Posted by Ciara Conifrey on Mon, Apr 22, 2013 @ 08:59 AM
Business intelligence came into the marketplace over twenty years ago as a tool for aiding decision-making. Originally it was the domain of analysts and board-level executives. However in recent years it has slowly evolved into a much more egalitarian mechanism as companies and organisations have come to realise that decision-makers at all levels and in all departments need access to timely and relevant business information.
We all know that the job of a manager is to manage in addition to making decisions. At best, we hope that these decisions are well-informed. But these judgements are only as good as the information that is available to business managers at the time. Most managers are engaged in some aspect of decision making on a daily basis: either exchanging information, reviewing data, brainstorming, implementing directives, and following up. At times they may struggle to make decisions especially when the data is disparately dispersed across a multitude of internal company systems, ranging from various databases, CRM systems, and applications like excel etc. However, it is crucial that managers at all levels are involved in the role of decision maker.
The act of decision making though can be hindered when companies are not using any formal BI tool to assist with the analysis of their data. In most cases, business people are familiar with excel and rely on it heavily to help them make crucial business decisions. But it is well known to be prone to error, resulting in different versions of the truth, depending on who within the organisation is inputting the data. In fact close to 90% of excel spread-sheets are prone to error within organisations.
Due to the fact that most company systems do not provide data in a dynamic format (which QlikView does) it has a hindering effect on decision making, as it slows down the decision making process greatly. In the majority of cases, companies do not have one system in place in order to comprehensively analyse all of this collective data in a systemised format to assist or aid with the decision making process. This is where businesses are failing to capture deeply insightful information about their business.
Defining Decision Styles
Wikipedia defines decision making as “the mental processes (cognitive process) resulting in the selection of a course of action among several alternative scenarios. Every decision making process produces a final choice. The output can be an action or an opinion of choice.”
In fact, decision styles are known to differ in two fundamental ways; how information is used and how options are created. When it comes to information use, some people want to ponder over piles and piles of data before they come to any form of decision. These people are known as “maximizers.” They can’t rest until they are certain they have found the very best answer. Now this is where QlikView really can help this kind of decision maker. As a BI platform QlikView enhances business discovery with its in-memory approach and associative analysis, aiding the more ‘self-service’ approach to reporting and analysis. As a result, non-technical executives can combine previously disconnected information for a complete view and analysis on the fly – and this is all without help from the IT department! QlikView will provide this decision maker with a well-informed decision, and it won’t cost in terms of time and efficiency either.
QlikView is an absolute necessity for executives who are operating at a more senior level. In order to see how this BI tool can assist decision makers it is helpful to review the different decision making styles in order to capture how the different personalities can utilise it to the utmost according to their style of decision making.
The Different Styles of Decision Making
Decisive: People using the decisive style value action, speed, and efficiency. These very words describe the QlikView platform, which is the fastest most intuitive BI tool in the marketplace today. Put QlikView into the hands of the decisive decision maker and it won't be long before they see the results they are looking for.
Flexible: Like the decisive style, the flexible style focuses upon speed, but the emphasis is more focused on adaptability. QlikView is ideal for this type of decision maker as it facilitates quick business discovery given that the application is a dynamic and intuitive tool – the more you drill into the data, the more you discover.
Hierarchic: People in the hierarchic style do not rush when it comes to making decisions. Instead, they analyse a huge amount of information whilst also expecting their subordinates and team colleagues to contribute. QlikView would be ideal for this kind of decision maker as it facilitates note sharing within the application, so he/she can share and make notes on the data to other team-members and they can review and reply.
In conclusion, QlikView as a business intelligence tool helps decision makers do one fundamental thing – make an informed and timely decision. This is not to be taken for granted as many people in top positions in corporations and organisations across the world often struggle to do just that. For further information on QlikView, speak to Covali the dedicated QlikView specialists. Not knowing about QlikView and all it's inherent benefits actually inhibits your decision making style. Be proative by calling Covali today on +353 1 2939302 or +44 207 5588 029.
Posted by Ciara Conifrey on Wed, Mar 27, 2013 @ 09:34 AM
They say a picture paints a thousand words. How true this maxim is! Take a look at the graph below taken from Google trends. The companies being analysed are IBM (blue), Business Objects (red) and QlikView (yellow). This graph demonstrates how QlikView has garnered interest slowly but steadily in the marketplace. It is forever on an upward trajectory incline unlike its competitors who are now showing a decline in interest from business consumer’s year on year. In ten short years the chart shows us that QlikView is building momentum as it is trending more and more as time goes on.
