Business intelligence and big data are generally new things construction firms are beginning to learn more about. However, construction reporting is sure to grow in the upcoming year as recent Gartner findings show worldwide BI software revenue will grow 7 percent in 2013, reaching more than $17 billion by 2016.

"BI and analytics have grown to become the fourth-largest application software segment as end users continue to prioritize BI and information-centric projects and spending to improve decision making and analysis," said Dan Sommer, principal research analyst at Gartner. "As more and more information is generated, business models need reinvention, and it's increasingly clear that mastering analytics on big data will be a key driver for the next economic cycle."

Demand for BI will continue to grow
Cloud computing, mobile devices, social media and other streams of information are just a few of the reasons construction firms will need to begin using BI software in the upcoming years. The massive amount of data that firms are able to collect with the solutions will allow business decision makers to improve the fate of the business in both the short and long term.

"Although this is a mature market and has been a top CIO priority for years, there is still a lot of unmet demand," said Kurt Schlegel, research vice president at Gartner. "Every company has numerous subject areas - such as HR, marketing, social and so on - that have yet to even start with BI and analytics."

Many firms still need to implement BI
The amount of firms investing in BI software is only expected to grow as construction companies understand how they want to begin their deployments. According to Gartner, data-as-a-service is going to grow in popularity and no matter the industry, firms will have to be able to have an offering that uses data from large information streams. Building out big data initiatives will give companies the ability to harness the potential of their BI software and tools.

"The descriptive analytics have largely been completed for most large companies in traditional subject areas, such as finance and sales, but there is still a lot of growth expected for diagnostic, predictive and prescriptive deployments," said Schlegel. "Since many midsize enterprises have yet to even start their BI and analytic initiatives, we expect the market for BI and analytics platforms will remain one of the fastest-growing software markets."