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While new to many industries, predictive analytics is a proven technology that's been used successfully for decades. It encompasses a variety of mathematical techniques that derive insight from data with one clear-cut goal: find the best action for a given situation.

Each year, we reflect upon the business intelligence and enterprise information management industry and provide a review of the noteworthy trends that we encounter in the field. Our review emanates from five sources: our customers, industry conferences, articles, social media, and software vendors. This year has proved to be an interesting one, on many fronts. Here are our observations for 2013 and predicted trends for the remainder of 2014.

Business intelligence is in the midst of a profound change with terms like big data, mobile BI, and cloud BI leading the charge. These terms are getting a lot of attention, and are going to continue to change how we approach business intelligence in 2013 and beyond.

I’ve been spending time recently looking ahead to 2013 and thinking about the new technologies and trends we can expect to see more of next year. Business intelligence (BI) has come a long way over the last several decades, transforming from a back office process to a technology utilized by every enterprise department. These sophisticated uses—such as relying upon BI tools to predict inventory before the holiday shopping season, or using the technology to analyze consumer sentiment before a significant product launch—are really the future of our industry, and I’m excited to play a part in the deployment.

 The BI market is evolving and changing rapidly, particularly in recent years. Here are my predictions for the top BI trends and developments for the year ahead.

When you really think about it, online marketing and business intelligence were born to work with each other. Both fields are built on utilizing data to make decisions in order to improve processes and optimize ROI (return on investment). However, for many companies, business intelligence continues to be an elusive concept that never quite finds its way to the top of the priority list.

For the business intelligence and analytics industry, the New Year doesn't mean pushing the reset button. Instead, it'll continue to ride the wave of niche and mainstream successes it saw in 2012 -- none more prominent than the role of analytics in the presidential eleciton.

In looking at the coming revolution in BI and analytics, the question that needs to be asked is: "Are we still viewing 21st century organizations through a 1990s window?"

The IDC’s latest big data report contains several new observations on the big data market, which the research firm says grew by almost 15 percent in 2011. IDC found that warehousing software and apps were the two fastest growing segments in this industry, with business intelligence following suite just 0.1 percent behind applications.

Decision making is not something that happens only in the back office or the boardroom. Decisions are made on the road, in warehouses, in client meetings and in airport lounges. The decision maker often needs only quick access to a few key metrics shown on a mobile device. This can reduce decision bottlenecks, increase business process performance and enable broader input into the decision at hand.

Analysts like to provide a list of predictions for the coming year. I've never been a big fan because I think that real tipping points are pretty rare in any industry. People tend to overestimate the short-term change and underestimate long-term change.

Businesses, marketers and decision-makers are becoming more data driven in an effort to decrease costs and increase profits. Marketers use data to target ideal audiences more accurately and efficiently. CFOs are using big data to predict trends that could affect the success of their business’s bottom line. Sales managers and teams use data to determine whether or not quotas are met and where are there is room for additional sales opportunities. Business intelligence, as a result of data, is becoming more prominent. There are four business intelligence trends small businesses need to be aware of moving forward in 2013.