Table of Contents

What are the Different Types of Business Intelligence Tools? ...... 3

A Quick Note on Data Governance .............................................................. 3

Survey Results – What the BI Software Buyer is Searching For ... 4

Advanced Analytics Features Are Viewed as Amenities, Not Necessities ... 5

Basic Features Are The Most Desired ......................................................... 5

Deployment .................................................................................................. 5

Other Needs ................................................................................................. 5

101 Examples: BI Tools in Action ..................................................... 6

10 Key Business Intelligence Features ............................................ 10

The Top Business Intelligence Tools Buyers Plan on Using ......... 12

Tableau ......................................................................................................... 13

Qlik ............................................................................................................... 14

Microsoft Power BI ....................................................................................... 15

SelectHub BI Tableau Competitors Report 2019

Dundas BI .................................................................................................... 16

Sisense......................................................................................................... 17

Information Builders WebFOCUS BI ............................................................ 18

Oracle BI ...................................................................................................... 19

SAP BusinessObjects .................................................................................. 20

MicroStrategy Analytics ................................................................................ 21

SAS Business Intelligence ........................................................................... 22

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What are the Different Types of Business
Intelligence Tools?
Data, data, data … that’s all we’re hearing
about nowadays. Big Data, data mining, data
scientists and the like appear at the top of
Google searches and blog headlines more
than ever before, and with good reason. The
business leaders of today, in every industry,
have discovered how to use their data to its
fullest potential. So, what are business
intelligence tools and what business
intelligence systems are available now
anyway? Understanding different types of
business intelligence tools is now more
attainable than ever.
tools, you should never feel limited by what
you can do.
A Quick Note on Data Governance
A successful business intelligence strategy
begins even before implementation. It entails
a good data governance policy. Data
cleansing is essential before feeding it into
your BI tool, because good data analytics is
useless when performed on bad data. But a
governance policy goes beyond mere data
cleansing.

The proper utilization of data shouldn’t be, nor
is it, exclusive to the top players. Business
intelligence (BI) tools have given companies
of all sizes access to powerful data analysis
capabilities. Receiving insights and finding
trends is essential for businesses to scale and
adapt as the years go on, which is exactly
what business intelligence software does. The
best thing about these software solutions,
however, is that their potential uses are
practically unlimited.
It also involves securing the data. What levels
of encryption do you use for data at rest?
What are your access policies and
procedures? What are the consequences for
failing to adhere to policy? All of these things
go into a solid data governance program, and
upon that you can build a strong governance
policy for your business intelligence systems.

SelectHub BI Software Report 2019

There are six million ways to BI… at least,
that’s our (very) rough estimate. And the
different types of BI reports

are almost as numerous as the uses for BI.

What you can do with your data and a good
BI system is limited by one simple barrier:
your creativity. You can aggregate user data
to provide product recommendations, similar
to Amazon. Or, you can identify your
company’s peak revenue times. You can also
find the ROI of your CRM. Or track employee
3
retention. Point is: with various types of BI
Survey Results – What the BI Software
Buyer is Searching For
Based on survey responses from representatives of over 600 businesses
from a variety of industries, we’ve made a list of the top features business
intelligence software buyers are looking for in recent months.

Their answers provided us with data on the features most desired by

those in the market for a business intelligence system.

SelectHub BI Software Report 2019

4
Survey Results – What the BI Software
Buyer is Searching For
Advanced Analytics Features Are organize data into an easily digestible format,
Viewed as Amenities, Not so it’s easy to see why this is a requirement of
an overwhelming majority of buyers.
Necessities
Visualizations stood out as another important
BI software buyers expect advanced analytics
feature for BI system buyers. Visualizations
features from their BI tools. Of those
organize and present data in a format that
surveyed, 42 percent requested predictive
can be understood and utilized by people of
analytics, 32 percent wanted data mining and
all levels of BI skill sets. The feature was
20 percent expressed interest in extract,
mentioned in 81 percent of responses.
transform and load (ETL) capabilities.

Deployment
Of the respondents who didn’t specifically
request the above features, a significant
Users surveyed were consistently open to
portion listed them as “nice to have in the
either cloud-based or on-premise forms of
future.” For instance, while 42 percent
deployment — 69 percent said they didn’t
required predictive analytics, another 16
have a preference. Of those who were set on
percent thought that feature would be useful
a deployment method, 23 percent preferred
to implement in the future. There was a
cloud and eight preferred on-premise.
similar trend with data mining (14 percent
thought it would be something they’d be
interested in) and ETL (6 percent). Other Needs

The comparatively low numbers of users who Some other features requested by survey
requested these features may have a root in respondents include ease of use (28 percent),
integration (23 percent), data warehousing