This demonstrates that the word has got out into the marketplace and decision makers and IT management have realised the strength and depth this business intelligence platform brings. It is fair to say that QlikView is a serious and significant player in the business intelligence market and is without doubt the go-to business intelligence tool for decision makers. As a company QlikTech was only founded in Sweden in 1993. So their incline and foothold in the marketplace within a short period of twenty years is nothing short of impressive. As a company they have more than 27,000 customers in 100 countries, and are quoted on the stock exchange as Qlik. These statistics are impressive.
A lot changes in the business technology world, and it changes fast! Ten years ago the likes of IBM (blue) and Business Objects (red) were the companies to go to when you wanted to analyse your data. It’s a lot different today, as QlikTech is rated one of America’s 25 fastest-growing tech companies, alongside Apple and LinkedIn. Their success has been nothing short of impressive.
The majority of companies are now finding they are struggling to make sense out of all their data. So it is critical that they develop a process whereby they have set procedures/processes in place to collect and analyse insights from their ERP systems and CRM systems. Data as we all know comes in different sizes, varieties and formats which for obvious reasons cannot be easily collated or compared. This is what is known as ‘big data’. The solution to Big data is intuitive business discovery software – step in QlikView. The great thing about the QlikView bi model is that it makes data associative, creating easily-understandable visual relationships across multiple, complex data sources. It’s also mobile, social and collaborative.
So why the steady incline for QlikView in comparison to the downward trajectory of its competitors? What company wants to spend months implementing a costly BI model? Not many and this is where QlikView stands head and shoulders over its competitors. Apart from being a lot cheaper – it is also a much quicker solution to implement. This reminds me of Microsoft when they were THE major power player in the IT software market. Alas, things change – they are not longer the trailblazer they used to be. The hotshots in this world today are now the likes of Google, eBay, and Amazon. So for those looking to implement a business intelligence solution I would hasten to digress that the player in the market is qlikview. If you don’t take my word for it, you only have to glance at the chart again and take confidence in the upward trend that qlikview is demonstrating. Qlikview are the significant game-changers to look out for.
The great thing about QlikView is that it can be up and running in no time – so call Covali today on +353 1 2939302 for further information.
Posted by Ciara Conifrey on Mon, Mar 11, 2013 @ 07:45 AM
So we are hearing a lot about Big Data these days. So in what context is it relevant to you – you may be wondering? Well Big Data is about the 3V’s – Volume, Velocity, and Variety. It is basically where so much data is being collected and at such a pace that it overwhelms traditional databases (think SQL, Oracle). As a result, it requires another way to manage it. A higher-performance but a much more costly way to store and analyse data is by putting it in an enterprise data warehouse (EDW) such as Teradata. The downside is that these warehouses do not come with end-user analytic tools. So this is where QlikView comes into play as it allows business user’s access to Big Data plus other data found in spread sheets or traditional databases. QlikView combines them into one view for meaningful analysis and data discovery. When there is lots of data, it’s even more important that the analytic tool is simple and helps to simplify the decision making process. QlikView is very intuitive – and business users’ love that it is so easy to use.
Most vendors today are focused solely on processing the massive volumes of Big Data. This is an important problem area to solve. But they are not focused on the last part—on giving everyday business users access to the relevant parts of that data and enabling them to derive insights from it. When QlikView is used for analysis of Big Data, customers can apply procedures like loop and reduce, document chaining, and QVDs (QlikView data files) to 1) put just the most relevant data in the hands of business users, and 2) meld the Big Data with other data sources (e.g., CRM systems, ERP systems, local spread sheets, cloud data sources, etc.) to provide context.
The challenges of ordinary BI are exacerbated by the volume, velocity, and variety of Big Data. Deriving the types of business value McKinsey describes taking Big Data the last mile into the hands of business users. The question is: how do you deliver data services to the people who need it? How do you empower business users with self-service and give them an excellent experience that will keep them coming back for more? How do you enable them to explore the data on their own and in groups to discover insights? To make discoveries that helps them innovate? How do you help them simplify decision making, and turn decisions into action? The simple answer to all of the above is – QlikView, which facilitates all of the above.
