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White Paper
A Buyer’s Guide to
Strategic Analytics
Five Critical Criteria for
Analytics Success

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Introduction
Analytics drive the key strategic decisions in major corporations today. It’s rare
that a company makes a critical decision about a new product, corporate
expansion or strategic investment without crunching numbers and analyzing
a vast amount of data. However, most legacy tools and solutions that help
companies make these critical strategic decisions simply aren’t built to deal
with the reality of today’s modern business environment.
While the consumerization of corporate IT and the advent of cloud computing
have combined to change how corporate decision-makers use business
applications, existing strategic analysis tools remain complicated, time-
consuming, and difficult to use. Whereas decision-makers now demand instant
answers anytime, anywhere, with access to all the required data to make those
decisions at their fingertips, most legacy analytical solutions continue to rely
upon highly specialized and expensive statisticians, PhDs, or data scientists
and require long lead times from the identification of a business problem to
the actual delivery of data and analytics.
Because of this, enterprises such as yours are reconsidering their current
analytic platform investment and evaluating alternative approaches that are
better matched to today’s dynamic, fast-paced business environment. But where
should you start? What evaluation criteria should you use to ensure that you
make a sound investment that will deliver tangible business benefits both
now and in the future?
Clearly, you want a solution that enables you to make the most accurate
business decisions in the shortest amount of time. What’s more, you’ll want
to incorporate all types of data—structured, unstructured, or geographic—
no matter where it is located, ensuring that your organization is making
decisions based on the most relevant information possible. And you’ll want
to make sure that you can put the powerful analytical capabilities delivered
by your new platform—e.g., predictive analytics, spatial data, and location
intelligence—directly in the hands of the employees that need this power,
whether they are line-of-business business analysts, also known as data
artisans, or the business decision-makers they support.
Five Critical Criteria for a Modern, Strategic Analytic Platform
There are five (5) key questions you should ask yourself when evaluating
a strategic analytic platform for your organization.
Question #1: Does the analytics platform combine the experience
of consumer cloud services and sophisticated analytics?
Over the past five years, cloud business intelligence (BI) and analytics have been
among the fastest growing areas of interest for organizations. A flexible cloud
deployment and environment can make analytics more easily accessible and
reduce the burden on IT while, at the same time, enhancing the user experience.
Many organizations have been sold on the promise of saving money and
putting analytic capabilities into the hands of more users, more quickly,
but they have not seen the promise realized.
While plenty of BI tools offer cloud-based deployment options, few also
deliver the power of sophisticated analytics. Those solutions that provide
high-end visualization, metric, and dashboard capabilities lack powerful
analytic capabilities. Likewise, those that are strong in analytics simply
replicate the complexity and cost of legacy on-premise software deployed
in the cloud.
When evaluating strategic analytics
platforms, consider the following
factors when framing your
evaluation criteria:
• Time-to-Decision. How quickly can
you get an answer to your critical
business decision?
• Data Range. What kind of data—
structured, unstructured, or
geographic—can the application
consume?
• Direct Accessibility by
Decision-makers. Can those who
really need to analyze data do so
independently?

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When evaluating strategic analytic platforms, you should look for a
solution that:
• Combines the value of cloud-based services with the power of sophisticated
analytics to make analytics more easily available to the individuals who
need them, when they need them;
• Facilitates iterative interaction between business analysts and decision-
makers rather than depending on already overburdened IT resources;
• Gives decision-makers rapid access to analytics from any location,
including through a public cloud deployment model; and
• Delivers an engaging and social experience to allow decision-makers
to use and share analytic applications.
Question #2: Can you access all the relevant data in order to make the
best possible strategic business decisions?
As most analysts know all too well, data today is never stored in a single
location and is rarely consistent or uniform in nature. There’s one data
warehouse for point-of-sale data, another for customer relationship data,
and yet another location for the growing amount of new, unstructured
data, such as social media content. Plus, there’s the inevitable data
captured in flat files—word processing and spreadsheets, for example—
on their desktops.
Unfortunately, most solutions fall short when it comes to accessing data.
Some are limited in the size of the data they can access. Others are limited in
the types of data they can import. And many line-of-business decision-makers
must wait for lengthy stretches of time for overworked IT personnel to
integrate and stage these various datasets before they can even begin analysis.
Without the ability to directly access, integrate, and prepare the right data to
create the correct analytical dataset, decisions can be incomplete, inaccurate,
and ill-advised.
When evaluating strategic analytic platforms, you should ensure that the
solution you select enables you to:
• Access all the types of data sources relevant to the business problem,
from Big Data and cloud data to local data, corporate data warehouses,
and social media streams;
• Include and process data of different types, including unstructured,
semi-structured, structured, and spatial data;
• Integrate, cleanse, and prepare the data for analysis; and
• Use all of these capabilities in an easy-to-use tool that does not require
intervention or assistance from data scientists or IT staff.
Question #3: Can you complete the entire analytical process in a single tool?
Traditional BI, analytical, and statistical tools were built to do a certain task in
a certain way and many vendors have created loosely coupled product suites—
both through independent development and acquisition—to address the full
complement of capabilities required by the modern business analyst. Ask any
analyst, however, and you’ll find that the analytical process to use these
product suites has not been fully integrated or thought-out.
Instead, analysts must jump from tool to tool to get from business question to
business answer: there’s one tool for ETL and data integration, another tool for
conducting analysis, and yet another tool to use for reporting. And none of
them feed data to one another. What’s more, most analysts face the fact that
their IT organization must be involved in most of these tasks, which can cause
delays in both analysis and actual decisions.
“If somebody asked me whether
they should use Alteryx,
my answer to them would be,
yes, you should, and you will
never look back again.”
Paul Thomas, Head of Retail Business Strategies
Division at Experian

