High-profile use of analytics to scout professional baseball players and tally election forecasts are front-runners for a coming wave of business intelligence adoption rather than cultural anomalies, according to new market analysis from Nucleus Research.

Leading the pack of the firm’s newly released predictions for 2013 is the expectation that BI adoption will double. Nucleus sees the coming year as a “watershed” in terms of BI and enterprise analytics use, prompted by lower-cost SaaS and cloud options, the increasing ROI “data hoarders” find in big data tools and analysis, and the existing pool of non-technical data talent.

Even at this double estimation, Nucleus Research Principal Analyst Hyoun Park ranks regular analytics use at 20-to-40 percent within most enterprises by next year. That may be a long way from absolute buy-in and capabilities across lines of business, but it’s also growth that signals the possibility of even faster adoption ahead.

“Analytics is no longer just the play toy of the mathematical genius. The Nate Silvers and Billy Beanes of the world – smart people with specific business insights – will drive the next generation analytics insight as adoption continues,” says Park. “[And] it’s the realization that nearly all business decisions can be data-based.”

Another leading prediction for 2013 connected in part with the rise of BI is what Nucleus calls “integration indigestion.” Vendors are playing catch up with integration of new software and functionality from multiple acquisitions. At the same time, there are more turnkey integration solutions offered in the cloud. While the transfer of data may be made easy by integration tools, actually moving the right information to the right people still requires careful strategy and investment, and Nucleus predicts plenty of enterprise integration hiccups in the coming year.

Other disruptive changes in enterprise BI and tech for 2013 from Nucleus include:

• A steep increase in the use of “edge applications” to update ERP and keep aging systems relevant
• Shifts in market leadership and M&A surrounding CRM and customer experience
• A dive for customization due to ongoing maintenance costs
• Continued tie-in with U.S. employment and tech skills
• More scrutiny over IT security investments
• Social performance management and gamification play a greater enterprise role
• Wariness over controls and security with BYOD that may lead to more corporate-based devices
• Initial business (and criminal) opportunities with 3-D printing

Source: Information-Management.com