Business Discovery is a whole new way of doing things as it focuses on the business user and the groups and organizations they exist in, rather than the top-down approach of traditional BI. QlikView takes an approach that provides information and analysis precisely focused on the business problems business users are trying to solve. It’s also about helping users share knowledge and analysis across individuals, groups and organizations. QlikView is based on an App Model, they're easy to create and quick to deploy for specific people and groups that require them.
| QlikView is remixable, meaning users remix and reassemble data in new views and create new visualizations on the fly for deeper understanding, allowing individuals to constantly shift the analysis to meet their new and changing business requirements. Social and collaborative capabilities are another hallmark. Decisions are rarely made in a vacuum or based on a single dashboard or report as they’re often made collaboratively in groups and meetings. A significant benefit of QlikView is that it enables collaborative decision-making through social business discovery. It empowers companies and organizations to create a community of users who co-create apps, communicate with each other in context of their decision apps, and explore business data collaboratively, to drive knowledge that can cascade across an organization. QlikView also offers total mobility for its users as it can be viewed or delivered anywhere or anytime, whether it is an iPad, iPhone, laptop or desktop. |
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Download the whitepaper Big Data for Big Insustries or Call Covali today on +353 12939302 or +44 207 5588 029 to book a demo.
Posted by Ciara Conifrey on Mon, Mar 04, 2013 @ 05:45 AM
3 March 2013 by Leslie Faughnan - Sunday Business Post
Medium-size businesses with a number of years' history, as well as customer data to draw on, are the target market for Covali, the Business Intelligence (BI) specialist which works with QlikView on-site software and the rapidly growing GoodData cloud analytics service provider. "We work directly with clients and also with partners which are providing tailored BI solutions to their clients," said Paddy Moore, Covali chief technology officer.
"Smart BI systems today are neither magic nor mystery. They are in the straight line of constantly developing business reporting tools, from Enterprise Information Systems a generation ago, to today's mobile dashboards. The key benefits are the performance of the analytics that underpin them and the flexibility and speed with which they can deliver usable results, even to casual or at least non-specialist users."
Some of the hype about real time and on-the-fly analysis can be misleading for general business, Moore said. "Top-level performance is indeed superb today and there are technologies such as in-memory computing that can operate in fractions of seconds. But most medium- size businesses simply do not need that.
"Your pace of data should match your pace of management, we believe. In other words, your real world need. So the board level, the C-suite needs its information feed at a certain speed - perhaps the financial director more often and faster than the CEO," Moore said. "Further down the ranks, some of the front-facing guys in sales or service or logistics might need updates in terms of minutes. Their events are much more frequent and the BI has to be demand driven by them as key users."
Field service networks are a good example, according to Moore, because very often today, they will involve third-party contractors and service providers in fulfilling the business SLAs with the customer base. "Managing the information for several tiers of people at different levels of relationships with your customers is a great business case for smart BI. Each gets the right information pushed out or drawn down immediately as required, but limited to the specific remit and responsibility.
"This is certainly where apps on smartphones and iPads are a superbly efficient, easy-to-use front end. But back in the core system, in head office or on the MD's laptop, all of the data is available at a few clicks to analyse, slice and dice, as the cliché has it. The key point always," said Moore, "Is that everyone has better information with which to make business decisions now."
BI is not expensive. Take a medium-sized Irish business in any sector, with say 200 or 300 or even 500 staff, multiple locations and mobile workers. Its board will certainly be aware of the potential value of better, smarter, faster information. But when it comes to investment in BI and analytics, there will often be a perception that such projects and systems are costly, difficult to implement and prone to run over budget and time.
That's a bit of a myth from some large-scale failed projects, probably over-ambitious or ahead of their time, according to experts with a clear view of the Irish market. "Big outfits can fail big too", as one said. So roughly what would a smart BI system cost such a medium-scale business today?
There was a perhaps a surprising consensus between ProStrategy Colman, Covali and K3FDS, companies with quite different software partners and market backgrounds. The investment would be in the €40,000 to €50,000 range, the BI tools would largely be functional and capable of being offered out to the users in perhaps a week or two and the full capabilities should be deployed and signed off in about three months.
