bi survey 12 - microstrategy

The BI Survey is the Most Comprehensive Independent Survey

of the On-Line Analytical Processing and Business Intelligence Market

SUMMARY RESULTS FROMTHE BI SURVEY 12

THEBI SURVEY 12

This summary of the major result categories of The BI Survey 12 results was produced by MicroStrategy with full approval by BARC.

For more information about The BI Survey 12, please visit:

www.bi-survey.com

Overview of The BI Survey 12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Are The BI Survey 12 results consistent with the trends from the prior 10 years? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Are the differences between the mega-vendors and an independent

vendor like MicroStrategy significant? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

How important is product response time and performance? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

How should organizations select products? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

What should organizations look for in a product? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

The BI Document Summary Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

VENDOR RELATIONSHIP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Overall Satisfaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Vendor Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Implementer Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

BUSINESS VALUE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Business Benefit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Functional Usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11

Innovation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12

Mobile BI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13

Chosen As Standard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14

PRODUCT PERFORMANCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15

Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15

Query Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16

Data Volume . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17

Big Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18

Product Satisfaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19

Recommendation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21

TABLE OF CONTENTS

The BI Survey 12 – Summary Results

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OVERVIEW OF THE BI SURVEY 12

The BI Survey is the world’s most comprehensive independent survey of the business intelligence (BI) market space and

products and is conducted annually by the Business Application Research Center (BARC). The BI Survey 12 follows ten

successful editions of The BI Survey. It is important to note that this year the numbering of The BI Survey has changed so

that The Survey number now aligns with the year in which the data was collected.

The survey compiles real-world BI experiences of nearly 3,000 organizations from over 85 countries. The BI Survey 12

was conducted with the following geographic split: North America 24%, Europe 60%, and rest-of-world 16%. Survey

respondents were from a number of varied industries with the largest, as in past surveys, being represented by the

Manufacturing, Retail, and Service industries. Regarding company size, the median employee count was 955 with 52% of

respondent organizations having between 100 and 2,500 employees and 32% having more than 2,500.

The BI Surveys provide insight into actual BI implementation experiences as well as the usage patterns and technical

characteristics of the most popular BI products. The BI Surveys examine how companies choose their BI products, how

they use these products, and how successful they are with them. The Survey is also notable in that it takes on challenging

issues not covered by typical BI product reviews, such as barriers to wider deployments and factors leading to product

discontinuance. As a result, the Survey is uniquely positioned to detail BI purchasing and deployment best practices.

While other BI product surveys and analyst product reviews exist, they are largely based on the perceptions of the

reviewer and do not have the statistical rigor of The BI Survey. The BI Survey conclusions are solely based on statistical

analysis of information provided by respondents. This year, statistically-significant data was collected for 27 different BI

products. Each of these 27 BI products was analyzed across 30 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Products analyzed in

The BI Survey 12, listed in alphabetical order and including the number of responses per product, were: Arcplan (70),

Bissantz (61), BOARD (67), Cubeware (60), Cyberscience (74), Decisyon (30), Dimensional Insight (57), Evidanza (29), IBM

Cognos BI (71), IBM Cognos TM1 (39), Infor (68), Information Builders (44), Jedox (132), Microsoft Excel (47), Microsoft

SSAS (113), Microsoft SSRS (49), MicroStrategy (116), Oracle Essabase (29), Oracle OBIEE (50), Pentaho (37), Phocas

(156), QlikTech (169), SAP BO Webl (71), SAP BW (85), Tableau (76), TARGIT (62), Yellowfin (34) and Others (217).

This BI Survey 12 Summary, prepared by MicroStrategy, focuses on the six largest BI platform vendors, including

MicroStrategy, SAP BusinessObjects, SAP BW, Oracle BIEE, IBM Cognos, and Microsoft SSRS to make direct comparisons

within a like group of vendors typically considered for similar types of BI applications and to account for multiple product

offerings within a product suite.

The BI Survey is 100% independent of any BI vendor influence and is not commissioned, funded, suggested, or sponsored

by vendors in any way. Vendors have no input into the questions or into the analysis of Survey results. Therefore, business

intelligence consumers can be reassured that the survey accurately reflects real-world experiences of individuals in

companies like theirs and is free from vendor influence and author bias.

