The largest barrier to BI deployment is a lack of user skills and knowledge of best practices, according to Gartner Inc.

Gartner analysts say that large enterprises will need three times as many business intelligence (BI) personnel in 2008 as they did in 2004. The second largest barrier to BI is the high total cost of ownership (TCO)

"Lack of skills and TCO are related because projects that require a lot of "trial and error" are more costly," says Howard Dresner, vice-president and Gartner fellow. "High TCO is a barrier, particularly in Asia, and for those who deploy BI for the first time. In Japan, nearly half of the respondents said that difficulty in learning to use BI hampers its adoption."

Gartner analysts presented the findings during the Gartner BI Summit, held from March 7 - 9 in Chicago.

Gartner surveyed 917 IT and business users across multiple industries, to gauge their BI spending plans, and their assumptions for BI. The results show the current state of BI investment, and the BI strategies enterprises are using.

Thirty-nine percent of respondents in North America said that they expect to increase spending on BI in 2005, while another 34 percent of respondents said they plan to spend the same amount as they did in 2004.

"Organizations that have already deployed BI expect that spending on BI software will be higher in 2005," Dresner says. "In established markets, high-tech and telecom companies, as well as large health care and mid-sized education organizations, most expect BI budgets to increase, although retailers expect them to decrease."

Respondents said the key reasons for investing in BI are to respond to user needs for timely data, and to speed up and improve decision-making.

"Most organizations" approaches appear to be fairly tactical; the majority are not tying BI to specific business objectives," says Bill Hostmann, research director at Gartner.

"Enterprises must use a BI competency center to move beyond the tactical stage of BI, and to achieve a more comprehensive and strategic level in order to realize the benefits of technology."

Corporate performance management (CPM) is the BI application planned by most respondents. CPM refers to financially oriented BI applications that help executives to understand and manage their businesses.

"Demand from this type of application appears to be benefiting from growing government regulation," Hostmann says. "Front-office applications, such as sales analytics, are the next application, perhaps reflecting an improved and improving economy."

The survey was conducted in the U.S., Canada, Germany, France, U.K., China, Japan and Australia, across multiple industries, and a range of small, medium and large enterprises.

Gartner defines BI as an interactive process for exploring and analyzing structured, domain-specific information (often stored in data warehouses) to discern business trends or patterns, thereby deriving insights and drawing conclusions.