Northwood Advisors' Myron Weber Forecasts "Business Intelligence Trends for 2013 and Beyond"

IRVINE, CA--(Marketwired - Jun 12, 2013) - As founder of Northwood Advisors, a business intelligence consulting and training company, and the voice of "The Real Time Decisions Webcast," Myron Weber leverages more than 20 years of diverse business experience and insights to develop, support and implement clients' business intelligence strategies. In a recent blog post and podcast, Weber reveals the four most important business intelligence trends to watch for in 2013.

"At an organizational level, understanding these trends can set a reasonable and valuable direction for your BI and related investment planning for a positive impact both now and in the future," says Weber. "Awareness of these trends can help prevent you from committing too narrowly to a single path at the exclusion of other opportunities that may be a better fit."

Weber describes the four key BI trends in 2013:

• The maturing of broad BI platforms. Today's BI platforms can meet most companies' needs most of the time. This is a significant step forward that extends BI's benefits to those organizations that have been excluded up until this point. With the right expertise, nearly every company can now find a BI solution that fits. Depending on the scale and complexity of a company's BI needs, these platforms can range from the top-tier enterprise BI suites to targeted mid-tier BI solutions to cloud-based SAAS BI offerings.
  
  
• Niche tools will fill the gaps. Analysts are benefiting from powerful, best-in-breed niche tools across a variety of functions. These tools are becoming increasingly sophisticated because more organizations are recognizing the areas that go unaddressed with broader platforms. Some of the common niches filled by these tools include analysis and predictive modeling tools in the hands of select power users, data-visualization and presentation tools that blend enterprise data with other internal or external data sets, and data-discovery tools that extend outside the domain of the enterprise data warehouse.
  
  
• Mobile BI makes its mark. Mobile BI is putting usable content in users' hands in the places it's most needed. Previous iterations were limited in their functionality, but mobile BI is now a reality, and it's here to stay. In many cases, mobile BI is enabled by the improved mobile browsers that allow users to access web-delivered BI content from their mobile devices. In other cases, BI vendors offer mobile apps that enhance usability beyond the browser experience or even purpose-built mobile devices for industry-specific solutions.
  
  
• Big data is pushing the envelope. Despite the confusing hype, the need is real and there is a growing array of tools to solve the problem. It's important to bypass the hype and cut through to the legitimacy of big data. Big data technologies fall into three main categories: improved scalability of SQL database platforms to manage big data, appliance-based proprietary database platforms, and Hadoop-style data stores relying on key-value pair mappings. Each has its pros and cons, and there is no one-size-fits-all solution.
  
  

Keep an eye on these and other emerging trends to expand your organization's horizons when it comes to enacting BI initiatives that best suit your people and their needs. Weber is available for press interviews to discuss these trends and more by contacting Leslie Licano at 949-733-8679 or leslie@beyondfifteen.com. To request a personal BI consultation for your company, visit www.northwoodadvisors.com.

ABOUT NORTHWOOD ADVISORS: Based in Irvine, Calif., Northwood Advisors is a business intelligence consulting and training firm that helps companies design and implement BI strategy for increased efficiency and greater ROI. Northwood Advisors' powerful on-site training and consulting program allows clients to create departmental alignment and mutual buy-in with key stakeholders of any business intelligence initiative to build a path of least resistance and most profitability. Northwood Advisors' training is unique, focused and implementable and will equip any team with the practical knowledge and tools for effective and sustainable business intelligence strategy, governance and roadmap. For more information, visit www.northwoodadvisors.com.