Business Intelligence Perception 2013
Who Will Lead the Fleet?

WORTH KNOWING

Uncertainty Prevails

Provider perceptions reveal the lack of a clear market leader for enterprise analytics in healthcare. Of those unable to identify a standout leader, 76% were C-levels.

BI Portfolio Depth = Top Differentiator

BI vendors most mentioned as potential standout market leaders include IBM, SAP, Microsoft, and Oracle, all of whom have strong BI portfolios consisting of both front-end (presentation layer) and back-end (data integration/management) BI tools.

Needed: Healthcare-Specific BI Functionality

Limited resources propel providers to seek more healthcare BI content, models, and prebuilt functionality. Explorys, Health Catalyst, and OptumInsight (Humedica) received the next most mentions as potential leaders, largely due to healthcare focus and vision for BI. IBM and Oracle were noticed for advanced healthcare data models, but called out for high price tags. Microsoft and SAP were seen more as commodity BI tools, but not healthcare specific.

More Usability and Affordability, Please!

The need for ease of use and affordability remain salient and often unmet provider criteria in a BI market leader. QlikTech and Tableau received multiple mentions for usability and data visualization but are not seen as full BI tool sets; providers also called out SAS and McKesson, whose BI offerings are more complete but whose visual data discovery products are newer.

“The problem with the BI vendors is the same problem we have been talking about for decades. . . . . A system that gives me a blank piece of paper to start with is not helpful. The tools that are helpful are the ones that come with best practices for metrics and the analyses that are going to be most useful.” -CIO

OTHER INTERESTING FINDINGS

Performance vs Perception: The Irony

vendors mentioned most as potential future market leaders in this report (IBM, SAP, Microsoft, Oracle) receive average or below-average performance scores from providers today; by contrast, multiyear top rated BI vendor Dimensional Insight received limited market recognition as perceived future market leader, mostly due to limited visibility in larger health systems.

Consideration for Population Health Analytics on the Rise—

Paradigm shifts in healthcare models and increased focus on quality lead providers to consider more than just traditional BI vendors; in addition to Explorys and OptumInsight mentions, Advisory Board, Caradigm, Verisk, and Wellcentive were each seen by one provider as potential market leaders.

Project Manager
Robert Ellis