Gartner 2019: It’s complicated and great, all at the same time

The 2019 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Analytics and Business Intelligence Platforms report is out. And I am sure that the Marketing departments of many analytics vendors are in a frenzy of activity to get their story out with as much spin as possible.

A complex relationship

Personally, I have a complex relationship with the Gartner MQ, or for any analyst report for that matter. It is really challenging to distil the essence of an organisation, its mission and people into a simple two by two matrix that rates you against everyone else in the field without contextualising the use cases that makes one solution a better fit than another. Having said that, I am immensely proud of what it means to get the sort of analyst recognition that we do. It’s a massive reflection of all the work that our team does from development to services, support and sales.

What makes this one so special? Well, it is not the first time we have been on the Magic Quadrant. This is our sixth. Firstly, getting into the Magic Quadrant is a remarkable achievement for every vendor. The competition and the thresholds for inclusion are significant. There are literally dozens of vendors in the analytics space that do not qualify – so in reviewing the quadrant you are seeing the best of the best in the industry.

True innovation to solve real problems

For me, this report and the multiple analyst reviews we have had in the past 12 months have finally recognized Yellowfin as a significant innovator in the industry. At Yellowfin, we have had a lot of industry firsts, starting way back with being the first 100% web based BI solution, through to our mobile app, Storyboards, Assisted Insights, and now Yellowfin Signals and Yellowfin Stories. For us, innovation is the cornerstone of what we do. We have always prided ourselves on our ability to innovate and to stay ahead of the competitive curve by offering unique solutions to the analytic challenges that our customers face.

An issue of adoption

The core challenge that this Industry faces is the continued low levels of adoption. Technical tools and solutions that do not address the business’ needs continue to proliferate. The result is a ton of tech but nothing that actually helps business users understand their business better. This is the problem that we at Yellowfin have been obsessed with over the past few years. And that obsession is starting to bear fruit.

We have introduced Assisted Insights to automatically discover the root cause of changes in your data, Signals to automatically alert you to significant changes in your data and, lastly, Stories to provide the context and interpretation that business people need to take action on their data. In all three of these, we have been laser focussed on the business user experience. So it’s fantastic to see this being acknowledged for what it is, a breakthrough for the industry and a key driver of the next wave of disruption.  

To that end, I want to thank each and every person at Yellowfin, our customers, and our great partners for their contribution to our business. This recognition is not just about the product, it’s about the efforts of the entire team. And, given there will be another MQ next year, let’s keep the focus and continue to be the leaders in innovation in our incredibly competitive industry.