Comparative Analysis on Business Intelligence Solutions

BI Tools used in the comparison: Tableau, SAP, IBM Cognos, Microstrategy and Alteryx 

Criterions for comparison:

1. Interactive Data-Visualizations: Capability to represent interactive data in different visualizations so as to enable deeper analysis and understand the data better. Some BI tools provide drag-and-drop feature to make the development process of this visualization easier.
2. Ad-Hoc querying capability: Capability that allows users query for specific information and any business related questions apart from the reporting and dashboard data.
3. Cost: Pricing for the whole purchase of the product or licensing of the product usage has to be affordable according to the size of the organization. High prices for smaller companies may be too heavy on them and decrement the value of the product in the market.
4. Ease of use: The tool should be easy to use. It should allow the business users to use the tool with minimal/no assistance from technical experts, incorporate features like drag-and-drop features for data blending, visualization and reporting, along with easy and understandable components which makes navigation easier.
5. Scalability: The tools should support analysis on datasets of any size and be suitable to work with any organization. Any change in the organization size should not affect/restrict/create a need for the organization to move to another tool.
6. Reporting capabilities: The tool should support different types of reports with different visual rendering.
7. Performance: Importing data into the environment, navigating between the tools, time to generate reports and create visualizations for any size data sets should have high performance ratio. 

Tools in Detail:

Tableau:  

Tableau is one of the leading vendors in today’s market of Business Intelligence. Some of the most notable features are:

•   It provides a variety of data visualization tools with drag-and drop options.
•   Business users can handle it almost no technical assistance.
•   Support to predictive and trend analysis.
•   Supports importing of data from different data sources.
•   Rapid fire intelligence supports ad-hoc analysis to deliver faster results than any other products in the current market.
•   Built-in data engine that to support offline data analysis.
•   Integration with R and Maps.
•   Supported on multiple platforms like mobile, desktop and tablets.
•   Support for financial/budget forecasting.

The most commonly faced drawback with tableau is its pricing, organization-wise customization and complex functionalities which may seem difficult to use.

Screenshots from the Tool:

SAP:

SAP offers a wide range of products to organizations based on their size and need. The most salient feature of SAP Business Intelligence solution is its ability to be customized completely based on the needs of its client. They have been very successful in the BI industry till date despite the competition. Some of its features are:

•   Supports analysis through predictive modeling, trend analysis, ad-hoc analysis and issue indicators.
•   Comprehensive and customizable dashboard.
•   Customized BI platform depending on client needs.
•   Support on mobile platforms.
•   Combine visual data from multiple sources to analyze the trend and pattern in data.
•   Performance ratio is very high.
•   Support for financial/budget forecasting. 

Despite of having these favorable features, the complexity of the tool requires users to be trained SAP professionals. The other drawback is pricing, which is not affordable by many organizations.

Screenshots from the Tool:

IBM Cognos:

IBM Cognos is an online Business Intelligence platform hosted on cloud and offers a variety of products to cater to the different needs of the industry. Features provided are:

•   Support for predictive analysis, trend analysis, ad-hoc analysis and analytic reports.
•   Provides multiple interactive data visualization options online and offline.
•   Supports integration of Microsoft Office applications.
•   Scorecards are used for business strategy and performance management.
•   Provides high scalability without compromising on its features and insights offered.
•   Support for financial/budget forecasting.

The major drawbacks are: Performance ratio is very less and lacks ease-of-use.

Microstrategy:

Microstrategy’s focus is on providing ease-of-use to any user, technical or non-technical, the ability to use the tool. Microstrategy can be hosted on cloud. Some of the important features are:

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•   Provides a wide range of data visualization options.
•   Supports map visualization for geographical data.
•   Provide support to run on mobile platform.
•   Supports trend analysis, ad-hoc analysis and predictive analysis.
•   Customizable dashboard options from which user can query and fetch results.
•   Easy report generation using the drag-and-drop options along with different rending options.
•   Supports ability to access data offline.
•   Supports data import from different data sources.

Looking at major drawbacks for Microstrategy, there is no integration with tools like R or other tools. It does not support financial/budget forecasting. And no predictive analysis tools were provided for easier analysis of the data patterns.

Screenshots from the Tool:

Alteryx:

Alteryx is another leading Business Intelligence tool that focuses at analytics level. It focuses on big data analytics and customer analytics. Some important features are:

•   Provides predictive capabilities that are usable by all types of users.
•   Provides predictive tools that are customizable based on the user’s need.
•   Provides seamless and fast data blending workflow which uses the drag-and-drop technique to get the right data in the right environment.
•   Support for financial/budget forecasting.
•   Supports customizable dashboards.
•   Supports ad-hoc analysis from the dashboard itself.

To consider the negatives of Alteryx, it has low ease-of-use ratio, performance is not up to the market expectation and reporting visualizations do not have much options.

Comparison Chart:

Product/Criteria	Score/Importance	Tableau	SAP	IBM	Microstrategy	Alteryx
Ease of use	15	12	6	9	11	7
Cost	5	3	3	4	5	5
Performance	15	14	13	8	11	5
Ad-hoc Analysis	15	10	15	15	10	15
Reporting Tools	20	14	18	18	11	9
Data Visualizations	20	20	20	16	16	15
Scalability	10	8	10	10	7	7
Total:	100	81	85	80	71	63
Rank		2	1	3	4	5