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Translating Technology to Success
Blue Hill Research 24 School Street, Mezzanine Boston, MA 02108 http://www.bluehillresearch.com
617.624.3600
@BlueHillBoston
AT A GLANCE
Solution Selected
Alteryx data blending and
advanced analytics
software
Solution Requirements
Ability to handle large
volumes of data from
disparate sources
Clear upfront
demonstration of ROI
Allow individual analyst
to control analytic process
Selection Criteria
Highest ROI and fastest
time to value
Business analyst
empowerment
Superior geospatial and
data blending capabilities
Choosing Alteryx for Faster Data Blending and
Advanced Analytics
What You Need To Know
Traditionally, IT departments have primarily been responsible for sourcing analytical software
tools and carrying out complex data analysis for their organizations. As companies push for
improved operational insight, they demand greater amounts of data analysis. As a result, IT
departments increasingly find themselves struggling to keep up with the volume of incoming
requests. A new set of software tools built specifically to empower data analysts in
line-of-business teams offer an important opportunity to address this concern. They provide the
benefits of data analysis without placing burdens on the IT department. These tools also provide
a level of data accessibility to a broader user population, enabling organizations to perform
complex analysis without specialized data scientists or formally-trained statisticians. In this
way, value can be achieved as business decision makers are able to circumvent what has, in
many organizations, become an IT bottleneck.
Alteryx, a data blending and advanced analytics software platform, has emerged as a powerful
solution for empowering data analysts. This approach overcomes the traditional analytics
obstacle where access to data and analysis tools is confined to centralized departments. By
allowing individual analysts to blend data from many sources to prepare and analyze it in ways
that they previously could not, it allows analysts to take requests that previously took hours or
days and complete them in minutes.
Blue Hill’s research examines the opportunities available for organizations to overcome
obstacles in their analytics processes that have become commonplace when following legacy
approaches. This report profiles the experiences of three organizations that sought to enhance
their analytical capabilities while avoiding traditional inefficiencies. Each participant ultimately
chose Alteryx over other competitive offerings as the best solution to meet their specific needs
within the context of their businesses.
About the Participants
The participants in this study represent a range of sizes and organizational complexities, from
small businesses to multinational firms. Each participant had encountered a common business
need: to gain enhanced analytical capabilities for vast quantities of data from many, often
disparate, sources. The participants included Southern States Cooperative (Southern States), a
provider of agricultural products and related services; Demographic Consulting, a leading
advisor to companies seeking to expand into China; and one of the largest multinational medical
device and pharmaceutical companies who wished to remain anonymous for the study.
Anatomy of a Decision SHARE THIS REPORT
Page | 2
Translating Technology to Success
Blue Hill Research 24 School Street, Mezzanine Boston, MA 02108 http://www.bluehillresearch.com
617.624.3600
@BlueHillBoston
Solution Requirements
Across the three profiled companies, Blue Hill identified three common requirements that
shaped each organization’s solution selection. Specifically, they all required: (1) the ability to
combine large amounts of data from disparate sources; (2) proven value before committing to
an overbearing implementation; and (3) ownership of the analytical process by data analysts.
Large amounts of data from disparate sources: Each
organization needed their analysts to derive meaning from
combining multiple sources of data. This task was not
inconsequential, as it is important to understand the
volume of data that each organization was analyzing. Often,
these data sets had millions of data points, especially in the
cases of transaction logs and third party sources.
Demographic Consulting, based on their need to analyze
Chinese census data, provides a relevant example. They
needed a solution that was able to handle raw data with
billions of data points. This task was made even more
difficult, as dealing with Chinese census data required them
to first extensively ‘clean’ the data before it could be used
for analysis.
Implementation with clear ROI: Because data initiatives
were critical to operations, participants did not want to
become tied to one particular solution without demonstrable business value. As such, each
Alteryx customer sought to avoid implementation cycles requiring long consultant engagements,
high levels of customization, or other costly additions.
Analyst ownership of the analytical process: The data initiatives studied required a flexible
approach to analysis. In order to get more timely analysis, it had to be performed by those
closest to the questions being asked. In a traditional analytical environment, IT often becomes a
bottleneck, as they cannot keep up with the multitude of requests being submitted to them.
