Executive Summary
- This article is part of our honest vendor series, which is one of the only ratings of vendors rather than applications.
Introduction
Birst is of the young and up and coming BI vendors. Birst was founded in only 2004, and they now have a solution that is a leader in the BI Heavy space.
Quality of Information Provided
Birst has risen to popularity based on its innovation, combined with aggressive sales tactics. We consider the information provided by Birst to be generally accurate, except we do not think its proposal that it can meet all BI needs is not the best approach for any buyer.
Consulting and Support
Birst has excellent customer support. Typically not an area of great emphasis, Birst has made support a primary focus
In a concise period of time, Birst has developed an excellent reputation for going to live quickly. We estimate Birst to be the fastest implementing data warehouse. Applications like QliqView and Tableau can implement faster, but of course, it is not an apples to apples comparison as neither are BI Heavy applications. This rapid implementation time is more to do with Birst’s technology than any innovation in consulting, although their consulting consistently receives high marks. In an area where many customers report lukewarm feelings regarding consulting, Birst stands out with consulting customer satisfaction. However, Birst will tend to have an occasional report that is less than satisfied.
Birst is growing so quickly, and we predict will into the future that getting sufficiently trained resources will be an issue. This means future implementations maybe not as successful as previous implementations even though the application has not degraded. Furthermore, Birst management is taking business that they probably should not – for the simple reason that they lack the resources to implement all of their new accounts successfully.  This is true even though Birst is a cloud solution.
Internal Efficiency
Birst is a young company and is productive. It could not have developed the products that it has without high internal efficiency. Birst has one of the strongest management teams in not only the business intelligence space but in any enterprise software space that we cover.
Innovation
Birst has a high Current Innovation Level. Birst has superior and easier to use technology in data warehousing and other Heavy BI functionality its competitors, and it built this functionality in a very short period of time.
Vendor Scores
Honest Vendor Ratings
- VC = Vendor Consulting
- VS = Vendor Support
- QIP = Quality of Information Provided
- IE = Internal Efficiency
- I = Innovation
- C = Category
- ACS = Average Category Score
| Vendor | VC | VS | QIP | IE | I | C | ACG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Average Score for the BI Heavy Software Category | 6.4 | 5.3 | 5.1 | 4.5 | 4.4 | BI Heavy | Category Average |
| Average Score for the BI Light Software Category | 7.7 | 6.7 | 5 | 6.3 | 6.8 | BI Light | Category Average |
| Average Score for the CRM Software Category | 5.2 | 4.4 | 4.3 | 3.4 | 3.4 | CRM | Category Average |
| Average Score for the PLM Software Category | 7.3 | 7.5 | 6.3 | 6.2 | 6.3 | PLM | Category Average |
| Average Score for the Production Planning Software Category | 7.3 | 6.7 | 6 | 5.2 | 5.7 | Production Planning | Category Average |
| Average Score for the Small and Medium ERP Software Category | 7.3 | 6.7 | 6.3 | 6.7 | 5.9 | Small and Medium ERP | Category Average |
| Average Score for the Supply Planning Software Category | 7.5 | 6.7 | 6.1 | 5.5 | 5.6 | Supply Planning | Category Average |
| Average Score Score for the Demand Planning Software Category | 7.7 | 6.9 | 6.6 | 6.1 | 6.1 | Demand Planning | Category Average |
| Average Score for the Big ERP Software Category | 4.7 | 3.8 | 2.7 | 2.2 | 2.6 | Big ERP | Category Average |
| Actuate | 7 | 7 | 8 | 6 | 5 | BI Heavy | Application Specific |
| Arena Solutions | 9 | 10 | 10 | 8 | 10 | PLM | Application Specific |
| AspenTech | 4 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 7 | Production Planning | Application Specific |
| Base CRM | 8 | 8 | 9 | 9 | 7 | CRM | Application Specific |
| Birst | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8.5 | 9 | BI Heavy | Application Specific |
| Business Forecast Systems | 9 | 9 | 10 | 9 | 8 | Demand Planning | Application Specific |
| Delfoi | 8 | 8 | 8.5 | 4 | 8 | Production Planning | Application Specific |
| Demand Works | 9 | 9 | 10 | 10 | 10 | Supply Planning | Application Specific |
| ERPNext | 8 | 8 | 8.5 | 10 | 9 | Small and Medium ERP | Application Specific |
| FinancialForce | 10 | 10 | 9 | 10 | 9.5 | Financial | Application Specific |
| Hamilton Grant | 8 | 9.5 | 8 | 9.5 | 8 | PLM | Application Specific |
| Intacct | 10 | 10 | 9 | 9 | 9.5 | Financial | Application Specific |
| Intuit | 8 | 8 | 9 | 6 | 6.5 | Financial | Application Specific |
| JDA | 3.5 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 2 | Demand Planning | Application Specific |
| Microsoft | 4 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Small and Medium ERP | Application Specific |
| MicroStrategy | 8 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 | BI Heavy | Application Specific |
| NetSuite | 6 | 5 | 6 | 4 | 4 | CRM | Application Specific |
| OpenERP | 7 | 8 | 8.5 | 8 | 7 | Small and Medium ERP | Application Specific |
| Oracle | 5 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Many | Application Specific |
| PlanetTogether | 9 | 10 | 8 | 10 | 10 | Supply Planning | Application Specific |
| Preactor | 7 | 8 | 7.5 | 3 | 3 | Production Planning | Application Specific |
| ProcessPro | 10 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 9 | Small and Medium ERP | Application Specific |
| QlikTech | 8 | 7 | 5 | 8 | 9.5 | CRM | Application Specific |
| Salesforce | 7 | 3 | 8 | 6 | 6 | CRM | Application Specific |
| SAS | 9 | 7 | 10 | 7 | 7 | Demand Planning | Application Specific |
| SugarCRM | 4 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 3 | CRM | Application Specific |
| Tableau | 10 | 10 | 9 | 10 | 10 | BI Light | Application Specific |
| Teradata | 9 | 8.5 | 8.5 | 6 | 8 | BI Heavy | Application Specific |
| ToolsGroup | 10 | 10 | 9 | 9 | 9 | Demand Planning | Application Specific |
| SAP | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Many | Application Specific |
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