Business intelligence experts and users will prioritise business intelligence software in 2009/2010 to deliver greater operational visibility and uncover business opportunities (74%), suggesting BI within medium-large enterprises is perceived as a revenue-generator ahead of saving time and money.

QlikTech and Inside Info, the Australian provider of QlikView business intelligence software, conducted the survey at the first annual QlikView Australian user conference, Qonnections, in Sydney this month. More than 100 specialist business intelligence users attended including customers, partners and other BI specialists.

Overwhelmingly, business intelligence software is used right across the enterprise, with senior management the primary users of BI and reporting (93 per cent) and sales and finance teams joint second.

The day-long Qonnections event featured speakers from Inside Info’s rapidly growing customer base (250+ in Australia) including Talent 2, Amcor and Manassen Foods, and partner, PwC. The majority of those attended to keep abreast of business intelligence product developments, share ideas and learn from others (65 per cent). Specifically, 29 per cent wanted to learn about QlikView 9’s advanced visualisations with 17 per cent interested in global search capabilities of data.

“We purposely chose to not run the typical IT industry, vendor-dominated user group forum for the QlikView community.  The calibre of speakers from well-known domestic and global brands at our first Qonnections user conference demonstrates the value that attendees see in QlikView, business intelligence itself and in learning from peers,“ said Stuart Barnard, Managing Director at Inside Info. “We’re tremendously grateful to everyone who attended and made the conference such a success.“

Inside Info launched QlikView’s new release, version 9, to its community at the event, showcasing new enhancements in the areas of enterprise manageability, live real-time push data into memory for faster querying, mobile user (iPhone, Blackberry and Java mobile) and cloud deployments, integrated reporting, advanced visualisations and usability improvements including global search to bring operational data to life.

Also a first for the business intelligence industry, QlikView’s Personal Edition is available as a fully-functional, free downloadable QlikView developer tool for personal use from www.insideinfo.com.au.