For 20 years, standalone BI tools have failed to penetrate more than 25% of the average organization, with most workers using them once a week, according to Eckerson Group. While many modern dashboards are sophisticated and user-friendly, they are still often accessed as standalone tools outside of line-of-business applications. This separation means it isn’t guaranteed that users will adopt BI, or gain insight from their data.

These are a new class of vendors like Gainsight and C3 who are building applications based on the idea data will drive a transaction, rather than transactions driving the data. The challenge for every enterprise software vendor is how to respond to this threat because it's going to be difficult. For big vendors, you're going to have vested interests internally who don't see this challenge coming or don't know how to respond to it. Some may even underestimate the threat of the change.

We've moved from desktop to SaaS, to a real UX focus. Now we're seeing new vendors that are analytics-first. They’re creating new applications that are challenging the established players. Historically, applications were transaction-first; you build your software thinking about your workflow or the transactions that you want people to do.

Understandably, however, the many automation, AI and machine learning technologies that come with modern analytics solutions can sometimes be hard to keep up with. One area we get asked a lot about is ABM, which we offer with Yellowfin Signals, and what exact advantages it brings to the table for everyday analysis and insight generation.

One of the changes that we've seen happening in the analyst space recently is a huge shift in thinking. Gartner in particular is now talking about augmented consumers and multi-experience analytics. To me, this is really interesting because they’re talking about the business user and how they want to work and consume data. In the past it was all about the data analyst, but focusing on users opens up an entirely new level of thinking.

With 9.5, we've focused on providing new capabilities and enhancements for everyone involved in the data to design workflow - analysts, developers, users - that streamline processes, introduce functional improvements and enrich the analytic experience for all. For the full list of updates, please read the release notes and check out our release highlights video below to see some of these new enhancements in action for yourself.

Whilst not as well-known as other tech hotspots, many technology companies have been successfully launched and grown up here in Australia, with great economic and legal conditions, access to a talented and diversified skill-base, and a culture of innovation and adaptability acting as some key - and growing - attractions for leaders. So, why Australia? Sun, sand, surf, etc.