The technology, from Palo Alto, Calif.-based QlikTech, was brought in as a supplement to a project management product from CA Technologies. So far, it has saved CareFirst $10 million in project costs and helped the health insurer reduce the number of outside contractors it uses by 25%.

Activities that used to take up to 18 months are now accomplished in less than two days. Moreover, the project management office no longer has to depend on its centralized analytics team to run BI reports.

Organizations like Maryland-based CareFirst are at the forefront of what analysts say is a dramatic transformation in business intelligence and data analytics practices at many companies.

Consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) calls it the "new analytics." Unlike previous BI and data analytics models that depend on centralized, top-down data collection, reporting and analysis, the new wave is all about giving access and tools directly to line-of-business users, who benefit the most from BI reporting and data analytics, PwC said in a report released Tuesday.

"[The] new analytics taps the expertise of the broad business ecosystem to address the lack of responsiveness from central analytics units," PwC noted in its report. "The challenge for centralized analytics was to respond to business needs when the business units themselves weren't sure what findings they wanted or clues they were seeking. The new analytics wave "does that by giving access and tools to those who act on the findings."