According to CIO magazine's annual MIS 100 report, more than half of large organisations are embarking on business intelligence or corporate performance management projects this year, up from just over 40 percent in 2011.

This service is also progressively finding traction, however, among smaller enterprise customers and for Cortell, an 18 year old business intelligence specialist with offices in Auckland and Wellington, new products are opening doors that were closed a few years ago.

"We used to only be in with larger companies, because BI is traditionally expensive," says Cortell director Belinda Johnson. Less expensive software means Cortell is "seeing those mid-market clients and we're starting to engage in those conversations."

Specialisation has been good for the organisation and, with software relatively more affordable and economic reality creating an urgency to derive value from existing data sources, Cortell has seen double-digit growth in revenue over the last three years, and an increased staffing level from 24 to 32.

Johnson says the growth has been stronger than anticipated.