Market Perspectives

Data is moving to the cloud. And as cloud applications are adopted, it means that many critical sources of data for analytics now, or soon will, live in the cloud. In fact, nearly nine in 10 participants in our research (89%) reported that they plan to use cloud-based analytics deployments, and the overwhelming majority of organizations (86%) expect that most of their data will eventually be in the cloud. But, as organizations look to embed analytics and reporting into their applications, they face many hurdles including high infrastructure costs, lack of domain-specific expertise and roadblocks that appear when scaling.

Overcoming those challenges is worth it, however, because of the key business organizations achieve with cloud analytics including becoming more agile when analyzing data, starting new analytical projects and using analytics to quickly adapt to changing business conditions. MicroStrategy is an analytics and business intelligence (BI) software company that enables organizations to make data-driven decisions and optimize business processes. Organizations can use its platform to turn data into analytical applications and use it for BI. They can also deploy artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) models and analyze data in real-time. MicroStrategy HyperIntelligence is its ubiquitous analytics capability that can detect and display information associated with selected entities and measures within applications such as Salesforce, Workday and NetSuite as well as websites and productivity and collaboration applications.

MicroStrategy offers an analytics and BI ecosystem where organizations can build analytical analytics. It provides various tools and capabilities that include data discovery, data mining, data visualization, predictive analysis, interactive dashboards, scorecards, ad hoc queries, and automated report distribution, among others. MicroStrategy Dossier is its dashboard and data-visualization tool that provides users with the formatting, layout and input controls needed to build low-code/no-code analytics applications, from infographic-style reports to productivity applications. In addition, it offers a comprehensive library that provides data mining, financial and mathematical functionalities.

Additionally, its platform provides analysts access to their preferred tools. The platform can integrate with business applications including Microsoft Excel, Power BI, and Tableau and also provides out-of-the-box integrations to various data-science tools like Jupyter and RStudio, allowing users to develop predictive, ML-enhanced data models. It offers 200+ connectors to various on-premises or cloud data sources along with a comprehensive set of REST APIs to enable users to embed the platform in packaged and custom applications, workflows and devices. MicroStrategy's architecture can be deployed on-premises with Windows or Linux servers or in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft Azure clouds. Its client interfaces enable users to access MicroStrategy applications and services via the web, Windows, Mac and mobile devices. In addition to its suite of development and administrative tools, MicroStrategy provides a software developer kit (SDK) that enables developers to customize an application and integrate it with other applications.

Organizations should be motivated to incorporate analytics in their existing processes because analytics embedded within applications can more easily lead to action. We expect that through next year, more than one-half of line-of-business personnel will have immediate access to cross-functional analytics embedded in their activities and processes, helping to make operational decision-making more efficient and effective. Organizations can use it to enable end users to build transaction-enabled analytics applications that optimize operations and boost productivity with code-free development tools. MicroStrategy offers developers JavaScript application programming interfaces for embedding content in other applications. It also provides libraries for managing, customizing and rebranding various aspects of the product.

Organizations should evaluate their data and analytics requirements including collaborative, embedded and mobile capabilities to ensure their existing solutions are meeting their needs. Those who are looking for a complete analytics and BI platform should evaluate the offering from MicroStrategy. Not only does it offer a broad set of analytical capabilities, it also supports a variety of on-premises and cloud-based deployment options.