While The BI Survey 12 asked many of the same questions as in previous years to allow for year-over-year comparisons,

some KPIs have changed. These changes are indicated below as appropriate. All survey KPIs are based on the values

of the peer group being assessed, where each KPI is normalized so that each peer group product sample always has a

weighted average value of 1.0. Each KPI chart runs from the lowest performing product, at the bottom, to the highest

performing product at the top. KPIs above 1 are above the average of the entire vendor set and those below 1 are below

the average.


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Are The BI Survey 12 results consistent with the trends from the prior 10 years?

Though the results range widely between vendors, most of these findings are consistent with prior survey findings.

Interestingly, the same vendors which outperformed in The BI Survey 12 have outperformed in the market over the

previous ten years. Similarly, the set of vendors who did not generally perform well this year have also not fared well in

the past ten years of the survey.

Specifically, MicroStrategy has scored at, or been very close to, the top in Business Benefit, Vendor Support, Product

Quality/Satisfaction and across all Scalability and Performance categories for eleven years running. In contrast, SAP BO has

been at or near the bottom in these same categories over the same eleven-year timeframe.

Are the differences between the mega-vendors and an independent vendor like MicroStrategy significant?

Based on the survey results, significant differences exist between the mega-vendors and an independent vendor like

MicroStrategy. As an independent or “best-of-breed” vendor MicroStrategy is wholly focused on BI, optimized for open

system solutions and has been developed completely organically. Conglomerate or “mega-vendors” are vendors such as

SAP BO, IBM Cognos, Oracle and Microsoft that offer a full enterprise software stack and optimize their BI offerings for

their software stack and grow by acquisition.

This document will show that the mega-vendors often score lower than independent vendors like MicroStrategy.

Furthermore, MicroStrategy outperformed the conglomerate vendors in most key areas such as Business Benefit, Product

Quality, Support Quality, Query Performance and Recommendation among others.

How important is product response time and performance?

The BI Survey 12 looked closely at the impact of query performance and found, as in every year the survey has been

conducted, the most frequently-reported product problem continues to be poor query performance. If users have to wait

too long every time they run a query, they become frustrated and user adoption is poor. As expected, The BI Survey 12

also found that fast query performance continues to be amongst the most frequently cited selection criteria for software.

According to The BI Survey 12, “sites that used query performance as a selection criterion were more successful in

business terms than those that did not.”1 Organizations should prioritize query performance as a key criterion in their

vendor selection to maximize overall project success. As BARC says, “…besides ease-of-use for the report designer and

recipient, query performance is the most important single product-related criterion for choosing a [BI] product.”2 This

continues to remain equally valid in The BI Survey 12.

How should organizations select products?

The BI Survey 12 looked at the impact of multi-product competitive evaluations on project success. Once again, BI projects

based on a multi-product competitive evaluation and selection process achieve far more business benefits than those based

on a single product selection or no formal product evaluation. All of the eleven discrete business benefits tracked (see

Figure 6) improve when competitive, multi-product evaluations are performed. Vendors such as SAP BusinessObjects and

Oracle, which are selected most often for corporate reasons, such as product bundling, without a multi-product competitive

evaluation achieve low scores in all of the business benefit and project success areas analyzed.

1 BARC “The BI Survey 12 The Results” by Melanie Mack and Dr. Carsten Bange, January, 20122 BARC “The BI Survey 12 Best Practices” by Melanie Mack and Dr. Carsten Bange, January, 2012


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What should organizations look for in a product?

The BI Survey 12 found that organizations that used product-related selection criteria had more successful projects than

those that used vendor-related commercial factors. Most organizations choose a product for its capabilities rather than

the vendor for its name. According to The BI Survey 12, business benefits from BI tools in general were most affected by

fast performance, more accuracy, better business decisions, and improved data quality.

The BI Survey 12 shows there is a high correlation between product selection and business benefit achieved. In addition

to a general query on what business benefits are most important to gain from a BI tool, the same question was asked

of each respondent about the specific vendor they were using. MicroStrategy customers overwhelmingly purchase

MicroStrategy for the same BI benefits as those cited for BI tools in general; in addition customers also cited ease-of-use

and data and user scalability as purchasing reasons. In contrast, customers tend to purchase BO for corporate reasons, the

SAP name brand, and perceived integration with the SAP stack.

