Evaluation of BI Vendors (Blogging Assignment)

This blog details the comparison between some of the most popular BI tools that are being used today across multiple organizations. This blog gives an overview of the ‘Leaders’ in the BI & Analytics platform as mentioned in Gartner’s 2014 report. The tools are evaluated by a certain criteria with appropriate weightage given to each category to determine the best tool.

The tools considered for comparison in this blog are:

1.) Tableau

2.) Qlikview

3.) TIBCO Spotfire

4.) SAS

5.) Microstrategy

The above tools were critiqued on 5 factors that were determined to be crucial for its relevance in the industry.

1.) Data Visualization

2.) Analytical Insight

3.) Integration

4.) Customer Support

5.) Cost & Miscellaneous

Criteria Analysis

1.) Data Visualization

This module refers to the mode of delivery of insight or about the extent to which the data can be represented in a tool with minimal effort from the user. This component includes multiple factors such as Reporting, Dashboard and Mobile Interface

Reporting forms one of the primary abilities of a tool to create complex reports from multiple data sources.

Dashboarding is the feature that allows a visual representation of the analysis performed using various graphics such as charts, plots etc.

Since an increasing number of users are going mobile for various tasks, a mobile interface for the BI tools helps customers to port their tasks based on the features provided.

This category was highly competitive among all the tools under consideration for this review. Visualization is an important factor in today’s world and it acts as a good scale of measurement for the ease of use of a tool for a customer.  

Qlikview is strong on dashboards but is cloggy when importing and exporting documents for aggregating reports. SAS provides industry standard reports and works faster in collaborating with database application and other Microsoft Office applications hence it has a higher rating in comparison. Tableau has been rated as the best BI tool as per the weighted score analysis as it provides its users with best in class reporting and dashboard facilities. Microstrategy’s data visualization is ranked lowest due to its inconsistent dashboard & less interactive visualization.

2.) Analytical Insight

This section was further divided across multiple categories:

   a) Predictive analytics: Represents the extent to which tools support statistical modelling to forecast and            predict trends.

   b) Scorecarding: Refers to the ability of the tool to create and depict different scorecards such as Six                Sigma, Balanced Scorecards and key performance indicators for measuring the performance of the                company.

   c) OLAP (Online Analytical Processing): Mainly deals with the performance of the tools with respect to            querying, pivoting and sorting capabilities of the tool.

Qlikview scored the lowest in this section since it doesn’t host a predictive analytics module and has very primitive OLAP capabilities. Microstrategy & Tableau come up to about the same level but better than Qlikview. SAS has been a dominant player in this section. Its analytics includes features that are unique directly integrated into the BI tool. SAS has a 36% share of the advanced analytics market, more than the share of the next 10 vendors combined. 

Hence SAS comes out to be the top vendor in this category due to its offering in the advanced analytics domain. Spotfire also deserves as a honorable mention as it offers a lot of flexibility in applying analytics functions.

3.) Integration

The integration feature involves taking into consideration the following aspects.

   a) Workflow Engines: Addresses the ability of tool to model workflows for applications as per the needs           of the user.

   b) Developer Tools: Indicates the sophistication level of SDK provided to developers to customize the              application to add new features/fix bugs.

   c)  Big Data Support: Ability of the tool to handle large, unstructured data (No SQL).

Microstrategy ranks among the highest in this category due to its integrated Intelligence server which supports a wide range of BI applications. Qlikview has the lowest ranking as it does not handle Big Data at all and relies on a third party tool to introduce workflows in BI applications. SAS & Spotfire also provide extensive support for big data by ensuring high compatibility with big data sources.

4.) Customer Support

Customer interaction & support forms a crucial part of any organization/vendor. It is imperative to obtain customer feedback to learn about the user experiences & address their queries. It completes the loop by acting as an input to the vendors to consider adding new features into the tool and further their performance.

Tableau offers support services for all of their products, including an extensive online database of resources that users can search for answers to their issues. Qlikview offers non-technical support in the period immediately following the sale of their product through Qoncierge, an international, online support staff that helps to address issues such as license-related questions, portal access issues, download issues, and other general questions. MicroStrategy provides training on not just its solutions, but on Business Intelligence as a whole. SAS also operates on similar lines. Tibco Spotfire offers a variety of training for the software. Spotfire also offers discounts on the training packages in the form of Educational Passports. 

5.) Cost & Miscellaneous

Here we’ll consider the cost factor associated with each tool and in some cases the offline support provided by vendors such as Qlikview & Tableau which is a nice feature to have.

Tableau turns out to be the cheapest option whereas SAS & Microstrategy turn out on the expensive side when purchasing a license either for an individual or an enterprise. Spotfire & Qlikview are reasonably priced and provide good value for money for the investment.

Overall Score and Assessment:

The table below summarizes my analysis. Considering all aspects, Tableau scores the highest, which is also supported by Gartner’s repor. There seems to be a competition between Tableau and Microstrategy in the Enterprise Informatics space. Tableau is currently more flexible with its pricing and offers more value added options which are gives it a significant advantage over Microstrategy in the market.

Qlikview’s customer base is significantly different, they focus on small-medium level enterprises and are doing extremely well in this market. Spotfire and SAS continue to invest heavily in the BI space and are improving their product range continuously.

	Weight	Tableau	Spotfire	Qlikview	SAS	Microstrategy
Data Visualization	25%	9	8	8.5	8	7
Analytical Insight	20%	8	8.5	7	9	8
Integration	15%	8	8.5	7	8	9
Customer Support	15%	8.5	7	8	8.5	8
Cost & Miscellaneous	25%	9	8	8.5	6	7.5
Points	100%	8.575	8.025	7.9	7.775	7.775
Rank		1	2	3	4	4

Final Recommendation tool for BI: Tableau