Business Intelligence Market Report H2 2016
Introduction We support BI professionals who are seeking new roles and companies who are looking to hire the most accomplished tech specialists on a consulting basis.
The Computer Futures Difference: • Dedicated team specializing in BI markets • Extensive internal database and network of candidates • Swift candidate delivery time • Annual BI Market Report • 30 year history
While most technology recruiters are generalists, Computer Futures focuses on niche areas to offer more than just strong resumes to our clients. We provide the best quality candidates available on the market, with each candidate being thoroughly screened and vetted prior to their being presented forth to any prospective opportunity. If you are currently implementing a BI product, upgrading to the most recent version of your platform, conducting migrations or any other related scenario, Computer Futures can assist you in finding top level talent for your projects. We can also help in finding top level certified developers and trainers to conduct coaching sessions, build out your CoE, or create dashboards and reports. While BI products generally have extensive customer accounts and growing, there are typically only 4268 unique candidates on the market for each niche product at any given time nationally. There is a ratio of one candidate to every 15 jobs in the US, effectively making BI a highly niche space.
1
Candidates
FOCUS ON CONSULTING In the consulting world, the BI market is evolving and expanding very quickly. Being a specialist in this space has allowed us to see all the ups and downs of these highly niche products. Over the years, it has also granted us the privilege of being able to study the trends of what makes a client or consultant the most appealing in this market. If there is one thing that we know about this area, it is that the only consistent factor has been change. The term “survival of the fittest,� rings true with this rapidly growing technology space. Being the fittest candidate in the industry means having exposure and hands on experience with the latest versions and certifications of BI. This determines the difference between those who merely survive and those that actually thrive in this world. The candidates who have experience with the latest BI technologies are the first ones being considered for new projects and are better compensated.
WHAT CANDIDATES ARE LOOKING FOR For many BI consultants, one of the biggest factors in their decision making process is the project itself. For independent consultants, career progression is measured by project experience, so exciting projects that utilize the latest BI technology and have a solid environment are of preference. The duration of the project is also something that candidates will take into consideration. A longer project duration will take precedence over that of one for six months or less. However, keeping up with the newest skillsets is key to keeping ahead of the curve and therefore candidates usually prefer to change roles every 1-2 years.
2
Candidates THROUGH THE EYES OF A CANDIDATE We speak with a wide variety of candidates across the country from Developers to Senior Architects. We have discussed important factors when choosing a BI position, as well as their current views on the market. When deciding whether to take a role, rate is an incredibly important factor. The BI skillset is already a hot commodity in the market, and the candidates know their skills are highly sought after. With remote roles becoming more popular, candidates desire a premium for on-site positions. This can actually be a negotiating factor for many clients. The company brand is also a deciding factor for the candidates. Candidates want to have well-known, established brand names on their resumes. Many candidates are starting to request end-client positions only, rather than working via a consulting firm. Company culture is incredibly important as well: candidates want to working in a supportive, exciting environment. In addition to the role itself, many candidates are considering the reputation of the company as well. For candidates, the market provides constant opportunity. Many candidates are signing off on their next contract while they are still in final stages of their current project; there is hardly any down time in between.
3
Gartner Report
According to the IDC (International Data Corporation), the business analytics market generated $37.7 billion worldwide and is projected to grow to around $59.2 billion in 2018, translating to a 9.4% compounded annual growth rate for the forecasted period. According to Gartner.com, the BI and Analytics platform is currently undergoing a fundamental shift. During the past ten years, BI platform investments have predominantly been in IT-led consolidation and standardization projects for large-scale systems of record reporting. These have tended to be highly governed and centralized, where IT-authored production reports were pushed out to inform a broad array of information consumers and analysts. Now, a wider range of business users are demanding access to interactive styles of analysis and insights from advanced analytics, without requiring them to have IT or data science skills. As demand from business users for pervasive access to data discovery capabilities grows, IT wants to deliver on this requirement without sacrificing governance.