Participants required a solution that offered a decentralized and efficient approach to analysis
that permitted analysts to perform their analyses independently, without IT involvement.
Solution Evaluation and Selection
With these requirements in mind, the profiled organizations collectively evaluated Alteryx,
MicroStrategy, IBM SPSS, and SAS. Blue Hill identifies three common evaluation factors that
drove their purchasing decisions. These factors are: return on investment and time to value;
potential to empower individual data analysts; and data blending and geospatial capabilities.
CONNECTING DISPARATE
SOURCES
Southern States Cooperative
actively uses data from a
multitude of third-party data
sources such as Experian,
Farm Market ID, and Esri.
These sources provide a wide
array of information
important to their operations
including financial,
demographic, weather, and
population information.
Southern States needed a
solution that allowed them to
combine all these data sources
in conjunction with
transaction logs and financial
forecasts for initiatives such
as prospecting new store
locations. Locations had to be
chosen on geographic and
demographic information
within the context of expected
financial performance.
“Alteryx has actually driven my
business. We are able to process huge
amounts of geographic, census, and
satellite data better than what many
much larger companies can do. I
wouldn’t even attempt population
updates for Chinese data without
Alteryx.”
Susan Haynie
President
Demographic Consulting
Page | 3
Translating Technology to Success
Blue Hill Research 24 School Street, Mezzanine Boston, MA 02108 http://www.bluehillresearch.com
617.624.3600
@BlueHillBoston
Return on investment and time to business value: The Alteryx licensing and implementation
model was a prominent differentiator for the profiled organizations. Alteryx offers licenses on
an individual user basis and is designed to be deployed on a single analyst’s computer. This
differs sharply from the other vendors evaluated, which more closely follow a traditional legacy
enterprise deployment. Subject organizations concluded that
these solutions thus required much larger and more involved
implementations.
At the time of publication a single license of Alteryx costs
$3,995 per year, or $12,995 per year when including spatial
analytics data. Compared to the other solutions under
evaluation, this allowed the participants a lower risk
opportunity to try and experiment with a proof of concept
without making a large financial investment.
Participants cited that a compelling factor in choosing Alteryx
was that it does not require users to know a coding language
to perform complex analysis. It was generally cited by the
participants to be the most intuitive solution to use. This was
a key advantage for Alteryx, as users recognized the
opportunity to avoid a lengthy onboarding process just to
learn the ‘language’ of the solution.
Ultimately, the participants found that Alteryx provided the
fastest opportunity to begin running the analytical processes that they needed. Because it
resulted in faster and less involved implementations, and thus lower opportunity cost, Alteryx
presented the lowest total cost of ownership associated with both licensing and training users.
They concluded that even if all of the considered solutions performed equally, Alteryx would
have the potential for the highest return on investment based on its total cost of ownership.
Data analyst empowerment: Participants cited Alteryx’s ‘analyst first’ design as another
distinguishing characteristic. They noted that other solutions considered were more
representative of legacy analytics applications that do not place design emphasis on individual
data analysts. Here, Alteryx’s comparative ease of use and accessibility (in that it does not
require users to know code) set the solution apart. Alteryx presents a single tool to combine and
perform analysis of all the necessary data sources in one platform. The common thread in these
narratives is that Alteryx was chosen because it allowed the participants to answer business
questions the most efficiently out of the evaluated solutions.
Superior data blending and geospatial capabilities: Alteryx’s data blending and geospatial
capabilities were crucial in the decision process for the study participants as well. They found
that Alteryx provided the easiest and most intuitive interface for the organizations to clean,
blend, and structure data from Hadoop, existing data warehouses, Microsoft Excel, and other
“When we were evaluating all of the
solutions. Alteryx separated itself
because they were so confident in
their ability to deliver. Other vendors
charged us just to set up and build
models. Alteryx let us take a deep dive
into their functionality; we felt more
like a partner than a software buyer.”
Fred Jezouit
VP Finance & Treasurer
Southern States Cooperative
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Translating Technology to Success
Blue Hill Research 24 School Street, Mezzanine Boston, MA 02108 http://www.bluehillresearch.com
617.624.3600
@BlueHillBoston
third party sources. This ease of use meant that participants did not need formally trained
statisticians or analysts with deep expertise in coding or predictive modeling.