The BI Survey 12 Summary Results

This document evaluates MicroStrategy against a select group of peers. This peer group is a custom subset of products

from The BI Survey 12’s BI Giants peer group and represents the set of products that are typically considered for similar

types of enterprise BI applications. It consists of the following vendors: MicroStrategy, SAP BusinessObjects, IBM Cognos,

Oracle OBIEE, Microsoft SSRS, and SAP BW. The document evaluates the peer group across a number of the KPIs analyzed

in The BI Survey 12. The KPIs presented here are grouped into three critical areas to allow the reader to quickly assess how

the BI platform products perform in real-world deployments:

• Vendor Relationship

• Business Value

• Product Performance


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VENDOR RELATIONSHIP

Overall Satisfaction

This KPI, previously called Quality and Support, now referred to as Overall Satisfaction is an aggregate of product

satisfaction, vendor support, and implementer support. These KPIs are clearly related as each one affects the other two.

On this important KPI, MicroStrategy leads the pack with the second contender, Microsoft SSRS, behind by 16%. IBM

Cognos was behind by 42% and SAP BO behind by over 50%. Outperforming its peers by such a significant margin in

this KPI clearly illustrates that MicroStrategy offers a higher quality product with stronger support.

OVERALL SATISFACTION

MicroStrategy

Microsoft SSRS

SAP BW

IBM Cognos BI

SAP BO WebI

Oracle OBIEE

0.70 0.75 0.80 0.85 0.90 0.95 1.00 1.05 1.10 1.15 1.20

1.15

0.99

0.90

0.81

0.75

0.73

Source: The BI Survey 12 KPI Dashboard

Key: Normalized score relative to the weighted average of 1.0 for the BI Giants peer group; higher numbers indicate greater overall score.

Figure 1: Overall Satisfaction KPI for the Select Peer Group

Vendor Support

The level and depth of vendor support is becoming increasingly critical as BI becomes more integrated into organizations’

operations. Better product support often results in higher application success rates and helps to ensure customers get full

value from their BI investments. A consistent finding throughout the BI Surveys is that companies striving to maximize the

business benefits of a BI project should prioritize customer support quality as a key evaluation criterion.


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The BI Survey 12 found major differences in the accuracy and timeliness of a vendor’s product support as shown in Figure

2. MicroStrategy customers rated their overall product support quality nearly triple what SAP BO customers rated theirs.

VENDOR SUPPORT

MicroStrategy

Microsoft SSRS

SAP BW

IBM Cognos BI

Oracle OBIEE

SAP BO WebI

0.40 0.50 0.60 0.70 0.80 0.90 1.00 1.10 1.20 1.30 1.40

1.31

0.95

0.87

0.76

0.57

0.48



Figure 2: Vendor Support KPI for the Select Peer Group

As shown in Figure 3, MicroStrategy’s product support was rated “Excellent” more often than any other vendor in this

peer group and has been for seven years running. Nearly 90% of MicroStrategy customers rated vendor support as

“Excellent” or ”Generally acceptable”.

PRODUCT % OF RESPONDENTS WHO RECEIVED EXCELLENT PRODUCT SUPPORT

MICROSTRATEGY 32.4

MICROSOFT SSRS 14.6

SAP BW 8.1

SAP BO WEBI 5.1

IBM COGNOS BI 4.6

ORACLE OBIEE 2.3


Key: Higher numbers indicate a greater % of customers citing excellent product support.

Figure 3: Percent of Customers Who Received Excellent Product Support for the Select Peer Group


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The three mega vendors’ (Oracle, IBM and SAP) customers have traditionally been the least satisfied with the quality of

support. MicroStrategy speculates that low overall product support quality ratings for these vendors likely stems from

their strategy to acquire rather than to organically develop their products. Given the historically poorly rated support

of acquired technologies, it is likely that customers of all BI platforms resulting from large mergers will see continued

ongoing support challenges.

“Once again, MicroStrategy was the top performing BI vendor among their peer group when it comes to quality

and timeliness of product support,” said Dr. Carsten Bange, founder and CEO of BARC. “Among this group,

MicroStrategy had more top ratings for support and the fewest customers complaining of poor support. This could

be related to the stability and consistency of MicroStrategy’s products, which were all developed by one company

using a single architecture, rather than being assembled from multiple origins. MicroStrategy remains fully focused

on a single product line, unlike the large, general-purpose vendors who provide the least product support.”

Implementer Support

A smooth implementation is instrumental to BI project success. Implementations that do not deliver on their promised BI

benefits mar the overall quality and usability of a BI platform or application and decrease adoption rates, correspondingly

decreasing ROI. For this reason it is critical that any BI project implementation be strongly supported. For the KPI Implementer

Support, MicroStrategy received the highest score amongst its peers, indicating the vendor is a true partner during

implementations of its platform.