4
“
The company claimed more than 46,000 customers worldwide in its final earnings release prior to being acquired by SAP. Its flagship product is Business Objects XI.�
5
BUSINESS OBJECTS Why SAP Business Objects BI platform? The powerful BI software allows you to put decision-ready information within business users’ reach. With this analytics platform, you can increase responsiveness, reduce IT costs and workload, and drive better decision-making across your organization.
BILL RATES: Developer Architect
$90 - $120 $120 - $185
Certified Trainer $145 - 175
The company claimed more than 46,000 customers worldwide in its final earnings release prior to being acquired by SAP. Its flagship product is Business Objects XI, with components that provide performance management, planning, reporting, query and analysis, and enterprise information management.
What to Expect
Business Analyst $85 - 115
There will be continued innovation for SAP, they intend to continue providing driven innovation to their ON-Premise SAP customers on a regular basis with a release every 18-24 months. The last version was 4.2 on 12/31/15 and the next scheduled support release will be before the end of 2016.
SALARIES:
The Current Platform
Developer
$120 - 140k
Architect
$150 - 170k
Manager / Trainer
$170k
Business Analyst
$95k
SAP Business Objects Business Intelligence 4.2 is the most current platform released at the end of 2015. With this release, SAP delivers innovation to core BI solutions and supports on-going commitment to those key offerings. SAP Business Objects BI platform 4.2 delivers innovations that simplify, enhance, and extend the platform value without disturbing existing customer investments. BI 4.2 offers advancements for designers and analysts using Web Intelligence, SAP Lumira and Design Studio, IT administrators responsible for optimizing/managing platform performance, and development/ecosystem partners looking to extend the value and capabilities of the integrated BI Platform These innovations are designed to increase responsiveness, reduce IT costs and workload, and drive better decision making across the organization. 4.2 provides a host of new enhancements and new features that are the result of customers’, partners’, developers’, and internal stakeholders’ feedback. There will be another release for support Pack 2 later on in 2016 as well. Most organizations that use SAP BI should have two platform objectives for 2016 - adopting SAP Lumira in their BI landscape and upgrading to SAP Business Objects Business Intelligence 4.2.
6
“
IBM Cognos still ranks within the Leaders quadrant of Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence.”
77
COGNOS IBM acquired Cognos in November of 2007 for $4.9 billion. In January 2009, Cognos became part of the IBM Infosphere product line under IBM Information Management Software brand, which falls within the company’s Software Group. The software now goes by “Cognos Business Intelligence and Financial Performance Management” or Cognos BI and FPM. IBM leadership announced a restructured user experience for its flagship Cognos Business Intelligence software during the IBM Insight conference in Las Vegas last October. This is an upgrade from Cognos BI 10.x, and is version 11. One of its new features includes its in-context smarter search. This release has also been renamed as Cognos Analytics; it holds similar self-service design properties to Watson Analytics.
BILL RATES: Developer
$95 - 145
Architect
$135 - 185
Certified Trainer $145 - 175 Business Analyst $85 - 115
SALARIES: Developer
$110 - 130k
Architect
$140 - 160k
Manager / Trainer
$85k
Business Analyst
$160k
Self-service BI, data discovery and an updated user experience are the three core functions of this new release. With Cognos 11, there is ability to do some basic data modelling and to create visual dashboards within minutes, along with an updated look and feel. Similar to Watson Analytics, the data discovery in Cognos 11 is done through intent-based modelling. There is also an Uploaded Files feature, which has replaced the functionality of Cognos v10 that included External Data and My Data Sets. In addition, Cognos 11 stores the uploaded files as Apache Parquet files rather than using DB2. This allows for speedy data retrieval. Users are now also able to find relevant data rather than relying on the developer to update the Framework Manager model to publish a package. The updated user experience includes a more simplified interface, which has a series of sliding panels that replace the folders and tabs. Similar to Google search, there is also a new search engine, which has replaced the Go! Search index. The results are returned as you type. Users are given the following options for creating their content: report authoring, data module and dashboard. There is also a streamlined and updated look to the administration page. Websphere Liberty is the application server, which ships along with Cognos Analytics. These new features included in Cognos Analytics are on par with what organizations seek from enterprise BI software, and hope to compete with leading products such as Qlik and Tableau, with stronger user self-service abilities and visual appeal. With Cognos Analytics, IBM pulls ahead by providing a simplified and functional front end that supports self-service BI, while keeping the full-bodied development environment (Framework Manager, features from Report Studio). The back-end features (DQM, Dynamic Cubes, application management) that were popular in previous versions of Cognos BI still remain, as well as the full-bodied development environment (Framework Manager). In addition to these, Cognos Analytics now includes a more functional and basic front end that is supportive of self-service BI.
