European Enterprises more Agile than the UK

UK over-reliance on historic data puts projects at risk

Slough — 14 Jul 2008 — Research commissioned by Progress Software Corporation (NASDAQ: PRGS) has revealed that 70 per cent of UK businesses have no intention of analysing their data in real-time, but rather rely on retrospective Business Intelligence (BI) for critical market information. The research revealed that UK organisations ranked behind their European counterparts, who expressed the intent to use real-time data, enabling better informed decisions to be competitive and agile in today’s business climate.

The results of the study, which surveyed CIOs, senior IT managers and department heads across 500 European businesses show that the UK is lagging behind in its use of Complex Event Processing (CEP), the technology developed to address the data throughput needs of real-time data processing and analytics. Results from the rest of Europe demonstrated that a significantly larger number of respondents from France, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden and Germany say they have implemented, or plan to implement, CEP within their organizations.

In today’s complex business environment, many organisations suffer from information lag – increasing amounts of data about customers, competitors, market conditions and operations makes detection and understanding of key events increasingly difficult, particularly if the information becomes out-of-date very quickly.

Faced with the dilemma of which data to analyse many European businesses are turning to CEP to address the complexity of data within the business. CEP enables enterprises to receive data about the market and business events in real-time - enabling them to prioritise and respond immediately to threats and opportunities as they occur. This enables them to move before competitors to attain strategic advantage or ensure continuous compliance in accordance with regulatory bodies.

Giles Nelson, EMEA CTO for Progress Software said: “Today’s business environment is more competitive and fast moving than ever before. Customers are savvier than ever and businesses need to be proactive rather than reactive in winning their loyalty and providing exactly what they want when they want it. CEP can provide enterprises with real-time information on customer and market trends allowing an enterprise to take advantage immediately – to get ahead and stay ahead. Competitive advantage is often sown up today by the first movers.”

BI systems provide enterprises with historical and predictive views of business operations, most often using data that has been gathered from different areas of the business and analysed to give a holistic view of the business and market. Where BI can help in providing narrative around events and the context in which a business operates, CEP provides the real-time view that organisations increasingly need.

“The difference in approach is an indicator of how competitive UK businesses will have to become. Relying on BI means that businesses are not reacting fast enough to gain business advantage and may miss opportunities whilst they wait for BI to process the data. BI is invaluable in providing businesses with an end of the day update on what has happened to the organisation – providing the ‘why’ something happened. Organisations need to look at both BI and CEP to monitor their organisations and respond to events in real-time. The right combination will be the difference between first mover advantage and missing out on prime opportunities,” concluded Nelson.

Notes for editors

Survey methodology

The survey carried out on behalf of Progress Software was conducted by Vanson Bourne Research in March 2008. 500 blue chip companies were surveyed in a number of industries across Europe to assess enterprise IT capabilities in today’s fast-moving and complex business environment.

The survey was carried out using a mixture of telephone polling and email questionnaires among a sample of 500 made up in equal parts of 250 CIOs/ IT Directors and 250 business leads and departmental heads. The surveys were conducted across the following European countries: Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and United Kingdom.

The survey covered businesses in the following sectors: Financial Services, Manufacturing, Professional services, Retail, Telecommunications, Travel, Transportation and Logistics.

About Progress Software Corporation

Progress Software Corporation (Nasdaq: PRGS) is a global industry leader providing application infrastructure software for all aspects of the development, deployment, integration and management of business applications through its operating units: Progress OpenEdge Division, Sonic Software, DataDirect Technologies, and Progress Real Time Division. Headquartered in Bedford, Mass., Progress can be reached at www.progress.com or +1-781-280-4000.

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