Business Intelligence & Analysis Products

With an increase in the amount of Data generated in the world per minute, every organization and individual are looking for solutions to data mapping, modeling and visualizing. Business Intelligence tools help in data retrieval, analysis, and building data reports.

THE 5 BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE TOOLS I WILL BE DISCUSSING ARE:

1. Tableau- It is the pioneer in the business intelligence software market. They were launched in 2003 and went public in 2013. Tableau offers wide ranges and options to customers when it comes to data visualization and designing one’s dashboards. It is available both as a service on a subscription or as a license tool. It offers a free 1-year subscription to students. Its weakness can be it is expensive when compared to other software’s. The best results come when it is connected to a data warehouse. But the options available for the data sources are few when compared to other tools.

2. Power BI- Microsoft’s Power BI is yet another major tool in business intelligence market. It was launched in 2013 but is direct competition for Tableau since it is integrated with office 365. Its ease of use if you are already working with excel or office is advantageous. Biggest strength is its cost structure which is very affordable. Included with office 365 or $10/ month for Pro version. Disadvantages can be it is a little behind in handling large data sets, and it is available on the cloud. If a company does not integrate it as a service from cloud due to security issues, then other tools are a better option.

3. Qlik- It is another popular BI tool and currently is adding 14 customers every day .it is known for its quality and customer satisfaction. It is quickly deployed and configured. It uses in-memory processing that is it doesn’t load the data in cubes but loads all tables and charts in memory to give the results. This feature is not done by any other BI tool as of now.The design is not that customer friendly with too many tabs. It also has a smaller community of users as compared to Tableau and Power BI.The visual output not as good as other BI-tools.

4. IBM Cognos- it is an online offering by IBM and incorporates IBM Watson analytics. Weaknesses can be the ecosystem is not that user-friendly, and the data reports take longer time when used for complex data sets. The data visualization is not that simple to understand for an average user. It provides several back-end tools for ETL, data warehousing, etc.

5. SAP Business Objects- this is a tool designed for enterprises by SAP.it works best for complex reporting work. The only pain points are it is highly expensive. It also requires some servers and hardware to get installed. If a company want to use it the investment, maintenance, training cost associated is quite high when compared to other BI software’s /tools.

CRITERIA TO CONSIDER WHEN SELECTING A BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE PRODUCT

With so many tools available in the market for business intelligence it becomes a tough choice to select one for you or your organization. Most of the tools available in the market especially the top runners are very similar, and we will be looking at five criterion's to show the difference between the five products we mentioned before.

The criterions are:

1. Cost- Being in a business or as an Individual cost is a significant factor that drives so many decisions. This criterion is critical for the business because the product should be easily integrated into a business or by an individual, should fulfill the requirements and should be cost-effective.

2. Ecosystem- This is the overall look of the product, its ease of use. How easy it is to generate reports or do visualization and share the results. The query editor should be easy to use, and the software should help in easy sharing of documents, charts, and reports. What is the overall integration, dashboard creation and sharing experience of the tool.

1. Ease of Use- How easy is it for an individual or organization to use the software. The training and time input is as much important to the customer as the money involved. If a user spends less and has to input a lot of time to learn to use the product most of the users do not appreciate it. Ease of use is a crucial criterion when considering different business intelligence products.

2. The performance with large and complex data sets- many organizations and users want to process large data sets. These data sets are complex, and all the five business intelligence products behave differently. The time taken to handle large data sets and the generation of user-friendly reports is an important criterion.

3. Infrastructure- this criterion is based on whether the business intelligence tool is SaaS, can be licensed or installed on a server. We will be comparing the five business intelligence tools on this criterion. Some organizations/users don’t want their data on cloud due to security issues. Therefore, they would prefer software’s that can be installed on their servers. This, thus, becomes an important point to consider.

EVALUATION OF THE PRODUCTS ON DIFFERENT CRITERIA

FIGURE 1

1.Cost

When an individual chooses a software, cost is an essential criterion to consider. 30% weight has been given to this criterion as I assume it is the most important criteria to be considered.

• Power BI is ranked ten because power BI comes integrated with office 365(free) or can be purchased at $10/month/user.

• Followed by Tableau which can be purchased as a license or can be used as a service.

• Business Objects and Cognos are given less just because their licensing is expensive. Business objects are around $50,000 installation with additional maintenance and training costs.

2. Ecosystem

Ecosystem refers to the overall look and usage of the product. The bars, how easy is it to create dashboards, how clean the look is. The weight given is 20% because any user wants to spend minimum time and effort in understanding a product and its homepage. The simpler it is, the easier it is for the user to work on it.

• Tableau again tops this criterion as it is simple to use and the different options available are very easy and straightforward.

• Power BI and Qlik are also easier to use. IBM Cognos and business objects require a little training to be used and hence are low in points.

3.Ease of Use

It refers to the usability. How difficult the tool is to learn and use. It is important therefore 20% weight given.

• Tableau and Power BI are both easy to sue tools therefore given a 9.

• Qlik has extra buttons on bars, and the reports need some formatting, therefore, a 6.

• Cognos and business objects require training and are difficult when used by an average person.

4.The performance of large and complex data sets

This tells how good the BI software is with a large and complex data set. Business Objects and Cognos are designed for specifically larger data sets. Tableau has scored ten as it is good with handling large amounts of data as well.

5.Infrastructure

Infrastructure in my blog refers to the Environment it works on. Tableau can be installed or can run on the cloud. Power BI can only run on the cloud. Similarly, Qlik is available in both and Cognos, and business objects require additional installation and costs are high. Therefore Tableau scored ten on this and rest of them lower.

SUMMARY

Tableau scores a 9.5 followed by Power BI with 9.2. These two software are the leaders in the market as of now because of their simple, interactive and easy to use features. Qlik is the 3rd best. Cognos and Business Objects are 4th and 5th because of the cost involved, not that easy to use features, and the ecosystem.

Tableau scores a 9.5 followed by Power BI with 9.2. These two software are the leaders in the market as of now because of their simple, interactive and easy to use features. Qlik is the 3rd best. Cognos and Business Objects are 4th and 5th because of the cost involved, not that easy to use features, and the ecosystem.