The concept of business intelligence has been evolving since its inception in 1958 and its rapid development in the 1990s. The idea that an organization has to gather information about itself and its competitors is a core tenet of business dogma. The methods have changed and the people have changed but the basic ideas remain the same.

Any predictions about the future and particularly given the speed at which technology and business practice is changing, is purely speculative. In this article I attempt to put my own perspective of the future risks and opportunities in this area.

The first major development I expect is that business intelligence as a concept will have greater profile and influence over the average business structure. The entrance of competitors and the need to constantly revise practice in line with new trends means that without good business intelligence, firms will be hampered in the extent to which they can make viable ventures.

It is a very imprudent manager indeed who fails to plan for the expansion of business intelligence. Those firms that fail in this endeavor will continue to lose customers and money. If they are not ultimately driven out of business, they will provide a cautionary tale for those who ignore business advice.

Information technology has democratized communication systems. The growth of social media has enabled end users to participate in the assessment and general direction of the brand. It is only a matter of time before decision makers realize that the customer will have to be involved in running the organizations. A case in point is how airlines have been forced to provide better facilities for people with disabilities due to a concerted publicity campaign by ordinary members of the public. One of the methods used to publicize this cause were social networking sites.

There will also be specific developments within the business intelligence technology such as the creation of bespoke packages to deal with the increase in demand and the diversity of objectives from each of the organizations. Already individual companies are in the process of defining their requirements for the future. It is highly likely that the next step would be to commission these InfoTech services. It might also be that the technology will start specializing by sector or business types and that generic technology will fall out of fashion.

Business intelligence is also likely to foster a new climate of collegiate working whereby management information is no longer just restricted to the senior executives but can also find its way down to the end users who are then able to determine how it can be useful to them in their day to day work. The utopia is that all customers and employees feedback to managers. This would make them stakeholders and would presumably develop brand loyalty.

Of course there is concern about the risk that technology will completely override human discretion and companies will be further de-personalized. This is a risk that every developing organization faces. However given the popularity of new media connectivity, it is likely that the customers will not mind having digital interaction with businesses.