Business Intelligence Platform - Assignment Example

Running Head: Business Intelligence Platform Business Intelligence Platform Name Institution Date PART A Qn. 1: Vendors listed in the BI Platform Magic Quadrant 1. Arcplan: Their major area of functionality is in reporting and in analysis for SAP NetWeaver BW users. They offer a wide range of product s and the research carried by Gartner indicated customer satisfaction for their overall product experience. Survey showed that a large percentage of customer respondents were planning to quit from their use of arcplan products in the next five years. This might have been attributed by their heavy marketing and selling efforts for SAP Business Objects. 2. Actuate: They are main area of functionality is in deployment of externally facing customer and business partner BI application. Their products track up well in terms of reporting and development requirements. However, customer’s portrayed dissatisfaction in the operations of actuate which saw its exclusion from the Magic Quadrant. 3. Bitam: It is the best choice of vender for most due to its ease of operation, quality of its reference and low cost. unlike other vendors, their overall product and support time to resolution are rated below average. 4. Broad International: It offers a well integrated BI platform incorporating planning, reporting and analysis capabilities. Despite this credibility, Board function of rating was rated low by customers. Their average cost of license cost per user was relatively high in comparison with other vendors. 5. Corda Technologies: It is one of the new entries into the magic Quadrant this year. They are specialized in selling java-based development tools. It is the most commonly used BI vendor due to its low total license cost. On the contrary, Corda’s vision is narrow since it focuses mainly on data visualization. 6. IBM: It portrays a wide range of analytic capabilities in order to accomplish its imperatives. However, it products are not preferred by majority of the BI platform users due to its complexity in use and high license costs. 7. Information Builders: Their products are well suited as a platform for building customer Web-based BI application. Their applications are however difficult to use. 8. Jaspersoft: It offers a comprehensive open source BI platform and their costs of applications are the most compelling. They however lack standard account management hence has not earned the credibility of most of the customers. 9. Microsoft: It offers Microsoft office, Microsoft SQL servers and Microsoft SharePoint in order to increase its value. 10. Oracles: The customers of oracle indicate they deploy OBIEE platform for their support. 11. Panorama: It is a common BI platform among users due to its good functionality, integration and low implementation cost. 12. LogicXML: Their platform is sold as single platform that includes reporting, analysis and dashboards for both IT and business users. It is still small with limited resources compared to other vendors. 13. MicroStrategy: It specializes in enterprise BI deployment running on top of large enterprise data warehouses. Its shortcoming is that it has a limited geographic presence and packaged analytic applications. 14. QlikTech: Its QlickView product is self contained based on a wholly in-memory data store but has no expansive product strategy. 15. Salient management Company: It has taken analytic software developed for a particular market and opened it up to be sold as a generically applicable BI platform. 16. SAP: It has the largest share in the BI platform market due to its combination of SAP NetWeaver BW and SAP BusinessObjects revenue. 17. SAS: It focuses on advanced analytical techniques such as data mining and predictive modeling. 18. Tableau: Its self contained BI platform provides purpose-built, business oriented data mashup ETLcapabilities. 19. Targit: It makes BI easier to use by getting business insight with as few clicks as possible. 20. Tibco Software: Its strong product vision is contributed by its major focus on advanced and real time analytical application (Sallam et al, 2007). Qn. 2 Criteria for Inclusion in Magic Quadrant 1) Inclusion and Exclusion criteria a) Software vendors; to be included in the BI Magic Quadrant, these vendors must be able to display a minimum of nine out of the thirteen capabilities that a BI platform should deliver. If at all the vendor deal with delivery of transactional applications, they will have to prove that their BI platform is a highly demanded commodity especially by organizations that do not have their own BI platforms. Their annual revenue generated from transactions of the BI platform should be at least $15 million. Another requirement for a software vendor is that he must have at least 20 users of their BI platform every year. According to Gartner surveys are conducted annually to determine customer rating of their BI platform vendors in terms of functionality and ownership costs. For example Pentaho had displayed the potential to be included in the Magic quadrant in 2010 since it had received the required number of customers needed and these customers were satisfied by the services the vendors offered. However, Pentaho was not able to reach the $15 million mark hence was excluded from the Magic Quadrant that year ((Sallam et al, 2007). b) Other vendors to consider; some of the vendors do not meet the all the requirements outlined in the inclusion and exclusion criteria. However since they possess most of the qualities they stand a chance to be considered in the BI evaluation. Based on data discovery, Tibco software, QlikTech and Tableau vendors had demonstrated enough market popularity to earn them a pace in the Magic Quadrant. Actually, Advisor Solutions, one of the data discovery vendors had all the qualifications to be included but could not be included due to failure of meeting the revenue requirement. Another vendor that has received much consideration is Lyzasoft. The factor that makes it stand out and earn a high market demand is the collaborative infrastructure it has integrated. This system has the capability of social software and allows users of BI platform to interact directly with contents of the intelligence. In the survey carried out by Gartner, many users of BI platform shown an interest in open source vendors. Pentaho and Jaspersoft had qualified for the Magic Quadrant inclusion. Despite these vendors having outstanding services, they did not meet the full inclusion criteria mainly due to lack of the revenue requirement hence are not included in the Magic Quadrant (Sallam et al, 2007). 2) Evaluation criteria i. Ability to execute; this kind of vendors are able to put into reality their visions. They are able to produce competitive and high quality products or services. Financial stability of a vendor is an appropriate measuring tool for the viability of such a company and the extent to which the vendor is ready to invest in the products and services he offers indicate reliability. Gartner also categorizes vendors based on their sales execution. This includes pricing and negotiation, management and overall execution of sales activities. Vendors are also classified depending on the way they support their customers and operations with regard to attainment of its goals and commitment. ii. Completeness of vision; according to Gartner vendors can be rated on their ability to explore the market so as to improve on the value of services and products they offer to their customers. iii. Leaders; this kind of vendors show strength in terms of depth and breadth in their BI platform operations. They are able to articulate a business proposal that is viable and able to stand the competitive global market. iv. Challengers; This are vendors able execute their BI platform functionality with competence enabling them to be well positioned in the market. However, they lack in some areas needed for Magic Quadrant inclusion for example they lack the sales channels, limited to specific use cases and technical environment (Sallam et al, 2007). Qn. 3 Capabilities that a BI platform should deliver Gartner defines a BI platform as a software platform that delivers the 13 capabilities which are divided into three broad categorized based on the functions they deliver: integration, analysis and information delivery. a) BI infrastructure: The items in the platform are expected to use the same metabase, security, administration, object model, portal integration and also have the same appearance and feel. b) Metadata management: All tools should display the same metadata but the offering should provide a healthy way to store, reuse, capture, and publish objects in the metadata. c) Development tool: The BI platform should have a kit for software development in addition to a set of tools for programmatic development. This tool is helpful in performing of common tasks such as managing administering, delivering and scheduling. d) Collaboration: It contains a chat, discussion thread and annotation that allow users of BI platform to discuss and share information. e) Reporting: This capability provides the ability for the creation of interactive and formatted reports with scheduling capabilities and scalable distribution. f) Dashboards: Helps to disseminate real-time data from its application in its operations. In addition to users having interactive display of information through tools such as sliders, dials, checkboxes and gauges they are able to publish web-based reports that are formal. g) Ad hoc query: Users can ask their own questions without having to rely on the web to create the report. Ideally, these tools should have an effective semantic layer to allow the user go through all the sources. h) Microsoft office integration: Being a BI client, it is important that a vendor integrates a Microsoft office into his system for assistance in pivot tables, formulas and document formats. i) Search based BI: The user can explore and navigate using search interface since this tool applies a search index to both unstructured and structured data sources. j) Interactive visualization: The user can have a better display of numerous aspects of his data through pictures and charts instead of rows and columns. k) Predictive modeling and data mining: It incorporates mathematical techniques that enable the user to classify variables as either categorical or continuous. l) Scorecards: They are linked to related information and maps since the ability to align KPI’s with strategic objectives. m) OLAP: It enhances a process of analysis known as slicing and dicing since the user can analyze data with