More chief information officers (CIOs) in the Asia Pacific region are seeing the competitive value of business analytics and are considering investments in this area, a new study from research firm IDC said.

Business analytics include technologies and processes that encompasses data warehousing, business intelligence (BI) tools, and advanced analytics.

IDC said the main focus of CIOs in considering business analytics will include delivering quick ROI and value to their businesses.

"Over the years, organizations have spent a lot of time and money on capturing and storing data as part of large-scale data warehousing projects," Philip Carter, associate practice director for IDC's business analytics practice in Asia/Pacific said.

The executive further said moving forward, "companies need to start developing this data into real 'intelligence' by offering it to a broader spectrum of users, as well as leveraging forward-looking predictive analytics to drive competitive advantage in the market where there is a potential recovery in the short-term."

Further, IDC said the move of business analytics into broader mainstream adoption in Asia/Pacific can be attributed to three key drivers.

These drivers will include business intelligence becoming more pervasive. The performance, availability, and user interfaces of BI solutions in the market have improved significantly over the years.

This enables deployment of decision support and automation functionality to a broader spectrum of users. In turn, it has raised the visibility of BI across various departments and most importantly, at the boardroom level, which has helped to break down the "information silos" that tend to persist in organizations moving down this path.

Another driver is that the CFO's office has been one of the key stakeholders in the evolution of Business Analytics; the finance department is starting to see the benefits of budgeting and planning tools as part of a broader performance management framework to drive operational efficiency throughout the organization.

Lastly, IDC said more advanced and sophisticated forms of analytics solutions such as risk management, resource optimization, and demand forecasting are actively being implemented by certain organizations in the region.

Some of these deployments are embedding components of the analytical functionality into operational applications in what IDC sees as early signs of a shift towards its vision of Intelligent Process Automation - enabling front-office employees with better decision-making power to direct increase revenue and cut costs.