Download BARC’s The BI Survey 14: The headline results for Yellowfin

Posted by: Yellowfin Team

The Business Application Research Center’s (BARC) The BI Survey is the globe’s largest annual worldwide, and vendor independent, study of Business Intelligence (BI) software users.

The BI Survey 14 is the 2014 edition, and thirteenth iteration, of the study.

The BI Survey 14 was based on data derived from 3,224 survey respondents. The survey offers insight into how and why organizations utilize BI technologies, and offers direct – apples-for-apples – comparisons between the BI market’s premier BI products across important functional, performance, scalability and support criteria.

Yellowfin a standout performer in many categories in The BI Survey 14

“Yellowfin’s imaginative approach to the BI market has seen it develop distinguishing consumer-oriented features – particularly in regards to Mobile BI, Cloud BI, Collaborative BI, Data Discovery and visualization.

“These features support high levels of end-user adoption and customer satisfaction. Yellowfin’s modern look and feel makes it easy for business users to independently create reports and dashboards. Its flexible deployment options and user support result in high levels of user recommendation and help customers reach their BI goals fast.

“Often viewed as the brash new player in the BI and analytics market, its users clearly see Yellowfin as a leader in innovation. Its scalability and 100 percent Web-based architecture make implementation quick and easy, while its notable ease-of-use is capable of supporting mass enterprise-wide adoption.”

– Founder and CEO of BARC, Dr Carsten Bange

Yellowfin: A top performing dashboard and ad-hoc reporting BI solution in many categories

Yellowfin ranked first for four KPIs – and was identified as a leader for an additional 12 KPIs – within the Dashboard Vendor Peer Group, which contained 15 products. Other products in this group included: Arcplan, BOARD, Dimensional Insight, Dundas, Entrinsik, Evidanza, IBM Cognos BI, Information Builders, MicroStrategy, Oracle BI Foundation Suite, Pyramid Analytics, Qlik, Tableau and Tibco.

Yellowfin was also a top ranked BI solution in three KPIs, and pinpointed as a leading BI product in a further 13 KPIs, within the Ad-hoc Reporting Vendor Peer Group. Aside from Yellowfin, 18 other BI tools were categorized in the Ad-hoc Reporting Vendor Peer Group, including: Bissantz, Corporate Planning, Cubeware, Cyberscience, Dimensional Insight, Entrinsik, Evidanza, IBM Cognos BI, Information Builders, Microsoft Excel & Power products, Microsoft SSAS, MicroStrategy, Oracle BI Foundation Suite, Pentaho, Phocas, SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence, SAS and TARGIT.

“Results from The BI Survey 14 demonstrate Yellowfin’s breadth of innovative world-class product features and ability to deliver an incredibly intuitive experience for BI consumers. This feedback not only emphasizes the quality and uniqueness of Yellowfin’s BI platform, it also highlights our ability to deliver customer value by assisting our clients, big or small, to achieve their BI goals.”

– Yellowfin’s General Manager for EMEA, Daniel Shaw-Dennis

Dashboard Vendor Peer Group performance

Yellowfin was the top ranked Dashboard Vendor in:

  • Price-to-value perception: Based on how many users buy the BI solution for its price-performance ratio
  • Cloud BI: Based on how many sites currently use the product in a cloud environment
  • Mobile BI: Based on how many sites currently use Mobile BI with their BI tool
  • Innovation: Combines the ‘Cloud BI’, ‘Collaboration’, ‘Data discovery / visualization’, ‘Mobile BI’, ‘Operational BI’ and ‘Visual design standards’ KPIs to measure the product’s level of innovation

Yellowfin was also identified as a leading Dashboard Vendor in:

  • Business benefits achieved: Based on the achievement level of a variety of business benefits
  • Chosen as standard: How often the product is chosen to standardize on by respondents in multi-product sites
  • Recommendation: Based on how many users would recommend the product to others
  • Collaboration: Based on how many sites currently use collaboration features with their BI tool
  • Performance satisfaction: Measures the frequency of complaints about the system’s performance
  • Vendor support: Measures user satisfaction with the level of vendor support provided for the product
  • Implementer support: Measures user satisfaction with the level of the implementer’s support for the product
  • Customer satisfaction: Combines ‘Product satisfaction’, ‘Vendor support’ and ‘Implementer support’ KPIs
  • Project length: Based on how quickly the product is implemented
  • Self-service: Based on how many sites currently use self-service features with their BI tool
  • Agility: Combines the ‘Project length’, ‘Self-service’ and ‘Flexibility’ KPIs
  • Ease of use: Based on how often the product was chosen for ease of use and the level of complaints about ease of use post-implementation