The first step in data source identification and some form of data repository set-up should take the BI partner less than a week's work. New hardware is seldom required but may be the right way to go in particular circumstances. Roll-out of the specific analytics, tool sets and user training will tend to stretch over several weeks. On the financial and sales side, end-of-month results are important so a couple of completed periods will be essential.
But three months overall should be enough. Plus perhaps €50,0000. It may be one of the hidden bargains in today's ICT market.
Posted by Noel Shannon on Mon, Feb 25, 2013 @ 06:21 AM
Many organisations who have implemented QlikView have done so with one key requirement driving the agenda for better performance in mind. Whether it was a burning need to get a handle on Sales Reporting or an application to discover what areas of the business were most or least profitable, generally speaking this app was probably delivered and received with a good deal of enthusiasm and success.
Sometimes the initial development work might have been carried out by QlikView consultants or contractors who are now no longer available for whatever reason to provide a continual service to your users.
Our experience at Covali shows us that Business Intelligence requirements change and grow over time however and the enthusiasm which might have greeted the first application can wane if it does not analyse or contain the data that might be required to address new problems or changing circumstance in the business. Decision makers will revert to old practices and habits if they cannot rely on QlikView to deliver the current information needed for whatever issue they are dealing with at the moment.
QlikView users really like the product and will invariably praise the way they have gleaned new perspectives on their business that lead to making better decisions. But Business Intelligence applications are unlike other systems that are in place to manage the transcations that drive the core processing and operations requirements of your business. When you implement a Payroll system or an Invoicing system you analyse the requirements and implement a system that meets those requirements as closely as possible. And then you leave it alone to do the work that it was expected to do - only making occasional changes to fix problems that might occur. BI systems are completely different - they are suppposed to provide the basis for improved decision making and analytics - but they can only do that if they have all the information that is required, all of the time. Shifting market conditions, price wars, competeitive strategies etc etc mean that your BI system must continually change in order to remain relevant to the users.
At Covali we offere a long term relationship where our QlikView Certified Consultants are available either by phone or on a webinar to address changing requirements and our costs are extremely competitive when compared with traditional costing models because we carry out a significant portion of any assignment offsite at cheaper rates
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Posted by Ciara Conifrey on Thu, Feb 21, 2013 @ 02:23 PM
In today’s competitive world of business, CEO’s and Managing Directors all too often are the first on the chopping block when it comes to being fired. It is fair to say the higher you climb the corporate ladder the more exposed you become! Senior executives are constantly under pressure to perform. Holding onto that coveted and prestigious role is a job in itself. Now given this, you would assume that the most senior people in companies or organisations have access to cutting edge business intelligence data. But in fact most don’t! Shocking I know, but sadly it’s true. Most are relying on traditional tools which pre-aggregate information which means they are getting their business information from reporting based technologies only. This limits flexibility and simplicity for users as it doesn’t facilitate business discovery.
This may seem foolhardy given the seniority of the people using the tools, the decision makers. The BI tool QlikView on the other hand, offers a business discovery platform like no other. So what is business discovery I hear you ask? It is a new generation of business intelligence that facilitates exploration allowing business users to analyse live data. How essential is that to a business leader? I believe the word we are looking for here is CRITICAL. Business leaders need to have an associative experience with business intelligence. They need to be able to be able to make a selection in their data and immediately learn from the results in order to take the next steps.
QlikView facilitates this by its associative experience of the green/white and grey elements within the data. This is facilitated by its in-memory associative technology, which stores an entire set of highly compressed data and allows users to search and filter this data without limits. The nice thing about it is that the QlikView engine dynamically calculates KPI’s as the user makes selections. Furthermore, this is really social business discovery at its best. As a tool it helps companies incorporate the human element into decision-making. Business leaders can collaborate with their colleagues to answer questions in formal or informal groups, and in real-time as well as asynchronously. No other business intelligence tool offers live collaborative (synchronous) sessions.
The facilitation of comparative analysis also enables users to select multiple user-defined data sets, and directly compare them to one another. Also one can perform relative analysis as well as spotting trends, outliers, or differences. The ability for non-technical users to select and adjust comparison sets is truly unique in the market.
So what do top business leaders need to do to steer their company in these dark days of the recession? Well for starters, business leaders must increase their knowledge or IT-smarts in order to fully appreciate and fully leverage technologies like QlikView which are reshaping the competitive landscape of business intelligence. Imagine only 25% of business leaders feel smart about IT! So in order to remain in the top job, business leaders must become more IT-savvy in order to exploit and profit from business intelligence. In saying that, companies and organisations also need business smart IT people. The two must work in tandem together for the better good of the organisation.