Along with ease of use, the participants’ experiences were consistent in viewing Alteryx as
providing the most robust data blending and geospatial capabilities. They stated that in these
areas, Alteryx was superior in handling the quantities and differing sources of data required.
Workflows seen as complicated and time consuming in other solutions were significantly easier
to design in the Alteryx software.
This point was highlighted well in the case of Demographic Consulting, given the company’s
heavy dealing with census and geographic distribution. To accomplish these initiatives,
Demographic Consulting required software that excelled in dealing with vast quantities of this
type of data efficiently.
It is of note that study participants highlighted Alteryx’s dashboarding and visualization
capabilities as comparatively weaker than those of other vendors, particularly MicroStrategy.
Rather than use Alteryx’s native visualization capabilities, organizations had the opportunity to
output directly to data discovery solutions such as Qlik or Tableau. Given the nature of the
analytics initiatives the study participants were undertaking, this was not viewed as a critical
decision factor. Further, the selection of Alteryx was not a function of IBM SPSS’s or SAS’s
limitations in advanced analytics. On the contrary, participants cited impressive and robust
functionality in modeling and predictive capabilities for both solutions. Rather, the decision to
use Alteryx hinged on the ability to deliver the functionality the participants required more
easily, more inexpensively, and more efficiently than competing software solutions.
Figure 1: Overview of Alteryx Data Blending Process Flow
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Translating Technology to Success
Blue Hill Research 24 School Street, Mezzanine Boston, MA 02108 http://www.bluehillresearch.com
617.624.3600
@BlueHillBoston
Reported Impact of the Solution
Participants reported that value resulting from their implementation of Alteryx manifested in
three areas: time and opportunity cost savings, the ability to perform analysis that could not
previously be done, and the chance to engage with new business opportunities.
Figure 2: Highlights Reported
Southern States
Cooperative Demographic Consulting
Large medical device and pharmaceutical provider
Time & Opportunity Cost Savings
Ability to automatically combine
and package data relevant to
annual store audits saves an
estimated 1,000 man-hours each
year.
Geospatial prowess of Alteryx
allows for efficiencies in
performing census and
demographic analysis over other
solutions.
Efficiency gains for blending
data and building models
produces a significant time
saving in data analysis
operations.
New Analysis Capability
Capability to consolidate
customer information across
multiple store locations to create
a unified understanding of
customer base.
The capacity to combine vast
amounts of Chinese census data
with satellite imagery allows for
a new level of complex data
blending.
Alteryx allows advanced
modeling capabilities to be made
accessible to line-of-business
analysts. Additionally Alteryx
allows for multiple models to be
run in parallel which helps better
identify the relative performance
of each model.
New Business Opportunities
Ability to more effectively target
customers has lead to expanded
success in marketing campaigns
driving new revenue
opportunities.
Robustness of analytical
capabilities enables
Demographic Consulting to bid
and take on more complex
projects than competitors.
Not Applicable
Southern States represents a prime example of the cost and time savings that Alteryx has
helped to achieve; they estimate that they save approximately 1,000 hours annually on their
internal auditing process. Prior to purchasing Alteryx, their external auditor would run queries
on individual stores and send raw data back to headquarters, which typically took multiple
days. However, using Alteryx, Southern States has been able to shrink this time from days to
minutes. They report that the current process involves only inputting a date range for each
store location. Alteryx automatically packages the information and emails the documentation
to each individual store upon the auditors’ arrival.
Demographic Consulting reported substantial value gains from developing new processes from
their use of Alteryx as well. These stemmed from the fact that Alteryx gave them the
opportunity to perform analysis on a level of complexity at or above some of their larger
Page | 6
Translating Technology to Success
Blue Hill Research 24 School Street, Mezzanine Boston, MA 02108 http://www.bluehillresearch.com
617.624.3600
@BlueHillBoston
competitors. In performing analysis on Chinese census data, Alteryx has proven to be a
valuable tool. Demographic Consulting states that they can perform their analysis without the
latency encountered with many other geospatial analytic solutions. Further, they note that
because of the new analytical capabilities that Alteryx provides, they are able to
bid on contracts and new business opportunities that require a highly complex
degree of analysis.