IMPLEMENTER SUPPORT

MicroStrategy

Microsoft SSRS

SAP BW

SAP BO WebI

IBM Cognos BI

Oracle OBIEE

0.60 0.65 0.70 0.75 0.80 0.85 0.90 0.95 1.00 1.05 1.10

1.01

0.92

0.91

0.85

0.73

0.65


Key: Normalized score relative to the weighted average of 1.0 for the BI Giants Peer Group; higher numbers indicate greater overall score.

Figure 4: Implementer Support KPI for the Select Peer Group


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BUSINESS VALUE

Business Benefit

The BI Survey 12 measured business benefit, or overall project success, by the Business Benefit Index (BBI), which is

comprised of eleven discrete revenue-generating and cost-saving benefits. Customers purchasing BI products can use this

index as a guide to BI platform selection and deployment decisions in order to maximize the business benefits from their

own projects. As Figure 5 illustrates, MicroStrategy customers are nearly 20% more likely to achieve business benefits

than the average amongst their peers, 30% higher than Oracle OBIEE users and 37% higher than SAP BO users.

BUSINESS BENEFIT

MicroStrategy

Microsoft SSRS

IBM Cognos BI

SAP BW

Oracle OBIEE

SAP BO WebI

0.75 0.80 0.85 0.90 0.95 1.00 1.05 1.10

1.08

1.01

0.89

0.84

0.81

0.79



Figure 5: Business Benefit KPI for the Select Peer Group

The increasingly high business benefit that MicroStrategy customers experience can be attributed to the fact that

MicroStrategy customers most often exhibit the following revenue-generating and cost-saving benefits:

Faster Speed and Increased User Adoption – MicroStrategy ranked second in the BBI subcomponent Faster Reporting,

Analysis, and Planning. It has been shown that slow query performance hampers user adoption and sharply limits the

benefits that accrue from implementing a BI tool.

Improved Business Results – Ranking first in both BBI components Increased Revenues and Better Business Decisions is

testimony to MicroStrategy’s benefit to the business. Any tool that increases revenue and enables better decision making

is a worthwhile investment.


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Improved Satisfaction – MicroStrategy ranked first in both Improved Employee and Improved Customer Satisfaction.

Satisfied users lead to higher adoption rates and overall usage of the BI platform, translating into a higher ROI.

Efficiency – MicroStrategy is shown to require less overhead and reduce costs. In the peer group, MicroStrategy had the

highest or second highest scores in the following BBI components: Reduced External IT Costs, Saved IT Headcount, Saved

Business Headcount, and Saved Other Non-IT Costs.

To summarize, as seen in Figure 6, MicroStrategy ranked #1 in eight of the eleven business benefits measured: Better

Business Decisions, Improved Customer Satisfaction, Improved Data Quality, Improved Employee Satisfaction, Increased

Revenues, More Accurate Reporting, Analysis or Planning, Saved IT Headcount, Saved Business Headcount, and Saved

Other Non-IT Costs. MicroStrategy ranked #2 in three of the eleven business benefits: Faster Reporting, Analysis or

Planning, Reduced External IT costs, and Saved Other Non-IT Costs.

For the tenth consecutive year, customers of SAP Business Objects and Oracle OBIEE reported far below-average Business

Benefit scores, likely stemming from their non-integrated product lines that result in poor query response times and

increased end user training and deployment times. MicroStrategy scored better than SAP BO and Cognos in each of the

eleven business benefit criteria.

MicroStrategyMicrosoft

SSRSIBM Cognos BI SAP BW Oracle OBIEE SAP BO WebI

Better Business Decisions 6.88 6.10 5.66 5.91 5.40 5.24

Faster reporting, analysis or planning 7.37 7.67 6.68 6.46 6.08 6.28

Improved Customer Satisfaction 5.39 5.33 4.52 3.95 3.74 4.54

Improved Data Quality 5.89 5.51 5.04 5.49 4.40 4.25

Improved Employee Satisfaction 5.34 5.02 5.01 4.04 4.32 4.45

Increased Revenues 3.03 2.76 2.69 1.91 2.86 1.62

More Accurate Reporting, Analysis or Planning

6.99 6.63 6.46 6.19 5.82 5.83

Reduced External IT Costs 2.89 3.96 1.80 1.68 2.44 1.92

Saved Business Headcount 2.31 .98 1.15 1.25 1.30 .93

Saved IT Headcount 2.30 .71 .49 .74 .42 .48

Saved Other Non-IT Costs 2.18 2.37 1.83 1.42 1.16 1.10

BBI 4.56 4.28 3.76 3.55 3.45 3.33

Source: Business Benefits from The BI Survey 12

Figure 6: Business Benefit Index for the Select Peer Group


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“For the tenth consecutive year, customers have rated MicroStrategy highly in attaining business benefits as