8
“
Qlik and its ecosystem support more than 37,000 customers, ranging from small- and mediumsized businesses through to large enterprises and public organizations, within a multitude of industries and across an expanse of geographic locations.�
9
QLIK Enhancements for QlikView 12 and the QlikView product line are planned for 2016 and beyond. These include improvements to publishing and logging, support for unbalanced clusters that allow multiple servers to have different configurations, enhancements for geographic, industry, and government-specific requirements, ongoing support for the latest security requirements and evolving standards, and support for new devices and form factors. Currently Qlik Sense and NPrinting are extremely sought after.
Qlik Sense
BILL RATES: Developer
$100- 150
Architect
$140 - 190
Certified Trainer $145 - 180 Business Analyst $90 - 120
SALARIES:
Qlik Sense has been a popular platform as of late, some people confuse the two as different platforms but they are essentially built to work alongside one another. QlikView is an efficient tool for a developer to incorporate set and processed business data, applications, data models and graphs for the user to view in a more visualized manner, i.e., ‘guided analytics’. Qlik Sense actually can give the user the power and freedom to further create layouts, visualizations and graphics that the user further wanted to explore or that the developer may not have thought of. In this case you can consider it as a self-service ‘guided analytics’ approach. From a technical perspective, they use the same analysis engine and have the same logic as far as using the same calculation engine as well. QVD (QlikView Data Files) is a technology also used in Qlik Sense. Although similar in these ways, generally speaking Qlik Sense is a more modern tool, optimized for touch-screen and allows the end-user more freedom and flexibility in generating their desired data and visual analytics. Coming from a ‘self-service’ approach, Qlik Sense can be a valuable tool in uncovering insights from a broader range of users without the need to be a developer.
Developer
$120 - 140k
NPrinting
Architect
$150 - 170k
QlikView although being a fantastic user driven data visualization tool, has lacked the capabilities in being an effective report writing tool. This allowed Vizubi to create the tool now known as “QlikView NPrinting” and as of February 2015, Qlik had acquired Vizubi and NPrinting.
Manager / Trainer
$95k
Business Analyst
$170k
Developing reports in QlikView is often time consuming and does not provide the best end results. NPrinting is considered to be one of the most advanced report generation, scheduling and distribution applications. Being able to use the data from and images within QlikView itself, whether they were sheets, objects, charts, graphs, tables etc., you can generate complex and great looking reports with simple drag-and-drop functionalities. Also with NPrinting you can not only use your data from QlikView, but from your ERP and CRM to populate and manage recipients and distribution lists. The ability to generate complex, visually compelling reports on-demand makes QlikView NPrinting an absolute necessity if you plan to generate reports. Expect to see other product releases over the course of the year, including enhancements to Qlik Sense Cloud, new data packages for Qlik DataMarket, and new releases of other products such as the Qlik Analytics Platform.