The multinational medical device and pharmaceutical company benefited from
Alteryx through its ability to provide a new level of accessibility to data analysts.
Alteryx provided advanced modeling and data blending capabilities that provided
a more efficient solution to their work, a benefit that manifests on a daily basis.
In light of the value derived from Alteryx, two participants have reported an
expansion of the use of Alteryx throughout the organization beyond just its
original intended use case. In the case of Southern States, the company has
expanded the number of ‘power users’ in its organization from two to eighteen
user seats. Prior to Alteryx, it did not have a business analytics team. Now they
utilize a multitude of users across the organization to promote a decentralized
analytics process throughout the company.
Blue Hill Analysis
The ultimate value of a technology investment results from its impact on three main areas:
line-of-business performance, IT support and burdens, and financial health. Blue Hill analyzed
the value recognized from Alteryx through the lens of these three core perspectives.
Line-of-business performance: Alteryx provided value to the study participants in a number
of ways that directly affect line-of-business stakeholders. Perhaps most importantly,
participants reported that Alteryx allowed them to take on analytical processes that they could
not before. Further, Alteryx represents a single platform to blend together and analyze multiple
data sources from throughout the organization without the need for the data analyst to submit
requests to the IT department. For the participants in this study, this represents an enormous
opportunity for time savings. They highlighted that Alteryx allows for complex questions to be
answered by those employees closest to the data in question. For line-of-business executives
this means that they can receive analysis faster and more easily perform iterative explorations
of data. The net impact of Alteryx has proven to be better results, faster. This has implications
in not only efficiency gains, but the chance to identify cost optimizing and revenue generating
opportunities as well.
IT support and burdens: For IT stakeholders, the value lies within Alteryx’s ability to offload
a burdensome backlog of business analysis requests. While some IT executives may equate
being bypassed in the analytics process with diminished organizational importance, the
elimination of requests should be viewed as an opportunity to pursue new value-adding
activities. Participants stated that the IT department was able to avoid continuously filling
“The issue isn’t necessarily about price,
although Alteryx is very accessible with
its licensing, we get so much value out
of it that even if it was the same price
we would go with Alteryx over SPSS and
SAS regardless.”
Susan Haynie
President
Demographic Consulting
Page | 7
Translating Technology to Success
Blue Hill Research 24 School Street, Mezzanine Boston, MA 02108 http://www.bluehillresearch.com
617.624.3600
@BlueHillBoston
requests for one-off and recurring analyses. In this sense, the implementations allow IT to shift
away from reactively managing line-of-business requests to proactively laying the groundwork
for future initiatives to help the organization grow.
Financial impact: The time savings outlined throughout the study should be considered when
evaluating the potential financial benefits associated with reallocating resources. Participants
demonstrated a significant positive ROI through their experiences with Alteryx. This resulted
from a multitude of areas including saving time, better data-driven decision-making, and the
opportunity to take on and win new projects that they could not before. The participants also
found Alteryx’s pricing structure favorable, as it represented a low-risk opportunity to prove
business value without being locked into financially burdensome contracts.
Summary
The organizations studied in this research all faced challenges associated with analyzing
tremendous amounts of data from multiple sources. Further, they required a solution that
would enable their individual analysts to perform business-critical analytics without needing
the continued support of IT. As they navigated the solution selection process, they ultimately
chose Alteryx to best meet their needs for both data blending and advanced analytics. They
came to this decision based not only on the robustness of its analytical capabilities, but also
because it empowered their line-of-business teams to get the answers they needed faster, and
perform analyses that were previously beyond their means. Ultimately, this came alongside a
pricing structure that provided a low-risk point of entry to internally show a proof of concept
and left open the potential for significant ROI.
Blue Hill Research is the only industry analyst firm with a success-based methodology. Based on the Path to Success, Blue Hill Research provides unique and differentiated guidance to translate corporate technology investments into success for the three key stakeholders: the technologist, the financial buyer, and the line of business executive.
Unless otherwise noted, the contents of this publication are copyrighted by Blue Hill Research and may not be hosted, archived, transmitted or reproduced, in any form or by any means without prior permission from Blue Hill Research.
Author: James Haight, Research Analyst, [email protected]
Published: September 2014