SelectHub BI Software Report 2019

lack of awareness and understanding of the
benefits they can offer businesses. There (five percent) and mobile access (four
could also be an element of overpacking BI percent).
with features: many of these functions —
especially data mining and ETL — are more
focused on Big Data and may not be useful to
When it comes to business intelligence,
SMBs.
it’s all about the features. Overall, a
majority of respondents want basic
Basic Features Are The Most
functions (reporting, dashboards, etc.)
Desired from their business intelligence software.
But many buyers also showed interest in
Of our survey respondents, 90 percent said
more advanced analytics capabilities like
dashboarding was a BI key feature.
predictive analysis, data mining, ETL, 5
Dashboards satisfy the need to process and OLAP and drill-down functions.
 101 Examples: BI Tools in Action

We know we said there are about six million ways to use BI, but we didn’t want to list ALL of them.
Just like there are different types of business intelligence systems, there are plenty of different
ways to apply them. You’d probably get tired before finishing the full list. So we shortened it down
to a much more manageable 101 uses, which you can peruse to find some of the best uses of BI
software:

● Schedule regular automated reports
● Automatically share reports with clients
● Visualize inventory and sales in real time
● Pull data from multiple databases
● Analyze eCommerce sales in real time
● Visualize supply chain data over time
● Analyze the results of your marketing
efforts both over time and in real time
● Optimize employee scheduling based
on your highest and lowest foot traffic
times

● Integrate with cloud computing services ● Analyze commonalities in routes for

like AWS various truck types, bridge weight
ratings, and more
● Pull and analyze data from a CRM
● Provide clients with self-service data
● Data mining for deep layers of analytics
visualization capabilities
● Create embedded dashboards in a
● Pull and analyze data from a LMS
separate internal system
● Create custom types of business
● Provide historical analysis on payroll,
intelligence reports via drag and drop
benefits and other employee HR data
functionality

SelectHub BI Software Report 2019

● Embed and/or generate professional
reports for clients
● Create predictive analytics dashboards
and data visualizations
● Transform various types of data into a
standardized format
● Predict trends using data forecasting to
help with loss prevention efforts
● Assess distribution statuses on-the-go
with a mobile device
● Create ad hoc eCommerce sales
reports
● View data trends in real time
● Provide every location with access to
the same data, reports and reporting
tools
● Create dashboards that display
real-time inventory data
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101 Examples: BI Tools in Action

● Pull together different types of data
including financial, practice
management, HR and more
● Use for data warehousing client data
● Use drill down capabilities to find
procurement inefficiencies
● Set marketing goals using predictive
analytics

● Predict future retail sales with demand
forecasting
● Aggregate and analyze customer
survey results
● Provide clients access to custom
dashboards of their data
● Use your BI tool for data warehousing
employee data
● Pull data from SQL servers
● Find distribution inefficiencies
● Report on a diverse set of KPIs
● Set revenue goals using predictive
analytics
● Find the most efficient transportation
management systems for your supply
● Provide remote access to your field
sales teams so they can use real-time
data analytics in the field
● Provide multiple users access to
ensure data consistency
company-wide
● Evaluate the effectiveness of
cybersecurity procedures
● Track employee skill development
● Pull and analyze data from a marketing
automation software
● Find warehouse operation
inefficiencies
● Pull and analyze data from an
EMR/EHR system
● Set sales goals using predictive

