Brief: BI And Analytics In The Cloud — What The CIO Needs To Know

Making the right data available to the right people at the right time has long been more than an aspiration — it's a business necessity. Whether it's an interactive dashboard for executives or a self-service discovery environment for a data analyst, fast time-to-delivery is essential, as are flexibility and the ability to roll out changes quickly. Many firms' existing business intelligence (BI) and analytics environments aren't up to the task, and businesses are putting pressure on their CIOs to provide more suitable information delivery environments. Moving to cloud BI holds the promise of addressing those issues, but there are risks involved as well. Indeed, for many CIOs, the risks continue to outweigh the benefits. This brief provides a summary of what CIOs need to be aware of and how different flavors of BI and analytics clouds offer a variety of ways to address risk and compliance issues.