Susan Joly

@e2valpo

February 25, 2015

Choosing a Standard BI Solut ion 2

Overview ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 3

A key differentiator ..................................................................................................................................................................... 3

Key data discovery capabilities ................................................................................................................................................ 3

Governance, security, and scalability capabilities ............................................................................................................... 3

Changing needs of the modern BI organization ............................................................................................................... 4

Importance of a unified and standard BI model ................................................................................................................ 4

Pyramid Analytics chosen as standard .................................................................................................................................. 4

Bridging the gap ......................................................................................................................................................................... 5

Set your standards high! ........................................................................................................................................................... 5

Choosing a Standard BI Solut ion 3

Overview Central to every solid business intelligence (BI) solution is a platform that delivers easy-to-use functionality that meets vast user

needs, along with governance, security, and scalability that enterprises require. Ultimately, it is the voice and testimonial of the

customers who are using a given platform that speak volumes.

The Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence and Analytics Platforms, conducted annually, was recently published on February 23,

2015. In this research, BI and analytics platform vendors were evaluated based on key customer-survey metrics from 2,083 BI

platform users. The research also highlights marketplace trends, innovations, and forecasts.

This series of articles explores elements that are critical to an effective BI solution, and highlights what we believe Pyramid

Analytics offers in this regard. We heard input from our customers about strengths in Pyramid Analytics’ BI Office platform for

large-scale, governed BI related to the following areas:

Enterprise-grade, end-to-end BI platform—for instance, ability to quickly create a vast range of reports and dashboards,

governed data discovery, analysis capabilities, ease of use, platform integration, metadata management

Successful, large-scale, governed BI programs—for instance, versatile range of dashboards, reporting, and analysis

capabilities, mobile BI

Users at ease with practical business gains— high customer satisfaction, high degree of business benefits achieved

For more information, read the 2015 Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence and Analytics Platforms.

A key differentiator The need for governed data discovery is mentioned frequently in the 2015 Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence and Analytics

Platforms. Vendors are assessed on how well they support four central use cases, one of which is governed data discovery. The

need for governed data discovery is greater than ever, but many vendors aren’t currently filling this gap.

As confirmed in the 2015 Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence and Analytics Platforms:

“Gartner inquiries and survey data suggest that, increasingly, companies would like to expand use and even standardize on data

discovery platforms for their larger enterprise BI deployments but find that in many cases these platforms lack the necessary

enterprise features in relation to governance, administration and scalability, among other things.”

For more information, read the 2015 Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence and Analytics Platforms.

Key data discovery capabilities The key capabilities of data discovery are visual/functional. Data discovery capabilities are a strong driver for new purchasing

requirements, and are considered an alternative to traditional BI, by making it possible for business users and end users to quickly

aggregate, visualize, explore, and analyze data.

Governance, security, and scalability capabilities Although the visual/functional aspects of data discovery are important, one of the problems is that many BI solutions are so

focused on those aspects that governance, scalability, security, and stability are not part of the solution.

A solid BI product or platform, such as one that is chosen as standard, offers not only visual/functional capabilities, but also

security, stability, scalability, transparency, and governance.

Choosing a Standard BI Solut ion 4

Changing needs of the modern BI organization

Until recently, major concerns tended to revolve around the high volume of data. Data discovery and visualization capabilities

helped make sense of this data proliferation, and made it easier to report on the data in an insightful, meaningful way.

Modern organizations, however, face new challenges in terms of data handling. Not only is data volume a key factor, but also

crucial is determining the following:

How to secure the data

How to treat it as an asset and competitive advantage

A mature implementation of BI needs to go beyond discovery, reporting, and visualization. It needs to also have enterprise-type

functionality, such as metadata management, access controls, and security.

Importance of a unified and standard BI model We’ve seen the importance of standardizing on a product or platform that meets the needs of the current BI organization. What

happens if there is no standard in place?

Having a BI product or platform that is chosen as standard contributes toward a unified BI model and a higher organization

maturity. Unfortunately, BI programs across many organizations contain multiple siloed BI models, tools, and under-the-desk

solutions. This scenario might work until reports and dashboards need to scale and be shared across the organization.

Data will continue to grow at a fast pace, and there will be an increased need for unified, reliable, trusted and secure data anytime

and anywhere.

In fact, over time, it is practically inevitable that requirements for business data will change, expand, and increase in complexity.

Having disparate BI models in place leads to issues such as:

Inconsistent, competing versions of the truth, where data quality suffers.

Departmental data that lacks depth, transparency, and searchability within the enterprise.

Inconsistent reporting and metric definitions across departments.

Duplicated, disorganized data across the enterprise.

Inability to reuse data models, business logic, and metrics definitions.

Decreased scalability, maintainability, and security.

Decreased return on investment (ROI) of the BI program, since more money is spent on the purchasing of different tools,

implementation, and training.

A product with proven data discovery capabilities, governance, security, and scalability, and which is chosen as standard, can help

in preventing these issues in a company.

Pyramid Analytics chosen as standard The BARC BI Survey measures how often a product is chosen to standardize on by respondents in multi-product sites. According to

current customers, how desirable is the product to companies and users?

Survey results show that customers view Pyramid Analytics as setting standards across their companies. Also, Pyramid Analytics is

preferred over larger BI and analytics vendors in this regard.

Choosing a Standard BI Solut ion 5

In fact, Pyramid Analytics ranks as #1, when it comes to how often the product is chosen to standardize on by respondents at

multi-product sites, compared to other OLAP analysis and visual discovery vendors. Compared with other dashboard vendors, it

ranks as #2 in being chosen as standard.

To see the headline results for Pyramid Analytics in the BARC BI Survey, download the summary at

http://www.pyramidanalytics.com/pages/resources/analytics-reports/barc-bi-survey-2014.aspx.

Bridging the gap To be a standard, something must distinguish one choice from another. A strong distinguisher of Pyramid Analytics is its ability to

address the needs of not only business users but also enterprise IT. Pyramid Analytics provides easy-to-use self-service data

discovery tools, while also providing governance, security, and scalability within a centrally managed environment.

Business-user needs fused with enterprise needs

Set your standards high! The benefits of standardizing on a product or platform are many, including the following:

Reduced silos

Improved data quality

Increased scalability, maintainability, and security

Increased ROI

Survey results indicate that Pyramid Analytics has proven itself to be a leader in being chosen as a standard among the various

products in existence at their companies. The data discovery capabilities that Pyramid Analytics offers, combined with security,

stability, scalability, transparency, and governance, contribute to a successful, scalable, governed BI program.

To see the headline results for Pyramid Analytics in the BARC BI Survey, download the summary at

http://www.pyramidanalytics.com/pages/resources/analytics-reports/barc-bi-survey-2014.aspx.

* Disclaimer: The ideas expressed in this article are those of a Pyramid Analytics author, based on the headline results for Pyramid Analytics in the BARC BI

Survey 14. They do not represent the ideas of BARC itself.