extremely fats query and calculation performance (Sallam et al, 2007). PART B Qn. 1 Other vendors listed in the Magic Quadrant Oco: Based in Waltham, this vendor deals with SAAS BI supplications. Recently, Oco all the assets of SAAS analytic vendor Oco were bought by Deloitte. Capabilities of Oco range of data extraction and integration tools in addition to SAP system with data exporter tool (Lai, 2009). It also has a range of configured BI applications used to administer their functionality such as product profitability, supplier evaluation and inventory performance. It has upgraded its sytems to include a set of multinational characters, SAP BusinessObject BI on Demand software and alerts that inform the users in real time if the entries they are making are outdated. Though growing very fast, Oco is still rated as a niche market more so among small companies ( Kanaracus, 2011). Revolution Analytics: In September 2010, it was announced that they were included in the list of cool vendors. It specializes in making predictive analytics available to all users using its flagship Revolution R product. These are available in both enterprise server offering and workstation version (Gabriel, 2011). GoodData vendors: Based in San Francisco, California it is thriving in its BI application operations majorly due to ease of their data applications and total license costs. They have adopted software that can be created on a platform from any source hence enabling users to customize in a way that suits their needs (Wainewright, 2010). myDIALS: It specializes in SAAS Performance management platform for the analysis and visualization of real-time performance metrics. It allows the user to view, interact and filter data in order to make more informed decisions. Qn. 2 Capabilities of the vendors GoodData- It has powerful analytics engine which has provided a BI that is prescriptive and dashboards answering pre-defined questions in cubes of OLAP that are pre-calculated. GoodData has taken advantage of cloud computing which enhances easy access to CPU and storage utilities to meet the user’s needs. It offers rigidity and complexity in their dashboards that facilitates better accessibility. Basically, GoodData has built a BI stack in terms of dashboards, reporting, in-memory database management and ETL (Rasmussen et al, 2002). myDIAL: Their capabilities include transaction tie-in which allows the user to access more details by linking back to NetSuite records. myDIALS offers a drag and drop Dashboard design which has the ability to design new dashboards, ribbons and dials. Its integrated NetSuite interface allows users to customize their dashboard to suit their needs and preferences (Howson, 2002). Qn. 3 Comparison of the two vendors in terms of their BI applications GoodData myDIALS It is does memory-centric OLAP. Uses NetSuite cloud computing platform It has its own multidimensional language known as MAQL which is nowadays used to generate SQL and MySQL. It’s SAAS –based business intelligence dashboard is flexible in the sense that it allows analyze and monitor data from any business and operational sources. Uses Amazon-hosted servers for performing on-demand analysis and REST APIs to pull data from applications (Adrian, 2010). It allows users to access Key Performance Drivers (KPD’s) and Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) do determine where the problem emanated from (Suppiah, 2009). References Wainewright, P. 2010. GoodData Embeds Self-Serve Analytics, viewed on 17th May 2011 from http://www.ebizq.net/blogs/connectedweb/2010/11/gooddata_embeds_self-serve_ana.php. Rasmussen, N, Goldy, P, Solli, O.2002. Financial business intelligence: trends, technology, software selection, and implementation. John Wiley and Sons, 2002 - Business & Economics Kanaracus, C. 2011.Deloitte Buys Oco for BI, Analytics. IDG News. Viewed on 17th May 2011 from http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/227419/deloitte_buys_oco_for_bi_analytics.htmlv Lai, E. 2009. SaaS BI vendor Oco aims to help enterprise IT be tactical Firm says its Analytics-as-a-Service offering speeds deployment. Viewed from http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9142307/SaaS_BI_vendor_Oco_aims_to_help_enterprise_IT_be_tactical. On 17th May 2011 Adrian, M. 2010. For GoodData, SaaS Changes The Channel Model Too. Viewed from http://www.enterpriseirregulars.com/22331/for-gooddata-saas-changes-the-channel-model-too/ on 17thMay 2011. Gabriel, D. 2011. R' is for Revolution Analytics Statistical significance. Viewed from The register on 17th May 2011. Howson, C. 2007. Successful business intelligence: secrets to making BI a killer app. McGraw-Hill Professional - Business & Economics. new York CityIcon Group International.2009.The 2009 Report on Business Intelligence (BI) Platform Software: World Market Segmentation. Icon Group International, Incorporated. Canada Suppiah, S.2009. Vendors in Gartner's BI Magic Quadrant.MIS Asia. Viewed from http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/012909-vendors-in-gartners-bi-magic.html on 17th May 2011. Sallam, J, Richardson, A, Hagerty, J and Hostmann, P.2007. Magic Quadrant for worldwide server vendors, 4Q07.viewed on 17th may 2011 from http://solutions.us.fujitsu.com/www/content/aboutus/analysts/data/gartner_G00153357.pdf Read More