Analytic Platform Comparison: Alteryx versus SAS Institute Drivers behind customers choosing Alteryx over SAS for Analytics October, 2013
TABLE OF CONTENTS Executive Summary... 3 Key Reasons for Choosing and Using Alteryx over Legacy SAS... 3 Other Alteryx Benefits... 3 Introduction... 4 Alteryx Analytics... 4 The Survey... 5 Methodology... 5 Interviewees... 5 Use Cases... 6 Faster Time to Value and Answers to Questions... 7 Ability to independently generate required analytics versus requiring specialists... 7 Single process for analysis... 7 Faster processing of data and analytics... 8 Easier-to-Use Analytics... 8 Single drag and drop workflow instead of multiple tools... 8 Intuitive predictive and spatial analytics... 8 Easy to iterate and modify analyses without complex coding... 9 Simple process for integrating a full range of data... 10 Other Alteryx Benefits... 10 Summary... 11 About Alteryx, Inc.... 12 About Crimson Consulting... 12
Executive Summary Alteryx commissioned Crimson Consulting to survey a number of their customers to examine why Alteryx was chosen over SAS Institute for data blending and business analytics. Here are the findings: Key Reasons for Choosing and Using Alteryx over Legacy SAS Faster time to value and answers to business questions through analytics due to the following factors Ability to independently generate required analytics versus requiring specialists Single process for analysis instead of multiple processes Faster processing of data and analytics Easier to use analytics capabilities designed for line of business data analysts Single drag and drop workflow instead of multiple tools Intuitive advanced analytics for performing predictive and spatial analyses Easy to iterate and modify analyses without complex coding or outside intervention Simple process for integrating a full range of data Other Alteryx Benefits All respondents experienced better more personal technical support from Alteryx than from SAS Two customers were encouraged that a recent Alteryx change in licensing would allow them to expand usage for a lower price
Introduction Big Data and analytics are driving major changes in how organizations are investing and making decisions. One fundamental shift is that analytics are now being used and deployed where the biggest and fastest impact can be made - the business unit, e.g. sales, marketing, operations, etc. This shift to line of business (LOB) analytics introduces different requirements that are driving disruption in the traditional analytics market. Some key requirements include: A new paradigm that puts the power of analytics into the hands of more users, not just expensive and scarce statistical coders Independence of line of business leaders and analysts to source and analyze the specific data they need fast enough for them to be able to take advantage of opportunities Solutions that are available for every analyst and decision maker who needs access These new requirements have opened the door for emerging analytics vendors to compete with dominant market players. Alteryx Analytics One of these emerging vendors is Alteryx, which is challenging the largest independent analytics vendor, SAS Institute (SAS), via its Alteryx Analytics solution. They claim to meet the emerging LOB analysis requirements more effectively than the legacy SAS analytics platform by taking a more streamlined approach, offering a single platform/single process to conduct analytics compared to what they view as a multistep, multi-tool approach used by SAS. This following chart shows how Alteryx differentiates from SAS. Alteryx versus Legacy Approach Blend Analyze Share VS. Legacy SAS Multi-Step, Multiple Tool Approach Data Access Prep & Cleansing Data Blending Predictive & Spatial Analytics Production & Output Creation Data Quality Tool Data Integration Tool Analytic Coding App Creation
The Survey Alteryx wanted to know whether their perception of how they differentiate from SAS matched the reasons why customers chose Alteryx instead of continuing or expanding the use of SAS technology. Accordingly, Alteryx commissioned Crimson Consulting, a technology marketing consultancy, to survey a select cross-section of Alteryx users to obtain a view of Alteryx usage and determine how it aligns with current benefit claims. Methodology The survey was comprised of in-depth interviews of analytic professionals including data analysts, analytic decision-makers, managers, and / or users at five diverse companies. All of the analysts interviewed had experience using legacy SAS systems. Four of