10
“
There is a ratio of 1 candidate to 10 jobs in the US, effectively making Tableau a niche space. While SQL Server development has a large presence within the IT industry, specifically within BI, Tableau specialization is significantly harder to find.�
11
TABLEAU Tableau, founded in Mountain View California, in January 2003 has quickly become the industry’s leading Business Intelligence/Data Visualization tool. 2016 also marks the fourth consecutive year that Tableau holds the market leader position in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for BI & Analytics Platforms significantly above both Microsoft and Qlik. Tableau was ranked #1 in “ability to execute” and leader in “completeness in vision.” With Tableau’s consumer base has reached well over 30,000 users worldwide. In August 2016, Tableau appointed Adam Selipsky CEO. Christian Chabot, Chairman of the Board, believes that Selipsky “is the right person to lead Tableau to the next stage of growth.” The recent release of Version 10.0 has added numerous benefits, which is quickly causing users to update to the latest version. Some noted new features are:
BILL RATES: Developer
$100 - 150
Architect
$140 - 190
Certified Trainer $145 - 180 Business Analyst $90 - 120
Cross-Database Joins: Users are now able to join data from different sources i.e. Excel & Oracle and created an integrated data source in Tableau. Alternatively, you can create a Tableau extract of this data source and publish it. Device Designer: Users are now able to share dashboards on any screen. They will be able to design, customize and publish a single dashboard for optimized viewing for tablets and phones. Global Cross-Database Filters: Now a single filter can apply to more than one data source in a work book, making it much easier to analyze data across various sources.
SALARIES: Developer
$120k
Architect
$150k
Manager / Trainer
$95k
Business Analyst
$170k
Clustering: 10.0 enables you to drag and drop cluster analysis, this way you can easily spot patterns and groups in your data. In Regards to Candidates:There is a ratio of 1 candidate to 10 jobs in the US, effectively making Tableau a niche space. While SQL Server development has a large presence within the IT industry, specifically within BI, Tableau specialization is significantly harder to find. Although a growing trend across all IT fields has been the increased presence of offshore resources for cost effectiveness, the Tableau niche has not been impacted as heavily as other industries, as development in still preferred to be conducted in house.
12
“
MircoStrategy has become one of the fastest growing BI enterprise analytic platforms in the world. Being embraced by major companies such as Campbell’s, Barclays, Marc Jacobs, and Autotrader has earned the MicroStrategy brand major credibility within the BI industry.” 13
MICROSTRATEGY MicroStrategy, which was created in 1989 and headquartered in Washington D.C has become one of the fastest growing BI enterprise analytic platforms in the world. Being embraced by major companies such as Campbell’s, Barclays, Marc Jacobs, and Autotrader has earned the MicroStrategy brand major credibility within the BI industry. This has led to MicroStrategy having over 4,000 customers ranging across 28 countries throughout 20 different industries to date. MicroStrategy released their latest version 10.4 in June of 2016, and clients are loving the new features. Some of the benefits of the new features are as follows:
BILL RATES: Developer
$95 - 145
Architect
$135 - 185
Certified Trainer $145 - 175 Business Analyst $85 - 115
SALARIES: Developer
$110 - 130k
Architect
$140 - 160k
Manager / Trainer
$85k
Business Analyst
$160k
Improved computing power for analytical applications: letting organizations expand the number of servers in a cluster to up to eight nodes—double the overall capacity of previous versions. MicroStrategy customers now have the freedom to consolidate multiple production environments or incrementally increase user capacity, while seeing faster performance. Dynamic links to external content: you can now tell better stories with your visualizations by linking cell-level information to external content using configurable, dynamic links. With this feature, users can directly access helpful information from within a MicroStrategy report, enabling report creators to provide context and related information to users. Multi-layer mapping for iOS: Mapping on the go? Layer multiple datasets on the same map for quick comparisons and easy visual analysis. Each layer can leverage different data visualizations including markers, bubbles, density maps, and more. Use the interactive filters to hide and display the desired layers. Export to Excel: Collaboration just got easier. Export reports directly from your iOS mobile device for further analysis in Excel. Easily share exported reports via email.
14
Contact Information Computer Futures is a leading, global specialist tech recruitment organization. We avidly report on market insight, industry trends, and advances in technology. Our Business Intelligence Center of Excellence is situated in New York and services our wide ranging US client base. Please get in touch with us using the contact information below:
Farah Salman f.salman@computerfutures.com
Teppei Masuda t.masuda@computerfutures.com
Saidah Khan sa.khan@computerfutures.com
James Hobbs j.hobbs@computerfutures.com
Natasha Singh n.singh@computerfutures.com
Joseph Musa j.musa@computerfutures.com
15