Oracle is mounting a channel push to get more mid-sized and SMEs using business intelligence (BI) after discovering a decent portion of that market is not using the technology.
The vendor carried out research that revealed 75% of SMEs were still relying on spreadsheets and as a result were failing to exploit efficiencies leaving themselves hindered in their ability to react to the recession.
David Tweddle, head of the general business unit at Oracle UK, said that half of those customers surveyed were unable to reveal their most importantly business partners or determine which suppliers offered the best value.
He said that it was taking the research out to the channel and encouraging its partners to pitch BI into SMEs because they could also benefit from the time savings and improved data management.
The research showed that 63% of those quizzed would like to have better knowledge of when issues are going to happen across the business and 54% wanted to predict changes in market demand.
Tweddle said that smaller companies needed to be more agile in the current climate and needed to have their data at their fingertips.
"Some companies have got not idea what they have got and have no asset understanding of their worth," he said.
John Nicoll, sales and operations director at Maxima, said that the recession had helped push some customers towards resellers offering BI because they needed to know what was happening with their operations in Oriental.
"They can exploit the information and data and once they have got those then it enables better decision making," he said.
"Businesses have to really be in control and if they don't have a good handle on their operations then they are finding it will be harder,"he added.