While many distributors work towards growing an end-to-end enterprise intelligence platform, Pyramid Analytics already has one.
And it is that end-to-end platform — one that allows customers to go from knowledge preparation by means of discovery, modeling and deployment — that helps the independent vendor differentiate itself from its many bigger, extra well-financed friends.
Pyramid, based in 2009 and based mostly in Amsterdam, is an analytics vendor with a platform specializing in what it calls resolution intelligence. In addition to its dwelling base, it has workplaces in London; Seattle; Boise, Idaho; and Tel Aviv, Israel.
Pyramid, nevertheless, is small in comparison with lots of its opponents.
The independent, privately held vendor has raised about $75 million in funding, significantly lower than that raised by different independent, privately held analytics distributors reminiscent of ThoughtSpot ($663.7 million) and Sisense ($274 million).
Other independent distributors reminiscent of Domo and MicroStrategy are publicly held and have entry to capital by means of the inventory market, whereas wholly owned distributors reminiscent of Tableau, Looker and Tibco have entry to funds — and an array of consumers — by means of their guardian corporations.
Technological differentiation, due to this fact, is key for Pyramid because it competes for clients.
“On the know-how facet, we’re very differentiated,” mentioned Omri Kohl, co-founder and CEO of Pyramid.
Key differentiators are Pyramid’s deal with resolution intelligence and the symbiosis of the instruments in its platform, in accordance with Kohl.
A pattern Pyramid Analytics dashboard shows a company’s gross sales info.
Differentiation
Pyramid describes its end-to-end capabilities as comprising a choice intelligence platform reasonably than a enterprise intelligence platform.
Business intelligence is the method of accumulating and analyzing knowledge to make knowledgeable selections. Decision intelligence provides augmented intelligence capabilities to BI, and delivers knowledge and insights to customers the place and after they want it all through their workflows reasonably than requiring finish customers to do their evaluation in a BI software whereas doing their different work in several functions.
It’s a holistic strategy to BI, enabling knowledge scientists and enterprise customers alike with these AI capabilities all through the analytics cycle from knowledge preparation by means of motion, in accordance with Kohl.
“We imagine Pyramid is a wealthy canvas for analytics,” he mentioned. “Think of us like an Adobe suite for data-driven tasks.”
Other distributors, nevertheless, additionally supply resolution intelligence capabilities, from well-established corporations like Qlik, with its emphasis on what it phrases lively intelligence, to startups like Sisu, with its deal with mechanically explaining why issues are taking place after which prescribing what to do subsequent.
Quality and completeness, due to this fact, are keys to differentiation. And Pyramid affords each robust augmented analytics capabilities and a whole array of conventional analytics capabilities, in accordance with analysts.
They have a formidable platform that’s closely rooted in intelligence with a surprisingly strong and complete set of augmented capabilities. Augmented is the most popular space proper now within the BI house [and] Pyramid is positioned effectively.
Mike LeoneAnalyst, Enterprise Strategy Group
“They have a formidable platform that’s closely rooted in intelligence with a surprisingly strong and complete set of augmented capabilities,” mentioned Mike Leone, an analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group. “Augmented is the most popular space proper now within the BI house [and] Pyramid is positioned effectively.
“And whereas many distributors within the house need to full their end-to-end choices, Pyramid has one,” he continued.
Likewise, Donald Farmer, founder and principal of TreeHive Strategy, famous that Pyramid’s AI instruments and completeness of capabilities are amongst its strengths.
“They have a complete providing of main BI options and an excellent subset of superior options, together with guided analytics and pure language,” he mentioned. “They are differentiated by the broad scope of their providing constructed up over time, and by the truth that the platform has confirmed to be fairly resilient and dependable, not like another main merchandise.”
Beyond resolution intelligence, the platform nature of Pyramid’s capabilities helps set it aside from another distributors, in accordance with Kohl.
Rather than purchase a cadre of capabilities piecemeal and try to combine them, Pyramid has developed its to work collectively from the beginning — the symbiosis. In addition, when a buyer deploys Pyramid, it will get your complete platform in a single setting reasonably than shopping for some capabilities and piecing the system collectively by itself.
“We’re a platform,” Kohl mentioned. “It’s the buy-versus-build philosophy. Other distributors have nice instruments, and you may construct an incredible resolution, however they’re depending on heavy inner improvement [by customers], so it is a venture. It takes time, cash and energy.”
Enhanced capabilities
In November 2021, Pyramid unveiled its most up-to-date platform replace.
Rather than containing a number of recent capabilities, nevertheless, it was targeted extra on enhancing Pyramid’s present options to be able to allow organizations to scale their analytics.
According to Kohl, a typical barrier that stops organizations from scaling their analytics to extra customers is the variety of expertise amongst potential enterprise analysts, with many not having backgrounds in laptop science and statistics. Also, organizations typically face problem connecting to the info the place it resides reasonably than pulling it from an information warehouse right into a BI software. Another problem is the necessity to know code to construct knowledge property.
