The adoption of Business Intelligence (BI) has advanced significantly during the last five years. Gartner noted in 2017 that broad BI was still “elusive,” with just 30 percent of businesses adopting BI tools in any significant capacity.
Fast forward to 2020, and 54 percent of enterprises report that cloud BI is either critical or very important to their ongoing and future initiatives – according to Dresner Advisory Services.
Such figures underline the growing role of BI tools within modern enterprises. Yet, many BI vendors are out there, aiming to seize a stranglehold on the market.
After distilling these and navigating many analyst reports, here are CX Today’s top eight recommendations for 2022.
1. Microsoft
Microsoft makes its way into most business intelligence rankings due to its Power BI offering. Power BI is a suite of software services, applications, and connections that transform disparate data sources into cohesive, visually engaging, and interactive insights.
Data could include a collection of Excel spreadsheets or on-premise data warehouses. Whatever the case, Power BI enables users to link such data sources, view and uncover what is significant, and share this information across the enterprise.
The company also benefits from a significant market reach and strong alignment with other Microsoft tools like Office 365, Teams, and Azure Synapse.
Its extensive offering also consists of visual data exploration, interactive dashboards, and augmented analytics.
The pricing and effectiveness of the Microsoft solution offer further distinguishing factors.
Microsoft Power BI Pro is available for $9.99/month per user, with a 1GB cap on model size. Power BI Premium is available at $20/month per user.
2. Salesforce (Tableau)
After purchasing Tableau in 2019, Salesforce solidified its leadership position in the market for business intelligence tools. The purchase allows Salesforce to establish an ecosystem combining the advantages of MuleSoft, Tableau, and Tableau CRM (formerly renamed Salesforce CRM Analytics) into a unified BI solution.
Salesforce also offers superior analytics efficiency and usability, enabling customers to find insights and communicate them more effectively.
The vendor prices Tableau Creator at $70 per user per month.
3. Qlik
Qlik provides a business intelligence platform with low barriers to entry.
Pairing up its Qlik Replicate BI solution with Qlik Sense, a data integration software, enables businesses to draw more value from enterprise analytics.
Qlik had a great year in 2021, acquiring NodeGraph and Big Squid to add machine learning and metadata systems management to Qlik Sense.
These additions add to its other notable strengths, which include its deployment flexibility, consumer interaction, and data literacy initiatives.
Qlik Sense Business starts at $30 per month for each user.
4. Looker
Looker is a platform for big data analytics that facilitates the exploration, analysis, and sharing of real-time business statistics.
Acquired by Google in 2019, Looker pairs well with its Data Studio and Web Analytics to extract more data and enhance the value of BI.
By incorporating Looker into its Google Cloud Platform (GCP) environment, Google enables the combination of its powers with other cloud-based services.
In addition to application development resources, its in-database architecture and governance are also significant assets.
Looker is custom-priced.
5. Domo
Recently topping a Dresner Advisory Services study that assessed the best self-service BI systems, Domo seems to excel at surfacing insights for non-technical business users.
Its low-code philosophy also helps to make BI much more accessible to the broader business so that non-technical users can connect and analyze data from multiple sources.
Listed on the NASDAQ, Domo has gained substantial traction in a competitive market, likely due to its user-centric design and rapid deployment option.
Pricing starts at approximately $83 per user per month.
6. ThoughtSpot
ThoughtSpot’s business intelligence platform facilitates the real-time exploration, analysis, and sharing of business analytics data.
Its Modern Analytics Cloud solution provides live analytics and integrates insights into UC platforms – such as Slack – to improve how insights travel across enterprises.
ThoughtSpot also launched a new “developer playground” in 2021, giving developers the tools to create innovative data applications.
Scalability and industry awareness as an enhanced analytics platform are additional strengths of the BI platform.
Pricing starts at $95 per user per month.
7. Sisense
Sisense Fusion, the company’s analytics package, uses advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning models to stand out from the crowd.
It is also compatible with an array of data warehouses – including Microsoft, Google, and AWS – enabling cloud-agnostic deployments.
In addition, users can configure their analytics dashboards and enjoy enhanced data visualization based on their industry and business role.
Sisense Fusion is custom-priced.
8. Oracle
Oracle Analytics guarantees that enterprises do not have to choose between controlled, centralized, and self-service analytics. Instead, Oracle integrates these three formidable forces into a unified solution.
As such, organizations may grow rapidly across all business lines and maximize the value of their data.
Oracle has enhanced the efficacy of its platform by introducing Cloud Coach and Code Innovate to Oracle Analytics Cloud.
Oracle Analytics Cloud pricing begins at $80 per month.
Looking for more BI tool options? Check out the latest Gartner Magic Quadrant in this category.