the five customers who participated use Alteryx alongside SAS in their current environments but have selected Alteryx over SAS for specific projects and/or capabilities; the other analyst stopped using SAS six months ago. Interviewees The following is a table that lists the interviewee titles and their respective company type. Their actual names and company names are not listed intentionally, so that the respondents could speak more freely about their specific analytics use cases. Interviewee Title Company Description Statistician and Data Analyst Global media services company Analyst, Risk Analytics National business services company Manager, Customer Insights Supply and services organization Analytics Manager, Worldwide Development Department Major restaurant chain Chief Operating Officer (COO) Marketing analytics and modeling firm
Use Cases The wide range of company sizes, industry types, and use cases makes the results of this study widely applicable. Annual sales for interviewee companies ranged from a few million to multiple billions, and the number of people using analytics solutions within each company ranged from 4 to over 100. The following table displays the analytics use cases of each company interviewed. Company # People Using Analytics Using for selected Dpt. or entire company Analytics Products Used Usage Frequency Analytics Products/ Processes Global media services company N/A Both Alteryx, SPSS Modeler Daily Data mining and statistical data analysis including spatial data National business services company 8 Both Alteryx, SAS Daily Risk analytics, predictive modeling and risk reporting Supply and services organization 12 Both Alteryx, Tableau, SAS Daily Data extraction, cleansing, blending with additional demographics for predictive modeling, creating charts for presentations Major restaurant chain 100+ Selected Departments Alteryx, SAS Daily Processing different data sources, adding geo-spatial data to modeling, building predictive analytics reports Marketing analytics and modeling firm 4 Both Alteryx, SAS Daily Building custom analytics models using blended data and producing results in multiple output formats
Faster Time to Value and Answers to Questions Time-to-value (TTV) or Time-to-insight (TTI) are fundamental metrics for business decision-making and decision-support, and thus the overarching metrics for judging business intelligence (BI) or data analytics solutions designed to support management decisions. Among the many benefit claims Crimson tested among interviewees, the following TTV claims were those that struck the loudest chord among respondents. Ability to independently generate required analytics versus requiring specialists Most respondents stated that with Alteryx they rarely needed involvement with other If I have to wait for somebody departments to get access to the right data else to go through their usual sources for analysis. Once connected to the CRM process versus doing it myself with database or enterprise data warehouse, analysts Alteryx, it s the difference between using Alteryx were largely independent of the a week s work and a day s work. teams maintaining those resources. The result is a notable improvement in time-to-value. This sentiment was expressed clearly by the Statistician and Data Analyst at the global media services company, who said, If I have to wait for somebody else to go through their usual process versus doing it myself with Alteryx, it s the difference between a week s work and a day s work. Single process for analysis All but one interviewee believed the singleprocess/single-platform nature of Alteryx was a major advantage against SAS. This was true even for those who otherwise praised the quality or completeness of the multiple solutions available from SAS. They contrasted the complex nature of SAS solutions comprising multiple products with the The real time lag is having to leave SAS for data preparation; in Alteryx, I m prepping the data and building the model in one platform. That s worth at least a 30 percent improvement in time to insight, which is huge. simplicity of Alteryx. One noted that even though Alteryx and SAS were equally fast for the data they regularly worked with, not having to leave the Alteryx environment meant it delivered faster insight. The real time lag is having to leave SAS for data preparation; in Alteryx, I m prepping the data and building the model in one platform. That s worth at least a 30 percent improvement in time to value, which is huge. Manager, Customer Insights, supply and services organization.