measured across a spectrum of important revenue-generating and cost-saving criteria,” said Dr. Carsten Bange,

founder and CEO of BARC. He also noted, “The fact that MicroStrategy customers have the largest and most

successful BI applications, as measured by the business benefit criteria we evaluated, confirms MicroStrategy’s

high functionality and strong suitability for highly scalable and highly performant Web deployments – key drivers

in delivering tangible business value.”

Functional Usage

Product Features and Functionality was the number one survey response when customers were asked to list their top

three selection criteria for purchasing a BI product, as opposed to price or other criteria. Once the functionality and

feature set were comparable then the other criteria came into play. The Functional Usage KPI measures the number of

different tasks that can be performed by a BI tool – or breadth of usage. The BI Survey asked respondents for which

tasks they used the tool and BARC totaled the number of tasks to arrive at this KPI. Although this proxy for breadth

of usage has less range between the members of the peer group, MicroStrategy is the clear leader. These results may

not necessarily depict the true extent of breadth of use per tool because a tool used infrequently for a given type of

functionality versus one used more frequently for the same functionality should have a correspondingly lower level of

usage for that functionality.

FUNCTIONAL USAGE

MicroStrategy

SAP BW

IBM Cognos BI

Oracle OBIEE

SAP BO WebI

Microsoft SSRS

0.75 0.80 0.85 0.90 0.95 1.00 1.05

1.01

0.99

0.95

0.89

0.88

0.77



Figure 7: Functional Usage KPI for the Select Peer Group


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“MicroStrategy not only has more than the required functionality and features for a BI platform, but they

continue to be on the forefront of innovation from year to year, always early to add the newest functionality.”

said Dr. Carsten Bange.

Dr. Bange added, “In my view, MicroStrategy’s consistent success on The BI Survey is due to their focus on

continuing to broaden and improve its BI platform and the fact that MicroStrategy has resisted the temptation

to build a technology portfolio through acquisitions.”

Innovation

Innovation is an aggregate KPI comprised of the following root KPIs: Cloud BI, Collaboration, Mobile BI and Visual

Analysis. The BI Survey 12 asked respondents whether they are using the above technologies or functionality as provided

by their vendors. As seen in Figure 8 below, respondents are choosing MicroStrategy for these new technologies far

more frequently than its peers. MicroStrategy rated 50% more innovative than the average of this peer group, 70%

more innovative than Cognos, and 160% more innovative than SAP BO.

INNOVATION

MicroStrategy

Oracle OBIEE

SAP BW

IBM Cognos BI

Microsoft SSRS

SAP BO WebI

0.40 0.50 0.60 0.70 0.80 0.90 1.00 1.10 1.20

1.14

1.00

0.68

0.67

0.48

0.44



Figure 8: Innovation KPI for the Select Peer Group


| 13

MOBILE BI

MicroStrategy

Oracle OBIEE

SAP BW

SAP BO WebI

IBM Cognos BI

Microsoft SSRS

0.00 0.50 1.00 1.50 2.00 2.50

2.16

1.03

0.69

0.42

0.31

0.15

Mobile BI

Although it is included in the aggregate KPI Overall Innovation discussed above, MicroStrategy’s performance in the

Mobile BI KPI deserves separate mention. Mobile BI measures whether a BI product is being used for mobile BI

functionality in the respondent’s company. As can be seen in Figure 9 below, MicroStrategy scored 116% higher than the

average, over 400% better than SAP BO, and 600% better than IBM Cognos. These results for Mobile BI were not just

amongst this peer group, but for the entire survey, where MicroStrategy ranked first in Mobile BI even when compared

with specialist companies and Mobile focused start-ups. According to analysts like Gartner and BARC, Mobile BI is one of

the more important trends in BI. As BARC testifies, “Our experience in the field is that mobile BI is strongly demanded by

customers and commonly used in the early stages of a software selection process.”3

Mobile applications, as opposed to mobile browsers, deliver the full native functionality of the mobile device, which

creates a much richer user experience. MicroStrategy’s mobile product is a full mobile enterprise application development

platform. BI is just the starting point as MicroStrategy also enables transactions and rich multimedia. Integrating

transaction capabilities into mobile applications enables the user to close the loop by immediately acting upon the BI they

analyze. For example, a user seeing low inventory levels in the application can immediately click on a button and

seamlessly order new inventory, all within the application. Rich multimedia enables the embedding of videos, eBooks, PDF

documents, games, and other media directly into the BI app for a fully integrated experience, ensuring users never have

to leave the application.

