"For more mature markets like Singapore that are a strategic part of the global supply chain, many SMBs play the role of suppliers to MNCs, [and] deploying BI would give them a competitive advantage by making them more responsive," V R Srivatsan, Business Objects' vice president for South Asia, told ZDNet Asia in an e-mail interview Wednesday.

"From a supply chain point of view, these are more important priorities than simply having the lowest cost," Srivatsan added, noting that the size of BI deployments does not matter.

Midsize companies that are more technologically advanced are often ready to implement BI tools, "irrespective of a conventional definition of whether or not they may have reached critical mass in terms of number of employees", Srivatsan said.

Highlighting today's ease of implementation with the right tools designed for midsize companies, the regional business head said that the Crystal Decisions software will let an SMB "complete a BI implementation in weeks, not months".

"[This] will result in immediate benefits in terms of their being able to view actionable information through real-time dashboards or standard Microsoft office applications, if they are more used to that," Srivatsan said.

Srivatsan also noted that it is tough for midsize enterprises to deploy enterprise-class BI tools, as their technology chief will "find it a challenge to justify the cost and relatively long implementation timelines".

"At the end of the day, if we can give SMBs a pain-free experience with BI and make them say: 'Wow! I didn't know BI could deliver that kind of insight into my business', then our objective of bringing knowledge out of the shadows within an organization would have been met," he noted.

According to research house AMI-Partners, the No. 1 factor hindering midsize businesses in the region in the adoption of BI is the inertia of the top management to follow-through with the implementation.