Ad-hoc Reporting Vendor Peer Group performance

Yellowfin was the top ranked Ad-hoc Reporting Vendor in:

  • Price-to-value perception: Based on how many users buy the BI solution for its price-performance ratio
  • Cloud BI: Based on how many sites currently use the product in a cloud environment
  • Innovation: Combines the ‘Cloud BI’, ‘Collaboration’, ‘Data discovery / visualization’, ‘Mobile BI’, ‘Operational BI’ and ‘Visual design standards’ KPIs to measure the product’s level of innovation

Yellowfin was also identified as a leading Ad-hoc Reporting Vendor in:

  • Business benefits achieved: Based on the achievement level of a variety of business benefits
  • Chosen as standard: How often the product is chosen to standardize on by respondents in multi-product sites
  • Recommendation: Based on how many users would recommend the product to others
  • Collaboration: Based on how many sites currently use collaboration features with their BI tool
  • Data discovery / visualization: Based on how many sites currently use data discovery / visualization with their BI tool
  • Mobile BI: Based on how many sites currently use Mobile BI with their BI tool
  • Performance satisfaction: Measures the frequency of complaints about the system’s performance
  • Vendor support: Measures user satisfaction with the level of vendor support provided for the product
  • Customer satisfaction: Combines ‘Product satisfaction’, ‘Vendor support’ and ‘Implementer support’ KPIs
  • Project length: Based on how quickly the product is implemented
  • Self-service: Based on how many sites currently use self-service features with their BI tool
  • Agility: Combines the ‘Project length’, ‘Self-service’ and ‘Flexibility’ KPIs
  • Ease of use: Based on how often the product was chosen for ease of use and the level of complaints about ease of use post-implementation

Ranking and criteria (KPIs)

The BI Survey 14 includes 14 aggregated KPIs, which can be absorbed at a glance. It also includes a set of 28 normalized KPIs, which are referred to as ‘root’ KPIs, for each of the 34 products assessed within The BI Survey 14. The ‘aggregated’ KPIs are aggregations of these root KPIs. This year, sets of KPIs have been calculated for each of the eight Peer Groups. The values are normalized on the whole sample. Peer Groups are used to ensure similar products are compared against each other.

About Peer Groups in The BI Survey 14

Vendors in BARC’s The BI Survey are segmented into different Peer Groups based on how survey respondents – end-users with first hand experience using vendor products and services – reportedly utilize vendor solutions.

Peer Groups are used to ensure similar products are compared against each other both in fairness to the vendor and for the benefit of the customer. The groups are essential to allow fair and useful comparisons of products that are likely to compete.

About The BI Survey 14

Now in its thirteenth year of publication, The BI Survey is an annual report based on the world’s largest vendor-independent survey of BI and Performance Management users. The BI Survey 14 attracted over 3000 responses. The BI Survey 14 uncovers the truth about why real-world organizations select BI products, how they use them, and with what success. It also compares the leading products on the market across a number of headline criteria, such as performance, scalability and vendor support.

The survey is published independently by BARC and, unlike many other surveys, it is not sponsored by any vendor. The questions are devised entirely by BARC’s BI analyst team. The BI Survey 14 enables the comparison of leading BI products across multiple criteria, in order to establish which tools are the best fit for particular organizations and industries. It also reveals the best practices that lead to the most successful BI projects, saving time and money in research hours and consulting fees.

About BARC

BARC is an enterprise software industry analyst delivering product evaluations, conferences, market research and consulting to over 1,000 customers each year. BARC specializes in advising organizations on software selection in its core research areas of BI, data management and enterprise content management.

Along with CXP and Pierre Audoin Consultants (PAC), BARC forms part of the CXP Group – the leading European IT research and consulting firm with 140 staff in eight countries.

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