“Mobile is a clear example of MicroStrategy’s innovation and tendency to be on the forefront of offering new BI

functionality based on leading-edge technologies” said Dr. Carsten Bange.

3 BARC “The BI Survey 12 – The Results” by BARC, January



Figure 9: Mobile BI KPI for the Select Peer Group


14 |

Chosen as Standard

This KPI measures how often the product is chosen to standardize on by respondents in multi-product sites. In previous

BI Surveys this KPI had been called On-Site Competitiveness and Prevalence Rates in Multi-Product Sites. A high rating

in this KPI speaks volumes as a platform requires some key qualities to be selected as a standard: functionality, usability,

reliability, performance, vendor support, and others. MicroStrategy is first in this KPI, where all of the peer group vendor

scores were quite close.

CHOSEN AS STANDARD

MicroStrategy

SAP BW

Oracle OBIEE

SAP BO WebI

Microsoft SSRS

IBM Cognos BI

0.85 0.90 0.95 1.00 1.05 1.10

1.07

1.06

1.03

1.03

1.02

0.88



Figure 10: Chosen as Standard for the Select Peer Group


| 15

PRODUCT PERFORMANCE

Performance

According to BARC, overall performance is critical to the success of a BI deployment. BARC states, “Fast performance is

more important than most people realize. You can work around missing features and even bugs, but nothing can disguise

an application that is painfully slow.” BARC then calls Performance the most important technical KPI.4

In The BI Survey 12, the Performance KPI is comprised of two root KPIs: Query Performance and Performance Satisfaction.

The Query Performance KPI analyzes typical query response times and normalizes it by the single biggest variable impacting

performance, the widely varying differences in the amount of data organizations analyze. The Performance Satisfaction KPI

scores the number of query performance complaints. These two KPIs will be discussed in more detail.

As shown in Figure 11, MicroStrategy scored nearly 60% better than the average, 75% better than IBM Cognos, and 165%

better than SAP BO.

PERFORMANCE

MicroStrategy

SAP BW

Oracle OBIEE

IBM Cognos BI

SAP BO WebI

Microsoft SSRS

0.70 0.90 1.10 1.30 1.50 1.70 1.90 2.10

2.04

1.76

1.49

1.17

0.77

0.75



Figure 11: Performance KPI for the Select Peer Group

4 BARC “The BI Survey 10 Best Practices” by Melanie Mack and Bernie Finucane, January, 2012


16 |

Query Performance

Throughout the prior ten years The BI Survey has been administered, query performance has been found to be of utmost

importance to survey respondents. This has not changed in The BI Survey 2012. According to BARC, besides ease of

use for the report designer and recipient, query performance is the “most important single product-related criterion for

choosing a product” and cites that companies that used this as a selection criterion were more successful in business

terms than those that did not. Yet survey data shows that most organizations do not thoroughly evaluate performance

during the product selection stage by benchmarking against real-world customer experiences. 5

As Figure 12 shows, when Query Performance is adjusted for data volumes, MicroStrategy has the highest performance

of any product suite at over 200% the weighted average of all products in the survey. MicroStrategy performed more

than 100% better than IBM Cognos and more than 500% better than SAP BO.

QUERY PERFORMANCE

MicroStrategy

SAP BW

Oracle OBIEE

IBM Cognos BI

SAP BO WebI

Microsoft SSRS

0.30 0.80 1.30 1.80 2.30 2.80 3.30

3.09

2.92

1.95

1.51

0.50

0.34


Key: Normalized score relative to the weighted average of 1.0 for the BI Giants peer Group; higher numbers indicate greater overall score.

Figure 12: Query Performance KPI Adjusted For Data Volumes for the Select Peer Group

“It is particularly impressive that MicroStrategy’s query performance, as measured by a number of KPIs, but

particularly when accounting for data volumes, has scored extremely well each year The BI Survey has been

conducted,” said Dr. Carsten Bange. “Their continued focus on performance throughout their platform, such as

on their In-Memory ROLAP, seems to be successful.”