The great thing about QlikView is that apps can be built and deployed very quickly. So if your existing reporting processes are falling short, you need not worry. QlikView can be implemented in a matter of days unlike other BI tools in the marketplace. There are no headaches with QlikView. If IT is going to supply data to a decision-maker, it should be only what is required to make the decision, and QlikView is the ONLY answer.
Call Covali today on +353 1 2939302 | +44 207 5588 029 so we can continue the conversation.
Posted by Paddy Moore on Tue, Feb 19, 2013 @ 03:05 PM
We all know that QlikView’s unique associative experience facilitates a business discovery experience that other products cannot match. We know also that you can quickly build useful, clear dashboards and user interfaces in QlikView.There is a wide range of less obvious advantages to QlikView, which are often harder to gain sight of during evaluation. Here are our top 5 hidden QlikView advantages:
- Everything you need to get the job done. Business Intelligence software from traditional vendors are typically ‘end-user layer’ tools only. Data integration and Data Storage capabilities are not included, or are high-cost add-ons. The cost of ownership and integration challenges for the additional ETL and Database layers often destroy a business case, and lead to 'Stack' complexity. Many companies have struggled with this issue for years, spent significant sums and have been unable to realise any significant business value. They are stuck in a 'sunk cost' dungeon. QlikView includes ETL and Data storage in the core solution, no 'Stack' to manage. If you have achieved a well-formed, respected, comprehensive data warehouse, well done! QlikView can play the role of ‘end user layer’ easily, particularly with the new direct connect capability.
- If QlikView was a cartoon character, it would be Speedy
Gonzalez. If you are a business person, speed is a vital feature, you often only have 5 minutes to review and analyse your data. Compared to QlikView, just about everything we have seen is in slow motion. Creating and using new applications is so much more engagaing when data responds instantly.
- You develop in QlikView with the data in front on you.
Nothing beats seeing real data constantly as your develop your BI apps. Every object you place on a QlikView dashboard is filled with real data, not layout canvasses with a run button. Spend a week with your data in this manner, and you will be pretty knowledgeable.
- The calculation engine is properly sophisticated.
QlikView has a massive range of out-of-the box expressions, including statistical, financial and so on (Black and Schole anyone?). Better still, you can combine these functions, along with set processing to create complex calculations. Average the Revenues for the first Monday of every month, on a rolling 6 monthly basis for all countries that do not begin with ‘C’, only including Sales Orders that rank in the top 20% of all Sales Orders for that day? Not a problem in Qlikvew, often impossible in other platforms.
- You can programme the damned thing.
Every business intelligence platform has specific features and functionality, based around their views on what business intelligence is. Inevitably, from time to time a business need exists that the platform does not have built in to it. The perfect software has not been written yet. QlikView is the most configurable, extensible, programmable BI platform we have worked with. Develop new re-usable functions, if they are not included, build new chart types, reference external chart libraries and web resources. The options are (virtually) limitless.
Posted by Ciara Conifrey on Fri, Feb 15, 2013 @ 04:13 AM
As a newcomer to QlikView I had the privilege of being sent on a QlikView training course in QlikTech’s HQ in Winnersh, Berkshire, UK. The purpose of my training was to gain a better understanding of this amazing Business Intelligence platform; its capabilities; in addition to its inherent benefits. I can honestly put my hand on my heart and say that any organisation would benefit through an implementation of QlikView as the direct benefits are multi-fold.
So what is it that really makes QlikView unique in comparison to other BI platforms? For starters, it is a very simple and intuitive BI tool and end users love it. In fact, they rave about it. Just recently, BARC published their 2012 research findings and users have rated QlikView as the top ranked BI tool in visual analysis, innovation, and agility. Now they are impressive stats!
At a more simplistic level, QlikView can help users understand their data better as it enables them to ask more pertinent and relevant questions pertaining to their business. When you begin to drill down into your data, QlikView facilitates and enables business discovery around core areas of your business that you may not have been aware of hitherto. That’s what so brilliant about it – you would be amazed at what you would discover about your business by using it. Most companies that we (Covali) do a SIB (Seeing-Is-Believing) for (using a sample of their data) are quite simply amazed at some of their findings. So in essence, you get a comprehensive 360 angle into your business.