Faster processing of data and analytics When comparing Alteryx to SAS, a number of interviewees claimed large speed advantages. One interviewee said Alteryx probably cuts our time by 75% for some of the tasks involving month-end database operations. A four hour job in SAS will only take an hour in Alteryx. A 24 hour job in SAS will take four to six hours in Alteryx. Chief Operating Officer, marketing analytics and modeling firm. Another interviewee made a similar claim, saying we were taking 32 hours with SAS to produce the score cards from our enterprise data warehouse for all our end users. With Alteryx, it literally takes me just one hour. Analyst, Risk Analytics, national business services company. Easier-to-Use Analytics While speed is an obvious and significant driver for increased TTV, ease-of-use was an equally important key benefit identified by interviewees that indirectly affects TTV primarily through increased adoption and usage. Respondents suggested that they felt Alteryx was built with an analyst in mind, instead of an IT department. As such, many interviewees noted that it took very little time to install, get trained, and be up and running on Alteryx. Similar to the last section on speed, Crimson tested many of Alteryx s benefit claims that related to ease of use, and the following benefits most resonated with customers. Single drag and drop workflow instead of multiple tools All interviewees considered the drag and drop workflow user interface a particular strength of Alteryx s graphical, flow-chart Alteryx, and one that specifically stood out in interface was extremely intuitive comparison to legacy SAS, which requires the because I could visually find the use of multiple tools. The manager of customer app or engine I needed to run and insights at the supply and services organization then configure it to do an analysis. noted that Alteryx s graphical, flow-chart I wouldn t have been able to do interface was extremely intuitive because I could this without IT help in a legacy SAS visually find the app or engine I needed to run environment. and then configure it to do an analysis. I wouldn t have been able to do this without IT help in a legacy SAS environment. Echoing this sentiment, the Statistician and Data Analyst said, the graphical interface of Alteryx borders on being a video game. It s pretty cool. Intuitive predictive and spatial analytics Alteryx probably cuts our time by 75% for some of the tasks involving monthend database operations. A four hour job in SAS will only take an hour in Alteryx. A 24 hour job in SAS will take four to six hours in Alteryx. Participants also universally praised the strengths of Alteryx s predictive and spatial tools/capabilities versus SAS. The Alteryx Analytics product makes it possible to take advantage of R, one of the most popular statistical languages in the world, without knowing how to program in R. Alteryx currently supports open source R and has recently announced plans to integrate the most scalable commercial R platform, Revolution R Enterprise, from Revolution Analytics. Alteryx provides over 30 pre-built drag-and-drop R macros/tools
that make it possible to develop predictive models of large datasets without R programming. This feature further increases Alteryx s value for in-depth data analysis and makes predictive analytics much more approachable for data analysts. An analyst at a national business services company stated that an increase in comfort with the R modules or the R tools within Alteryx conspired to make me a more integrated Alteryx user." The manager of customer insights said, if I need to take samples of a dataset or mess around with random samples for predictive analytics, it is way easier to do in Alteryx versus SAS because of its ease of using data blending and data manipulation. An Analytics Manager from a major restaurant chain mentioned that Alteryx is more of a holistic solution and lets you do more things, across-theboard better. It gives you the ability to do the data preparation, data enrichment, predictive analytics output across the board, better than other products. Statistician and Data Analyst at global media services company noted on predictive analytics that it is the thing that I do the most and it s the thing that I really, really like, they re (Alteryx) adding tons of stuff and it is really cool. Most of the interviewees preferred Alteryx s deep spatial capabilities and data sets that collectively offer a major advantage over SAS s analytics platform products which provide only the most basic spatial capabilities. We don t even think about SAS when we think of spatial stuff. We use Alteryx. COO of the marketing analytics and modeling firm said. The respondents using spatial data relied on it heavily. On average, 70% of their analysis projects involved spatial data. One respondent mentioned that his company s use of spatial data in their marketing analytics business enabled them make key profit-driven decisions such as identifying and profiling the highest potential customers. Alteryx is more of a holistic solution and lets you do more things, across-the-board better. The person who brought Alteryx into the company won an award for that decision because the spatial information has saved us so much money. The person who brought Alteryx into the company won an award for that decision because the spatial information has saved us so much money. Analytics Manager, Worldwide Development Department, major restaurant chain. Easy to iterate and modify analyses without complex coding The process that many analysts go through to get to the specific answer they need involves repeatedly running the data through an evolving model or approach to process the data. The faster this evolution can be achieved, especially when business conditions are changing, the faster the time-to-value. The ease with which users can repeatedly run analyses against a data set to see how variables The ease with which users can interact, or modify analyses to solve new repeatedly run or modify analyses problems, was another universally-acknowledged was rated about twice as easy with strength of Alteryx. In fact, respondents rated Alteryx as opposed to SAS. these activities about twice as easy using Alteryx versus SAS. One customer explained the difference well, saying:
For an experienced user, SAS and Alteryx are both fast at iteration, but Alteryx has the advantage of being self-documenting. Its graphical interface means that every analysis is a flow-chart that you save, so it s much easier to rerun or modify flow-charts [versus SAS] and know that the differences are real, not just artifacts of having done it differently the last time. Analytics Manager, Worldwide Development Department, major restaurant chain. These saved flowcharts alluded to in the previous quote are part of Alteryx s dragand-drop architecture, that integrates the R language for predictive analysis, that enables business analysts to drag-and-drop pre-built R macros and run their jobs without having to use complex coding. Many of those interviewed recognized that this architecture was a key ingredient to their satisfaction. One summarized this sentiment well, saying: I want things to be as intuitive going forward as they are now, and I know there are more consultants out there who can work with R than with SAS, which says to me that we ll probably have fewer issues with Alteryx down the road. - Analytics Manager, Worldwide Development Department, major restaurant chain. Simple process for integrating a full range of data Alteryx offers a holistic solution for data blending and enrichment including access, integration, cleansing and enrichment as a preparation step for data analysis. Data sources include: third-party data, spatial data, data from social networks in addition to standard datasets such as database data, flat files, spreadsheets. A majority of the interviewees lauded how easy it was to incorporate a wide range of data types. It was apparent that Alteryx s strategy of bundling major commercial data offerings from vendors like Experian and Dun & Bradstreet, as well as spatial data, made it easier to enrich corporate data than the more complex processes associated with legacy SAS. With SAS, we had to pull in data ourselves from various sources, but most of that now comes with our professional license with Alteryx we ve barely scratched the surface of what we can access now. Analyst, Risk Analytics, national business services company. With its latest release of Alteryx Analytics, Alteryx has added social media to the mix. Only one participant was actively working with social media, and he was already sold. Being able to understand social media is critically important in our business. Statistician and Data Analyst, global media services company. Other Alteryx Benefits Increased speed and ease of use were the most prevalent findings from the customer survey, but Alteryx also received high marks for technical. Respondents indicated that technical support documentation was far more intuitive for Alteryx than for SAS, and customers were extremely satisfied with Alteryx s personal technical support. The average turnaround time among respondents for an Alteryx technical support issue was a little over 3 hours, whereas the average for SAS was a few days. Part of this is efficient response time is doubtless due to the smaller size of Alteryx. As noted by one participant, I feel like it s so much more personal with Alteryx.
Another reason may be the close connection between technical support and engineering that enables quick response to user requests. As expressed by one respondent: I think it would be worth noting that their technical support is phenomenal in terms of bringing forward new features that users want. I think this latest release is about half [customer] requests from the last year. Two customers were encouraged that a recent Alteryx change in licensing would allow them to expand usage for a lower price. Summary Universally, respondents are impressed with Alteryx as they explore its capabilities. As noted above, they appreciate the single platform, single set of technologies, and single process offered by So it s about as close to being the analyst s dream platform as I ve seen in my career. Alteryx versus the multiple platforms, complex tools, and lengthy processes required in legacy SAS systems. In particular, they recognize that this new approach makes it faster and easier to do analytics in line-of-business environments. I don t think it takes more than an hour or two to be relatively fluent in Alteryx. -Chief Operating Officer, marketing analytics and modeling firm. Furthermore, due to Alteryx s many advantages, competitive capabilities, and roadmap, all five respondents expect to increase Alteryx usage and decrease usage of SAS. Once Alteryx is installed, its use expands, limited only by the inertia of legacy application familiarity and legacy code investments. Overall, respondents attitudes can be summed up as follows: I ve had a great experience with them [Alteryx] and they really do deliver a single platform where you can do all of your data extraction, your data cleansing, your data visualization, and ultimately your model building. So it s about as close to being the analyst s dream platform as I ve seen in my career. Manager, Customer Insights, supply and service organization.
About Alteryx, Inc. Alteryx is the leader in data blending and advanced analytics software. Alteryx Analytics provides analysts with an intuitive workflow for data blending and advanced analytics that leads to deeper insights in hours, not the weeks typical of traditional approaches. Analysts love the Alteryx analytics platform because they can deliver deeper insights by seamlessly blending internal, third party, and cloud data, and then analyze it using spatial and predictive drag-and-drop tools. This is all done in a single workflow, with no programming required. More than 300 customers, including Experian, Kaiser, Ford, and McDonald s, and 200,000 + users worldwide rely on Alteryx daily. Visit www.alteryx.com or call 1-888-836-4274. About Crimson Consulting We help executives achieve market leadership Crimson Consulting is a premier full-service technology marketing firm that integrates all aspects of marketing from strategy to execution to measurable results for clients in product marketing, partner marketing and corporate marketing. Our clients include Adobe, Cisco, ebay, Hitachi, HP, IBM, Google, Intel, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Seagate, Symantec and Verizon among others. We are experts in the marketing of technology solutions.