MicroStrategy’s In-memory ROLAP technology uses the multi-gigabytes of memory space available in 64-bit servers as

“multi-dimensional memory” in which both data and calculations can reside as multi-dimensional datasets called ROLAP

cubes. MicroStrategy reports and dashboards automatically direct their queries to in-memory ROLAP cubes whenever

5 BARC “The BI Survey 12 – The Results” by BARC, January, 2012


| 17

possible to take advantage of the much faster query performance available with in-memory data as compared to

database-resident storage. If the analysis cannot be satisfied from an in-memory ROLAP cube, MicroStrategy’s Analytical

Engine automatically and dynamically directs queries to the underlying data source using highly optimized SQL.

However, even without the use of In-Memory computing, MicroStrategy’s ROLAP engine has optimized SQL generation

that dramatically enhances performance. The engine is programmed to create unique queries for all major databases

that specifically tap into and take advantage of the strengths and unique SQL variations of those databases. The

engine pushes as much computing as possible down to the databases, minimizing the volume of data sent back over

the network thus increasing the speed of queries. Additional design features like multi-pass SQL and temp tables raise

performance to another level.

Data Volume

Increasing information intensity and, in particular, the desire to electronically capture and store every business transaction,

has made the multi-terabyte-sized data warehouse more common. While analysis of summary data is often a launching

point for understanding business trends, organizations need to view transaction-level detail to discover anomalies,

exceptions, and trends that pre-defined aggregations can obscure.

For the eleventh consecutive year, MicroStrategy customers indicated that they, by far, analyzed the largest volumes

of data – a median of 580 GB in this latest Survey compared to a median of 28 GB overall. At the high end, 39% of

MicroStrategy customers analyze over 1 TB versus an average of 11% for all other customers. As Figure 13 shows,

MicroStrategy customers analyze median data volumes that are 145% larger than IBM Cognos customers, 158% larger

than Oracle BIEE customers, and 2278% larger than Microsoft customers.

DATA VOLUME

MicroStrategy

SAP BW

IBM Cognos BI

Oracle OBIEE

SAP BO WebI

Microsoft SSRS

0.30 1.30 2.30 3.30 4.30 5.30 6.30 7.30 8.30 9.30

9.07

6.52

3.70

3.52

1.76

0.38



Figure 13: Data Volume KPI for the Select Peer Group


18 |

“For the eleventh consecutive year, MicroStrategy sites have reported the largest data volumes of all regardless

of peer group with a substantial gap between MicroStrategy and the second-place product,” said Dr. Carsten

Bange He added “Many of MicroStrategy’s customers are implementing transaction-level BI databases resulting

in extremely large data warehouses. MicroStrategy continues to be the clear leader in handling large data

volumes in the enterprise-scale BI segment.”

Cube-based OLAP products, such as those employed by some of the Microsoft and Cognos products, inherently limit the

level of detail that can be analyzed as their speed is based on their data being pre-aggregated. These products are optimized

for analysis of summary-level or small volumes of data, but are not suitable for the more valuable, transaction-level BI

applications. In contrast, MicroStrategy’s proprietary Relational OLAP (ROLAP) technology allows interactive analysis of

multiple terabyte-sized data warehouses, including hundreds of TBs – and at the speed of thought so analyses feel natural.

Big Data

This is an aggregate KPI comprised of the KPIs Data Volume and Variety of Data Types. MicroStrategy scored 110% higher

than Oracle OBIEE, 268% higher than SAP BO, and 609% higher than Microsoft SSRS.

BIG DATA

MicroStrategy

SAP BW

IBM Cognos BI

Oracle OBIEE

SAP BO WebI

Microsoft SSRS

0.50 1.00 1.50 2.00 2.50 3.00 3.50 4.00 4.50 5.00

4.96

3.75

2.35

2.32

1.35

0.70



Figure 14: Big Data KPI for the Select Peer Group

MicroStrategy’s high score on this KPI is testament to two key aspects of the company’s DNA: performance at scale (large

data volumes) and innovation. MicroStrategy’s capabilities with large data volumes have been discussed previously. Although


| 19

Big Data does not necessarily require Hadoop it is often associated with Hadoop. MicroStrategy has made a substantial

investment to address the innovation being done around Hadoop, including its own. The company has connectors to all

the various Hadoop distributions. Hive is an open source data warehouse capability built to provide some structure on top

of Hadoop. MicroStrategy has built a Hive query engine, akin to its SQL query engine, enabling MicroStrategy users to

seamlessly query those Hadoop implementations with Hive built on top of them. Improving upon Hive, leading Hadoop

vendor Cloudera, built their own data warehousing tool called Impala on top of the Cloudera distribution. MicroStrategy has

developed a real time query engine for Cloudera’s Impala.