For the end user, it is accessible through a single application that delivers information dynamically so that the user can interact and interrogate the data in a more meaningful way. So business users can answer their own questions and IT staff can focus on other IT centric activities. This frees up their time to complete other crucial tasks within the organisation leading to a more efficiently run IT department. Having QlikView guarantees a path to achieving the most from your data. This then in turn results in more improved decision making across the enterprise.
So business discovery is one of the most fundamental benefits of QlikView. Most BI products in the marketplace help people answer questions that are understood in advance, through the use of static dashboards, PDF reports etc. However, a standalone visualisation ONLY shows a single view of data, and a report ONLY shows a static view of data. The downside to this is that business users do not have the flexibility to ask follow-on questions or look at the information from a different perspective. With other BI products the only option is to build more reports or visualizations which results in a bigger reporting backlog. This will obviously have a knock on affect in terms of increasing your costs.
So how does QlikView enable this? It holds the data needed for analysis in memory. It also compresses the data to 10% of its original size. Every time the user makes a selection within QlikView the application updates every object with a newly calculated set of data. So unlike traditional tools that only offer pre-defined drill paths and interactions, QlikView works quite differently. The concept of the associative experience allows you to see the relationship between the entire data element within the QlikView app. Also, the QlikView user is never restricted; they can start and finish their analysis at any point. The QlikView engine automatically manages all the relationships in the data and presents information to the user using a “green/white/gray” metaphor. Selections are highlighted in green, associated data is represented in white, and excluded (unassociated) data appear in gray. So in essence it essentially facilitates collaboration and mobility for everybody within an organisation. Users can communicate with each other in the context of their decision making through annotations, real-time collaborative sessions, and shared bookmarks. Also full QlikView capabilities including collaboration are available on mobile devices.
Call Covali today on +353 1 2939302 or +44 207 5588 029 in order to get deep insight into your data and your business.
Posted by Noel Shannon on Wed, Jan 09, 2013 @ 09:01 AM
QlikView is one of the most successful Business Inteligence software platforms on the market today, due in no small measure to its design architecture. It has been the fastest growing BI product for several years now and currently boasts more than 26,000 customers in 100 countries – and it has achieved this phenomenal growth because it is easy to use, very powerful, scalable and quick to deploy – giving a very rapid Return On Investment, superior indeed to most competitive products on the market.
Most QlikView implementations are on-premise or on-site, so how do we react to the global trend that has seen most software products move to the cloud?
In the last decade or more we have watched the extraordinary growth of cloud applications, first Google and then Social Media applications from Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter started to make their way onto millions of desktops and laptops – and latterly mobile devices and the Smartphone. Business software providers looked on warily – not sure if any ‘serious’ application would make it in the cloud. The main concern here was with security I think and to some extent – it still is!
Business believed that their data was more secure if it was managed internally by their own staff, on their own systems and on their own premises – and to a large extent I agreed with that position. The cloud was unproven, response times were unreliable, how could we be sure our data is secure etc; etc; - so many questions meant to answer meant that we kept our ‘Business Applications’ on our own premises.
SalesForce changed all that! Of all the applications to move to the cloud, I never believed that a Customer Relations Management system would make it. When you think about it – a CRM system holds the most sensitive data a company could possibly have – it’s pipeline! If a competitor could get their hands on this highly sensitive data they would wreak havoc. But SalesForce made it – today they have revenues of $3 Billion+ (approx) and their last quarter showed growth of 35% over the previous one. And SalesForce was born in the cloud – there is no on-premise version. This means that business users have overcome their fears and are happily placing their most sensitive data in the cloud.
Workday is now doing the same for sensitive data about staff and resources.
So will Business Intelligence move to the cloud? I absolutely believe it will and there are several Business Intelligence software companies who, like SalesForce have been ‘born in the cloud’ and are hoping to emulate their success. Companies like GoodData, BIRST, Metricly and the like.