Pyramid, due to this fact, is considered one of many distributors that has targeted on self-service analytics by aiming to decrease these hurdles, and its most up-to-date replace included:
new knowledge governance capabilities designed to allow extra self-service customers all through organizations to work with knowledge safely and securely;
real-time question responses geared toward growing the productiveness of distant employees by enabling them to interact with knowledge with out having to seek the advice of with an information workforce; and
enhanced pure language capabilities to assist customers’ knowledge exploration and assist them dig deeper into knowledge to achieve higher insights.
“What we’re attempting to spend money on closely is the depth of analytics,” Kohl mentioned. “We’re attempting to make the delicate easy. It’s the concept with no-code you’ll be able to nonetheless do a really deep dive into no matter you need to do.”
That emphasis on scaling throughout the enterprise to enchantment to extra self-service customers is necessary, and the November replace demonstrates that Pyramid is prioritizing the right capabilities for a broad array of customers, in accordance with the analysts.
“They are targeted on the appropriate issues,” Farmer mentioned. “There are not any huge breakthroughs right here, however the incremental steps are all the time very solidly constructed and dependable.”
In explicit, he famous that the real-time question responses powered by Pyramid’s PYRANA question and analytics engine will likely be useful.
“It helps the broadly used [Multidimensional Expressions] customary, but in addition their very own Pyramid Query Language, which permits high-performance queries towards quite a few knowledge platforms,” Farmer mentioned. “It is especially highly effective in that its libraries assist the era of infographics and pure language with out the necessity for third-part extensions.”
Leone additionally highlighted the significance of the question enhancements, whereas additionally noting the worth of added knowledge governance tips.
“Pyramid’s latest focus areas of ruled self-service and real-time question response make it very clear democratizing knowledge and analytics for all finish customers is a prime precedence,” he mentioned.
Fiercely independent
Despite its comparatively small dimension, Pyramid has no intention of giving up its independence, in accordance with Kohl.
While consolidation continues amongst analytics distributors as previously independent distributors choose for the advantages of pairing with a bigger guardian firm, Kohl mentioned some great benefits of independence outweigh the entry to capital and clients that comes with getting acquired.
In explicit, the potential lack of id is a figuring out issue for Pyramid.
Fifteen years in the past, a number of former huge analytics distributors reminiscent of Business Objects, Cognos and Hyperion had been all acquired, and since then they’ve basically disappeared. While Tableau and Looker, each acquired in 2019, and extra not too long ago Logi Analytics and Yellowfin, all retain a measure of autonomy underneath their guardian corporations, what is going to occur to them over time stays to be seen.
“It’s a improbable transfer for corporations that need to grow to be a part of a much bigger group,” Kohl mentioned. “They achieve entry to clients and strategic avenues, however … their skill to focus, from a roadmap perspective, on what the market calls for in regard to analytics is restricted as a result of they’ve a guardian firm that dictates what they will do.”
And that creates uncertainty for present clients, he continued.
While the inflow of capital and entry to clients is useful for the acquired firm, as a result of it is now not totally in charge of its future, clients can worry it would evolve into one thing completely different from the corporate they selected for their analytics wants.
“Our resolution to stay independent offers us freedom to work with any knowledge asset within the business,” Kohl mentioned..
Meanwhile, regardless of some inherent disadvantages, Pyramid is rising shortly, in accordance with Kohl.
He mentioned the seller now has about 3,000 clients and is rising its put in base by 80% to 85% year-over-year. Likewise, income has been doubling year-over-year for the previous three years, Kohl mentioned.
From a geographic perspective, Pyramid is concentrating on clients within the United States, Europe and northeast Asia. Industries it targets embrace monetary providers, insurance coverage, banking, retail, manufacturing and automotive.
“Though conceptually we’re generalists, we’re nonetheless including numerous capabilities to serve these market segments,” Kohl mentioned.
Despite its success as an independent, Farmer speculated that Pyramid will finally get acquired. Much like Yellowfin, a vendor based in 2003 that developed a revered platform however after practically twenty years of independence bought itself to B2B software program specialist Idera, Pyramid might finally succumb to the lure of a bigger group.
“It appears possible that acquisition is of their future,” Farmer mentioned. “The independent distributors dwell in a world the place each main vendor is already current within the enterprise, so they have to dwell as a part of a portfolio of options in a big enterprise or attempt to persuade a smaller enterprise to deal with them. To achieve this, they want some standout differentiation.”
Pyramid has some standout differentiation, nevertheless it’s with capabilities many bigger distributors additionally possess, Farmer continued.
“When your differentiation is being stable, dependable and well-featured, that doesn’t seize the eye in the identical approach,” he mentioned
Roadmap
Following its November platform replace, Pyramid plans to proceed investing in its analytics capabilities.
Three areas of focus will likely be automation, machine studying and knowledge science workbenches that allow knowledge employees to higher coordinate and handle their workflows.
All are geared toward making capabilities as soon as reserved for educated knowledge scientists accessible to enterprise analysts who do not have backgrounds in laptop science and statistics.
“Because there is a lack of information scientists, the one technique to bridge the hole is thru know-how,” Kohl mentioned. “You do not have to be a PhD in statistics to function the platform. You can really be … a citizen knowledge scientist and do the job.”
Enterprise Strategy Group is a division of TechTarget.
https://www.techtarget.com/searchbusinessanalytics/news/252514205/Differentiation-key-for-independent-Pyramid-Analytics