Product Satisfaction

The Product Satisfaction KPI measures product problems. As this is a negative measure, the KPI is lower with a larger

number of problems and increases as the number of problems decreases. MicroStrategy’s lead in product satisfaction is

clear from Figure 15. MicroStrategy’s Product Satisfaction score is 20% better then IBM Cognos and nearly 30% better

then SAP BO.

The MicroStrategy platform has been organically designed and built from the ground up with no part of it having been

acquired externally. It’s one of the most unified and organic BI platforms in the market. The result is a higher level of quality.

In contrast, mega-vendor BI platforms like Oracle OBIEE, IBM Cognos, and SAP BO have been cobbled together from

numerous acquisitions. Users see substantial differences in quality between products organically designed and developed by

a single company and products that are the result of numerous acquisitions, some of which cause redundancy and others

that just add complexity.

PRODUCTION SATISFACTION

MicroStrategy

Microsoft SSRS

Oracle OBIEE

IBM Cognos BI

SAP BW

SAP BO WebI

0.80 0.85 0.90 0.95 1.00 1.05 1.10 1.15

1.14

1.09

0.97

0.94

0.91

0.90


Key: Normalized score relative to the weighted average of 1.0 for the BI Giants peer group; higher numbers indicate greater overall score

Figure 15: Production Satisfaction KPI for the Select Peer Group


20 |

Recommendation

This KPI measures whether existing customers would recommend MicroStrategy. In previous BI Surveys, this KPI was referred

to as Plans for More Licenses. This customer loyalty measure is the basis for the famous Net Promoter Score, which has

become one of the most important measures of customer satisfaction and marketing success in the past ten years. If a

customer is willing to recommend a product, it testifies to their high level of satisfaction and even the mindshare of the

brand. It might be possible to summarize the result of the entire BI Survey down to just this one KPI. On this all important

measure, MicroStrategy came in first amongst its peer group, scoring 11% better than the average and 25% better than

SAP BO.

RECOMMENDATION

MicroStrategy

Microsoft SSRS

Oracle OBIEE

IBM Cognos BI

SAP BO WebI

SAP BW

0.80 0.85 0.90 0.95 1.00 1.05 1.10

1.06

1.02

0.96

0.95

0.88

0.85


Key: Normalized score relative to the weighted average of 1.0 for the BI Giants peer group; higher numbers indicate greater overall score

Figure 16: Recommendation KPI for the Select Peer Group


| 21

CONCLUSION

The BI Survey 12, the leading independent survey of real-world BI implementations provides unique, statistically significant

insight into actual BI implementations and customer experiences with various BI products. The results of the survey

provide an important guide to the product capabilities and support that users can expect from the various vendors. Survey

respondents are both critical and candid in their assessments. Since the choice of a BI product has a significant impact on

overall BI project success, it is recommended that meaningful product evaluations, starting with a close review of the product

benchmarks in The BI Survey 12, should be conducted when embarking on new BI projects.

Notable in The BI Survey 12 results are the widely varying customer experiences and product results among the BI products.

Some of the many categories in which clear vendor trends have emerged over the past ten years include:

• Overall Satisfaction

• Vendor Support

• Business Benefit

• Functional Usage (Features or Bought for Features)

• Innovation

• Mobile BI

• Chosen as a Standard

• Performance

• Query Performance

• Data Volume

• Product Satisfaction

• Recommendation (Plans for More Licenses)

In the above categories, for the select peer group, MicroStrategy has consistently been a leader, sometimes by a wide

margin, in the eleven years The BI Survey has been conducted. Furthermore, in categories such as Query Performance,

Mobile BI, and Functional Usage (Bought for Features), the gap between MicroStrategy’s leadership position and the

positions of the other vendors continues to grow at an increasing rate.

“MicroStrategy’s consistently strong performance in The BI Survey is indicative of their focus on continuing to

broaden and improve its BI platform and the fact that MicroStrategy has resisted the temptation to build a

technology portfolio through acquisitions. Vendors with less focus on their core BI offering who have branched

out to ancillary BI areas, such as ETL, data quality, and financial applications, are increasingly finding that their

customer base is deterred from broader deployments because of the complexity of the resulting portfolio.”

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