Some of the characteristics of the successful strategy of SalesForce which is now being emulated by these guys are as follows:-
1. Availability, anytime, anywhere, and on any device.
2. Scalability to handle as many users and as much data as you like.
3. Intuitiive, easy to use applications that look good and don’t need training.
4. Subscription pricing that can be flexed up or down according to your needs.
5. Ready to go Apps from a Partner channel on a global basis.
6. Global marketing.
So how does this impact on QlikView which has been around longer than these new pretenders, and therefore was not ‘born in the cloud’ – how will QlikView respond to this market trend, if it plays out as I expect it will.
The first question is - does QlikView work in the Cloud? - And the answer is absolutely yes! The QlikTech designers have had the foresight to build a platform that can be deployed very successfully on Cloud platforms, and there are many examples where customers are doing just that.
So as far as I can see there are no technological reasons why QlikView cannot become a major offering in the cloud competing against these new offerings. The challenge is more around the way QlikView is sold and the geographic focus of the various stakeholders.
Let me explain: - currently the bulk of QlikView Licence sales are sold for the full Licence Price plus an annual renewal fee of 20% for Support & Maintenance and QlikView themselves do not provide a subscription model. If QlikView were to offer a subscription model, it could potentially compete with the full Licence selling model and have a detrimental effect on overall revenues in the short term. The whole model for subscription selling is different than full-price selling – from the way you remunerate your sales force to the margin that you offer to your partners, and there are significant risk associated with changing from one to the other.
There are however a number of partners that will offer a hosted service which will provide QlikView applications on a cloud platform where the customer will pay for the managed service in addition to paying a fairly hefty fee for the Licence. Covali offer this solution for the Q Series Apps.
QlikPower is part of The Covali Group who are now specialising in the provision of Cloud based Business Intelligence solutions. Covali are redeveloping their apps to make them available on a low cost subscription model on a global basis. Contact The Covali Group for more information.
Posted by Noel Shannon on Wed, Oct 10, 2012 @ 06:09 AM
There are so many Business Intelligence products out there that it must be a daunting task to decide on what products and solutions to evaluate. It is therefore useful to keep an eye on reputable bodies who carry out thorough studies on how the vatious solutions are being deployed in the marketplace. I fully believe that all consederations are irrelevant if the solution is not widely accepted by the target users in an organisation.
We in Covali therefore are particularly gratified to see that the main platform we have chosen for delivering our on-premise BI solutions - QlikView - continues to score so highly in these customer surveys. As we are focused on delivering so many different apps we are delighted that so many customers are getting great value from these solutions.
The recent BI Survey 12, conducted by the Business Application Research Center (BARC), is the world’s largest independent survey of Business Intelligence (BI) and Performance Management (PM) users, and they concluded that QlikView ranked first among the BI Giants peer group in visual analysis, innovation, agility and shortest project length. In the Visual Analysis and Data Discovery peer group, QlikView ranked first in lowest cost per seat, lowest numbers of administrators per seat, lowest cost, and mobile BI.
The report noted that
“QlikView scores well in a variety of areas, and tops the list when it comes to visual analysis, mobile BI, and self-service features that deliver agility in BI projects,” said Bange. “Compared to other Visual BI and Data Discovery tools, it has the best cost ratios when it comes to license fees, external implementation spend, and administrators needed per seat. In my view, this is indicative of QlikTech’s focus on building an innovative, feature-rich product.”
In continuing to outpace larger rivals in BI Giants category such as SAP (Business Objects), Oracle (Hyperion) and IBM (Cognos) and Microsoft, QlikView’s #1 ratings include:
•Visual Analysis – The QlikView Business Discovery platform enables users to conduct searches and interact with dynamic dashboards and analytics from any device. QlikView customers are more than 50 percent more inclined to use QlikView for visual analysis than the weighted average of all major BI product suites in the BI Survey 12. This is a strong indicator that QlikView is bringing a whole new level of ease of use, insight, and value to business users.
•Innovation – QlikView 11 boasts industry-leading innovations such as social and mobile Business Discovery. In the survey, customers noted visual analysis and mobile BI as key functionalities that showcase QlikView’s product innovation.
•Project Length – QlikTech’s approach of offering a flexible development environment enables skilled consultants and users to quickly build applications without being dependent on time-consuming tasks like data integration or data modeling.
•Agility – QlikView makes it easy for business analysts and BI developers to create purpose-built BI apps that users can enhance and extend as business needs change. QlikView secures a top ranking in this category for its short project length and flexibility in building and changing applications.''
Click here for the full Press Release: QlikView BARC Report Press Release