With enterprises continuing to invest in business intelligence (BI) solutions to improve decision making and analysis, global BI software revenues are expected to reach $17.1 billion by 2016, research firm Gartner today said.

BI software revenues are expected to grow seven per cent to touch 13.8 billion in 2013 (from about $12.9 billion in 2012) and further increase to $17.1 billion by 2016, Gartner said in a statement.

"BI and analytics have grown to become the fourth-largest application software segment as end users continue to prioritise BI and information-centric projects and spending to improve decision making and analysis," Gartner Principal Research Analyst Dan Sommer said.

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, Sommer said.

However, in the near term, growth will be hampered by sluggish macro-indicators as well as by slowing sales cycles of multi-million dollar end-to-end BI deals, Gartner said.

Compared with growth of 16 per cent in 2011, 2013 and the coming years are expected to be slower, with growth in the high single digits, it added.