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When evaluating modern strategic analytic platforms, you should find a
solution that drives the entire analytical process in a single tool, so you can:
• Unify strategic analytic workflows—from data integration to analytics to
sharing of analytic applications—dramatically reducing the time not only
to create analytics but also to iterate or improve them; and
• Reach a specific answer or build a business-user ready analytic application
fast enough to meet the needs of the organization.
Question #4: Does the analytic platform allow you to access and
make sense of Big Data?
What is Big Data? Big Data can be defined as data that is created and stored by
organizations in very large volumes. It is generated at a very high velocity and
comes from a variety of sources. This data can be structured, such as financial
data; unstructured, such as text or audio files; or semi-structured, such as a
web page. All of these different data types can be difficult to analyze using
traditional methods but they unlock the missing “v” in the Big Data discussion:
the value of the data.
Getting the most out of the valuable information stored in your Big Data is key
to making the most informed decisions possible about customer behavior,
process optimization, and even security or compliance. Getting this value
quickly can make or break your organization’s competitive advantage. However,
most organizations with Big Data projects still have entirely separate storage,
access and analysis approaches that keep Big Data “off-limits” to the majority
of decision-makers.
When evaluating strategic analytic platforms, you should look for a
solution that:
• Makes all types of data available without the long waiting period common
in today’s Big Data access and integration projects;
• Enables you to access all popular Big Data data sources, including Hadoop
and NoSQL systems, and easily integrate that data with other sources
of insight; and
• Allows you to access all Big Data sources without retraining existing
specialists or hiring new analysts, in addition to the existing data scientists
employed to drive deployment of the Big Data systems.
Question #5: Are the right type of analytics available for you to
make the right decisions?
The emergence of data discovery tools has interrupted the steady, sleepy
growth of the traditional BI sector, becoming a disruptive yet positive force in
executive suites around the world. However, while these tools are visually
powerful and enable business leaders to view a snapshot of the current state of
the business, they lack the sophisticated analysis capabilities to provide a more
in-depth view into their data’s past, present, and future. Plus, getting those
details requires an expensive investment in hard-to-find statistical specialists
and programmers.
To make the most informed decisions, you need to be able to run the right
analysis. You can’t rely on your gut feelings or instincts, nor can you rely on
error-prone spreadsheets. Rather, you need a tool that is flexible enough
to give your organization the edge you need to make the most accurate
decisions possible based on the right results. You need a tool that can take
any sort of data—whether structured, unstructured, or even spatial—
and analyze it quickly, giving you the options you need to make the right
competitive decisions and drive your long-term success.
Humanizing Big Data is dependent
on two critical elements:
• Making Big Data Easy to Access.
The ability to access, integrate,
and analyze Big Data should be
available to data and business
analysts who drive strategic
decision-making across the
organization.
• Helping Big Data Tell its Story.
Big Data can drive business
value only if it is enriched by the
full context of all data available
and if advanced analytical
capabilities can be applied
without the need for data
science or statistical expertise.

