligence; BPM – Business Process Management; SOA – Service Oriented Architecture; ESP – Event Stream Processing; Closed loop

BI – Analytics are embedded into a business process and drive automatic actions based on the analysis. Event Based Marketing – using unique customer behaviors to trigger personalized campaigns or offers.

SeeWhy, SeeWhy Software, the SeeWhy Globe and Instant Insight are trademarks or registered trademarks of SeeWhy Software Limited. Other product or service names mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners.