Ease Of Use Named The #1 Priority For Advanced Analytics Software Buyers

PRESS RELEASE – WÜRZBURG, March 20th, 2019
The Business Application Research Center (BARC) publishes “The Advanced Analytics Survey 19”, the results of a global survey into the selection and use of advanced analytics, data discovery and data preparation software.

Ease of use is the top buying criterion for companies evaluating advanced analytics software, according to new research from BARC. 52% of companies responding to BARC’s recent survey cited ease of use for data scientists as a reason for choosing their software while 51% were swayed by ease of use for business analysts. Other important considerations for software buyers are coverage of specific requirements (46%), code-free environment (39%) and performance (36%). Buyers are much less concerned about their software’s data governance features and concept (12%).

Advanced Analytics Survey 19 press release Figure 1

Figure 1: Why did you choose your current software?

“Analytics software users are a diverse group, ranging from highly technical data scientists and machine learning engineers working on data analytics to business analysts focusing more on visual analysis and data exploration. This latter group – which has a preference for visual user interfaces rather than coding – is growing in importance”, said Sebastian Derwisch, BARC analyst and co-author of the report. “As a result, software vendors are striving to provide code-free user interfaces and user guidance to make analytics as accessible as possible to users in the line of business.”

Benefits of open source vs. commercial software

The levels of benefits achieved by open source users and commercial software users are generally comparable but with some notable exceptions. 48% of users of commercial analytics software achieve increased transparency of data usage to a high degree while the corresponding figure in the open source community is only 36%. Increased employee satisfaction is also felt more acutely among commercial software users.

A reduction in costs is only achieved to a high degree by a third of open source users. “Considering that open source software comes for free, it is surprising that reduced costs are not achieved more frequently”, commented Derwisch. “This would indicate that the operation and maintenance of open source software may require extra effort. Another explanation could be that data scientists skilled in open source languages are thin on the ground and cost more to employ.”

Advanced Analytics Survey 19 press release Figure 2

Figure 2: To what level have you achieved the following benefits with your open source software?

Advanced Analytics Survey 19 press release Figure 3

Figure 3: To what level have you achieved the following benefits with your commercial software?

Open source strong on functionality, commercial software has the edge in other areas

71% of open source users rate their data preparation, visualization and machine learning functionality as excellent. This is significantly higher than the 35% of respondents who say the same of their commercial products. However, commercial software has the edge when it comes to governance, user guidance and collaboration. Only 52% of open source users rank their governance capabilities as excellent or good, compared to 69% of users of commercial products, and the corresponding figures for on-screen user guidance are 50% (open source) versus 79% (commercial).

Advanced Analytics Survey 19 press release Figure 4

Figure 4: Customer satisfaction with functionality of open source advanced analytics products

Advanced Analytics Survey 19 press release Figure 5

Figure 5: Customer satisfaction with functionality of commercial advanced analytics products

About The Advanced Analytics Survey 19

The Advanced Analytics Survey 19 is a new BARC research study focused on the advanced analytics, data discovery and data preparation software tools market. It is primarily based on a survey of 677 software users and consultants worldwide, and provides a wealth of feedback on software selection and usage patterns as well as comparative analysis of ten of the leading advanced analytics solutions on the market today. Click here for further information.

About BARC – Business Application Research Center – a teknowlogy Group company

The Business Application Research Center (BARC) is an enterprise software analyst and consulting firm with a focus on Analytics/Business Intelligence (BI), Data Management, Enterprise Content Management (ECM), Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). Along with Ardour, Le CXP and PAC, BARC forms part of teknowlogy Group – the leading independent European research and consulting firm in the fields of digital transformation, software and IT services with a network of 155 experts in eight countries.

For further information or media enquiries, please contact:

Nikolai Janoschek
Head of Market Research
Phone: +49 (0) 931 880651-0
Email: njanoschek@barc.de