Is there (still) a future for Business Intelligence?

In the world of Big Data and Analytics, developments are happening very quickly. Terms such as 'machine learning' are commonplace. Is there any room for old-school Business Intelligence (BI) within all this technological violence, or is it doomed to an existence on the margins? 

Self-service, doing increasingly smarter things

Due to the abundance of data that organizations have to deal with today, we see a growing hunger 

professionals to relevant data. In addition to the classic BI user groups such as business analysts and IT professionals, a large group of (new) data users has emerged over the years among our customers.

A good example of this is data scientists who use the BI platform to process large amounts of data. Combined with various sources, this data is converted into useful information. Ultimately, everything is integrated with the BI system.

Not only is the number of users growing, but the amount of data sources is also increasing.
This requires a robust BI platform that can handle these developments in a solid manner.
The most important aspect is that all available data remains scalable and controllable for any user.

One of the trends people are talking about in the world of BI is self-service. It is an undeniable fact that employees have to deal with data increasingly smartly and do not want to be dependent on a central IT or BI department.

On the other hand, we also see that too much self-service can quickly turn into unmanageable data chaos. Gartner indicates that governance is actually properly arranged in only a limited number of self-service BI initiatives.

One of the main reasons for this is that managers like to be in control of reporting themselves. However, they do not always know where exactly the data obtained comes from and how reliable it is.

Especially with the advent of Big Data as part of business intelligence, which often involves data from outside the company's own walls in the analyses, there is a great risk of incorrect interpretations.

Self-service is fine, but on a platform that is suitable for it. Manageable and clear.