With recent consolidation in the BI and BPM space, one sees how Finance drove the final stages of the BI revolution.
On the customer side, BI evolved into BPM as as the need for consolidated financial data in reporting/analytics grew. At the same time, "Tomorrow's news ... Today" (also know as the forecasting or planning process) became critical to most organizations. Why report on tomorrow, when you can get a glimpse of the future?
On the vendor side, the bigger software players (Oracle, SAP, etc.) were able to flex their market capitalization muscles and acquire significant product lines to complement their software suites.
In the end, while customer choices have narrowed for most folks (and prices will increase), the benefits of an integrated solution will provide significant long-term benefit to many.