SelectHub BI Software Report 2019

chain
analytics
● Pull and analyze data from a CMMS
● Compare compliance processes of
● Integrate with multiple data different locations
warehouses
● Analyze customer demographic data
● Track the ROI of your SCM system
● Evaluate membership growth over time
● Compare the effectiveness of new
● Customize and integrate your BI tool
distribution strategies to old strategies
into an open-source system
● Create a 360-degree view of financial
data trends
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101 Examples: BI Tools in Action
● Automatically process, analyze and
visualize large amounts of data in real
time
● Create multiple presentation-worthy
reporting templates
● Track the different stages of production
and distribution over time
● Pull and analyze data from HR
software
● Find supply chain inefficiencies
● Create custom dashboards for each
department based on their individual
needs
● Track the ROI of your HR software
● Process sales pipeline data, social
data, and user interface data
● Allow clients to create their own
custom reports with their related data
● Centralize company-wide data analysis
● Pull and analyze data from an
inventory management system
● Compare results of A/B tests
● Track employee retention
● Segment customers and prospects
● Discover the trends behind the peaks
and valleys in revenue
● Discover the best times for employee
recruitment
● Report on the allocation of distribution
resources
● Pull and analyze data from a WMS
● Report the results of a risk analysis
● Track market changes
● Create multiple ad hoc reporting
templates
● Pull and analyze data from SCM
software
● Track the ROI of your CRM
● Discover customer buying trends which
can be used for customized product
recommendations
● Track student performance over time
● Optimize appointment scheduling
based on the most and least popular
appointment times
● Discover cases of potential fraud with
trend analysis
SelectHub BI Software Report 2019
● Find the best location to open a new
store or office based on market data
● Evaluate student geographic data
● Automatically organize all your data in
one location, rather than multiple
spreadsheets
● Set next year’s budget using predictive
analytics
● Reduce overhead warehousing costs
by identifying inefficient processes
8
101 Examples: BI Tools in Action
Zero in on the best Business Intelligence
systems for your company.
Unlike some ratings, SelectHub product
ratings are taken from multiple sources
including top analysts and actual buyers of
human resource management
software—ideal for your shortlist.
Over 100 BI systems evaluated!
View Leaderboard Report
● Develop reports on cybersecurity
● Track and compare the distribution
time of various locations
● Discover the peak times for
membership and other sign ups
● Monitor web traffic specific to different
marketing campaigns
● Evaluate eCommerce cart
abandonment rates
● Compare your competitors’ growth
over a given time with your own
● Assess how often departmental and
organizational goals are met
● Analyze patients’ medical data to find
patterns and correlations in their
symptoms
● Discover trends in inventory usage and
stock
● Predict upticks in inventory usage
SelectHub BI Software Report 2019
● Monitor compliance issues and track
instances of compliance failures
● Identify which departments are viable
for cost cutting and which are
untouchable
● Find correlations between revenue and
outside influencers such as weather,
power outages, etc
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10 Key Business Intelligence Features
Here’s our recommended list of the 10 key
features of business intelligence tools that will
help any organization improve their business
strategies.
Read on for insight into the most important
features of business intelligence applications
that organizations want, based on our
research gathered from surveys with real
business intelligence software buyers.
1. Ranking Reports
Ranking reports let you easily view the best-
and worst-performing facets of your business,
from products to marketing campaigns to
salespeople. You can view rankings across
multiple dimensions and specify various
criteria to focus your results.
2. What-If Analysis
If you’re curious about how a future decision
will affect your business, you can run a
“what-if” analysis using past data to predict
the potential impacts. Tools for what-if
analyses give you an objective view of the
risks and rewards involved in each potential
decision, and allow you to plan better for the
future.
3. Executive Dashboards
If Executive dashboards give your
organization’s leaders a real-time overview of
your business in the form of graphs, charts,
summaries and other information reports.
They allow your company’s executives to
make smarter, faster and better decisions.
4. Interactive Reports
Interactive reports allow users to condense
the massive amounts of collected data into a
wide variety of possible views. Users can take
advantages of features like statistical analysis
and regression to identify trends, anomalies
and outliers in the data.
5. Geospatial Mapping
Applications using location intelligence can
take your information and transform it into
graphical and cartographic representations,
simplifying your geographical data. At a
glance, judging which regions are performing
better than others — and which ones need
particular attention — becomes much easier.
6. Operational Reports
At the end of each day, business intelligence
features like these can provide your
SelectHub BI Software Report 2019
organization’s executives with a detailed
summary of the daily events, giving them the
information they need to make critical
decisions.
7. Pivot Tables
Pivot tables can automatically extract
significant features from a large, messy set of
data. They can perform calculations such as
sorting, counting or averaging the data stored
in one table, and show the summarized
results in another table. Pivot tables are 10
10 Key Business Intelligence Features
essential tools for analyzing information and
uncovering hidden trends.
8. Ad-Hoc Reports
your BI platform is able to integrate as many
different types of data as possible under a
single roof, seamlessly combining disparate
forms of information into an actionable report.

Instead of burdening your IT department with Match up these critical features with
requests for detailed reports, ad-hoc reports your own BI requirements to find the
are one of several important features of BI ideal BI platform for your
that let your nontechnical end-users generate
organization.
their own reports on the fly. Users can pick
and choose the elements that they wish to be
● Set priority levels for your requirements
included in the report, emphasizing only those
that are reflected in your report
aspects that are relevant to their query.
● Compare any BI systems meeting your
criteria, side-by-side
9. User-Specific Security
● Get in-depth details of any system,
including pricing
If you need to restrict certain users’ access to
● Download a custom report of the best
particular data sets, your BI tool should allow
systems matching your needs
you to personalize your BI features and
applications to individuals or groups of users.
Some solutions provide user-specific data
sources, where a single application pulls from
different sources of data depending on who’s Create Free Custom Report
using the application.

SelectHub BI Software Report 2019

10. Open Integration

Smart BI platforms will be able to access not

only your organization’s own data, but
information from email, social media,
websites and more. For example, instead of
only providing your internal sales data, your
BI platform could accompany that information
with reviews and comments about your
products.

