Birst Unveils Networked BI to Transform Enterprise Analytics

SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwired - Sep 1, 2015) - Birst, the global leader in Cloud BI and Analytics, today announced "Networked BI," which completely redefines the way BI is delivered and consumed. This new technology enables global governance with local execution and further realizes Birst's vision of trusted and agile collaboration between centralized and decentralized teams.

Traditionally, organizations have depended on centralized IT to physically replicate data and metadata infrastructures to enable analytics for decentralized groups. This approach is time consuming, expensive and, ultimately, a barrier to end-user self-service. Instead, "Networked BI" virtualizes the entire BI ecosystem, transforming every aspect of an organization's approach to analytics, from application development lifecycles to end-user generated data mashups and content.

Built on top of Birst's modern, multi-tenant cloud architecture, "Networked BI" creates a network of interwoven BI instances that share a common analytical fabric. This enables organizations to expand the use of BI across multiple regions, departments and customers in a more agile way, and empowers these decentralized groups to augment the global analytical fabric with their own local data. The result is enterprise-grade scalability at unprecedented speed and end-user freedom with self-service data preparation capabilities and transparent governance. By bringing analytics to the virtual world with "Networked BI," Birst eliminates data silos once and for all and dramatically accelerates the delivery of BI across the enterprise.

Gartner, Inc., a leading IT research and advisory firm, estimates that "through 2016, less than 10 percent of self-service BI initiatives will be governed sufficiently to prevent inconsistencies that adversely affect business." (See Jan. 27, 2015, Gartner news release, "Gartner Says Power Shift in Business Intelligence and Analytics Will Fuel Disruption.")

Many BI products on the market have focused primarily on end-user ease of use, while neglecting governance capabilities necessary for enterprise-wide analytics. Birst's "Networked BI" approach is the solution for IT and business leaders looking to empower users to work freely with data while delivering trust, governance and agility at scale.

Using Birst "Networked BI," some of the largest, most successful and geographically-dispersed enterprises are leveraging virtual BI instances to proliferate the use of analytics throughout the entire organization at a pace not possible with traditional approaches, significantly increasing agility and reducing costs.

Wilmer Peres, Head of BI and Analytics at Reckitt Benckiser (RB), one of the world's leading consumer health and hygiene companies, said, "We oversee global operations, across all continents, while maintaining the consistency of one company -- and a BI standard that delivers agility without sacrificing governance is crucial to achieving that consistency. Because of Birst's virtual BI technology, which eliminates data silos and ensures consistency and control, this is the first analytics implementation with the performance and data breadth that will drive universal adoption."

Birst "Networked BI" is also of great value for software vendors that are looking to embed analytics in their applications. By rolling out new virtual instances of analytics, without having to physically recreate metadata, data and BI content, application vendors can extend analytics to new customers, fast and at scale.

Birst's virtual BI technology enables "Networked BI," so customers can:

• Enable federated data access across the globe with local and aggregate views.
• Deliver virtual BI instances to decentralized groups to eliminate data silos and reporting chaos.
• Scale out a multi-tenant analytic environment to onboard new customers fast.
• Unify enterprise and local data sources without physically replicating data.
• Empower end users to extend the centralized analytical fabric on their own with self-service data preparation capabilities.
• Enable decentralized groups to augment a global analytical fabric with local data, without impacting other groups.

"Antiquated BI and analytics architectures force companies to trade off between agility and governance," said Brad Peters, Chief Product Officer, Birst. "Now, with Birst Networked BI, companies no longer have to make that trade off. Our modern, multi-tenant cloud architecture makes it possible to create a network of virtual BI instances so companies can achieve both rapid deployment and easy access to robust BI capabilities."

Additional Resources:

• Read the blog, "The Virtualization of Business Intelligence," by Pedro Arellano, Birst Senior Director of Product Strategy.
• Read the Forrester Research report, "BI And Analytics In The Cloud -- What The CIO Needs To Know."
• Register for the Birst webinar, "BI is going virtual. Is your organization ready?" This webinar -- hosted by Martha Bennett, Principal Analyst at Forrester Research, and Pedro Arellano, Senior Director of Product Strategy at Birst -- is scheduled for 10 a.m., Pacific Time, Thursday, Oct. 1.

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About Birst
Birst is the global leader in Cloud BI and Analytics. The company helps organizations make thousands of decisions better, every day, for every person. Birst's patented 2-tier data architecture and comprehensive BI platform sits on top of all of your data, to unify, refine and embed data consistently into every individual decision -- up and down the org chart. Thousands of the most demanding businesses trust Birst Cloud BI to make metric-driven business execution a reality. Learn more at www.birst.com and join the conversation @BirstBI.