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When evaluating strategic analytic platforms, you should look for a
solution that:
• Enables a wide range of decision-makers within your enterprise to use
statistical, predictive, spatial, and other advanced analytics, without requiring
the skills of expensive specialists or data scientists; and
• Allows you to quickly and easily embed these analytics into analytic
applications, delivering their power to users while hiding their complexity.
Alteryx Meets All Five Critical Criteria for a Modern,
Strategic Analytic Solution
Alteryx Strategic Analytics is the only solution that meets all five (5) critical
criteria for a modern strategic analytic solution. As such, it:
1. Combines the experience of consumer cloud services and
sophisticated analytics
Alteryx is the only analytic solution that combines the power of cloud
computing with the consumerization of sophisticated analytics. While most
solutions focus on reducing the burden of IT and infrastructure, they fail to
leverage the cloud to benefit the analytics consumer and make analytics
available to anyone, anywhere, in an intuitive, engaging environment.
Alteryx does this by empowering users to:
• Consume analytic applications through a highly social experience that
is intuitive and engaging
• Share analytic applications with colleagues using email and social media,
including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+
• Publish new and updated analytic applications securely without lengthy
delays or limits on usage
2. Lets you access all the relevant data in order to make the best strategic
business decisions possible
Alteryx Strategic Analytics uniquely delivers the ability to incorporate and
integrate new sources of data and analytics alongside existing standard
sources all from within a single user interface—ensuring the most complete
context for strategic decision-making. With the ability to access data regardless
of size and type—and even enhance it with packaged data from Dun &
Bradstreet, Experian, and the US Census, and spatial data from TomTom and
others—business leaders can make the most informed decisions.
Alteryx Analytics
Platforms
BI
Platforms
Cloud BI
Platforms
Cloud
Interface
Access to
All Data
Single Analytic
Solution
Make Sense
of Big Data
Sophisticated
Analytics
Alteryx is the only solution that delivers on all 5 critical criteria for analytic success

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© 2012 Alteryx, Inc. Alteryx is a registered trademark of Alteryx, Inc. 10/12
230 Commerce, Ste. 250, Irvine, CA 92602
+1 714 516 2400
www.alteryx.com
About Alteryx
Alteryx provides indispensable analytic
solutions for enterprise companies
making critical decisions about how
to expand and grow. Our product,
Alteryx Strategic Analytics, is a
desktop-to-cloud Agile BI and analytics
solution designed for Data Artisans and
business leaders that brings together
the market knowledge, location insight,
and business intelligence today’s
organizations require. For more than
a decade, Alteryx has enabled strategic
planning executives to identify and
seize market opportunities, outsmart
their competitors, and drive more
revenue. Customers like Experian
Marketing Services and McDonald’s rely
on Alteryx daily for their most important
decisions. Headquartered in Irvine,
California, and with offices in Boulder
and Silicon Valley, Alteryx empowers
250+ customers and 200,000+ users
worldwide. Get inspired today at
www.alteryx.com or call 1-888-836-4274.
3. Delivers all phases of the analytical process in a single tool
Alteryx eliminates the need to jump from tool to tool or to rely on others within
your organization, such as IT, to deliver the information you need for analysis
or decision-making. Alteryx brings together the ability to access, integrate,
cleanse, and analyze data in a single platform and workflow, making it easy
to incorporate all aspects of analysis, regardless of skillset. You can then
package this data into a powerful analytical application for use by critical
decision-makers, fostering analytic creativity in a single solution and giving
business leaders and decision-makers the answers they need, when they
need them.
4. Enables you to make sense of Big Data
Alteryx closes the gap between the Big Data you have and the value you need,
humanizing your investment in Big Data. With a single platform to access all
sources of Big Data—such as Hadoop and MongoDB—and integrate them with
any other data source, Alteryx enables you to find true value in your Big Data.
Plus, because Alteryx makes it easy to consume, share, and publish analytical
applications in the cloud, you can put your powerful analytics applications in
the hands of decision-makers with just a few clicks.
5. Makes the right type of analytics available so you can make
the right decisions
Alteryx enables everyone in your organization to access the powerful, statistical
analytics usually reserved for data specialists. By embedding the most widely
used statistical language, R, directly into the platform, Alteryx makes it easy for
anyone to write sophisticated analytical workflows and predictive analytics
applications using pre-built tools, without requiring complex scripting or
coding. Alteryx takes the same approach to previously complicated spatial
analytics: by making powerful spatial capabilities simple and easy to use,
everyone throughout your organization can realize the value of location
intelligence and use it to make better, more informed business decisions.
Conclusion
The ability to make the fastest, most informed strategic decisions drives
corporate performance. While most organizations have access to a wide range
of analytic tools, these existing solutions do not meet today’s data access, data
integration, and accessible analytics requirements.
Alteryx Strategic Analytics delivers a single, integrated solution for each of your
analytical requirements, from data access and integration to analysis and
reporting, while enabling you to reach the fastest possible time-to-decision in a
secure private or public cloud environment. With Alteryx, you can give business
analysts and decision-makers instant access to all the information they need,
when they need it, in order to drive business value—and enhance your
company’s competitive advantage.