With so many data formats and so many

applications to pull from, it’s important that 11
 Top 10 BI Tools
Evaluated by SelectHub
You didn’t think we’d give you all this information and leave you
without some recommendations, did you? If you’re in need of the
tools of business intelligence, check out some of our top
recommended vendors, taken from our BI software leaderboard.
 Tableau Request Pricing / Demo

SelectHub BI Software Report 2019

One of the most popular types of BI tools, Tableau is a commonly sought-after BI
platform. It’s simple enough that non-technical users can easily create customized
dashboards and other reports to find valuable insights. Tableau is so popular that
many people consider it the de facto BI tool and search to understand the difference
between Tableau and the competition.

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 Qlik Request Pricing / Demo

Among the best tools used in business intelligence is Qlik, with it’s guided tool,
QlikView, and self-service business intelligence tool, Qlik Sense. This powerful

SelectHub BI Software Report 2019

program offers fully interactive data operation, which allows users to explore data at
all times during input, processing and output.

QlikView also offers a system memory function that displays every action that took
place during analysis. QlikView is an extremely powerful BI tool with solid
performance all around. It is available on mobile platforms, which provide the same
interactive analytical tools, intuitive associative search and excellent visualization
available to desktop users.

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 Microsoft Power BI Request Pricing / Demo

Microsoft Power BI earned a top score on our leaderboard in several areas, including
interactive visualizations, predictive analytics, mobile access, export of analytics
reports, big data integration and storyboarding, ensuring this solution is a powerful
data visualizer. This solution offers one of the more affordable options, with a free
(but limited) version in addition to their basic package.

SelectHub BI Software Report 2019

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 Dundas BI Request Pricing / Demo

With the Dundas BI solution, users can get data ported to any device and connect
relational database, web services, Excel and other formats. Features for new
versions include data generators, new data transformation tools, scaling modes and

SelectHub BI Software Report 2019

quick filters. Dundas bills its product as offering fast, self-service BI and a choice of
on-the-fly or single-click in-memory analysis, as well as a leading data visualization
tool. Part of the appeal of this tool is its innovation in displaying aggregate data.

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 Sisense Request Pricing / Demo

The Sisense BI platform provides one of the most popular, and one of our top-rated,
all-in-one BI solutions. This solution offers a user-friendly interface, powerful data
visualization tools and interactive dashboards designed for quick and easy use.
Sisense also includes in-memory database tools and SQL server integration, so that
no matter where your data is, you can analyze it. Or rather, Sisense can analyze it.

SelectHub BI Software Report 2019

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 Information Builders Request Pricing / Demo
WebFOCUS BI

By fueling a proactive business culture, WebFOCUS BI from Information Builders

allows you to consistently make smarter choices. This product is a unique and
different BI because it allows not only your employees, but also your customers,
access to its platform. Your customers can have access to easy-to-use apps for
better organization and more informed business decisions. For added flexibility, this
platform can be deployed both on-premise and on the cloud.

SelectHub BI Software Report 2019

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 Oracle BI Request Pricing / Demo

Oracle BI is another top solution. While Oracle shares commonalities with QlikView, it
also boasts especially strong geospatial visualization capabilities, including advanced
mapping controls and fantastic dashboard integration. In addition, it performs

SelectHub BI Software Report 2019

exceptionally well when exporting analytics reports.

With Oracle BI, users can easily and intuitively interact with each other; view reports
online; and publish, send and schedule reports to a variety of outputs such as SMS.
While Oracle has limited benchmarking capability, its Scorecard and Strategy
Management features allow users to establish goals and measure their success over
a period of time, while also communicating progress and information to the entire
organization.

19
 SAP BusinessObjects Request Pricing / Demo

SAP BusinessObjects received a perfect score in Hadoop, exporting analytics

reports, mobile access and storyboarding, with strong performance in visual
querying, geospatial integration and interactive visualizations. However, its

SelectHub BI Software Report 2019

benchmarking capabilities are very limited, as is its ability to monitor regulatory
compliance. That said, it’s still a powerful analytics tool for finding game-changing
insights.

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 MicroStrategy Analytics Request Pricing / Demo

SelectHub BI Software Report 2019

For users who want a customized interface, the MicroStrategy Analytics platform may
be the right choice. Since the company is known for its excellent personalized
customer service, this is a good choice for companies and individuals new to BI
software. The platform provides helpful insights through customized dashboards and
powerful analytics tools.

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 SAS Business Intelligence Request Pricing / Demo

To get simple answers from complex data analysis, SAS Business Intelligence is a

SelectHub BI Software Report 2019

good platform choice. With fast processing and guided exploration, you can see a
clear picture of the information you need instantly. Learn to build better models with a
simple feature based on tested techniques, and put the models into service faster
without any headaches.

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BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE TOOLS

For Software Selection Assistance

Call: 855-850-3850
selecthub.com