The most nutritious meal in the world won’t nourish you unless it’s digested. The best data collected won’t nurture a business — unless it’s digested.
In a nutshell, business intelligence is the science of and tools around collecting and processing data to turn it into usable insights for companies. Business intelligence extends to sales, marketing, operations and even HR functions.
The companies included here offer business intelligence of all kinds to a variety of customers, multinational organizations to small e-commerce retailers to healthcare providers, commercial real-estate brokers, restaurant owners and even urban planners.
Business Intelligence Tools to Know
- Adswerve
- Domo
- Gtmhub
- IBM Cognos Analytics
- SAP
- Sisense
- Tableau
- Toast
All BI companies, be they startups or global organizations, are making analytics easily accessible and understandable by employees across an organization. Why? They’re realizing that more and more, it’s not just c-suite executives and IT personnel accessing data. Everyone, including front-line employees, can use data and analytics to make on-the-spot, profit-enhancing, efficient business decisions.
Keep reading to appreciate the fact that in the business-intelligence world, there’s a company that can help make a business run smarter.
Business Intelligence Tools
Founded: 1969
Headquarters: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
This Watson-fueled business-intelligence suite from tech giant IBM offers analytics for sales, marketing and operations. The AI-enhanced product helps companies clean and prepare data from a number of sources, create dashboards to easily locate, read and share analyses, find patterns, and create personalized reports, according to IBM’s website. A mobile app helps managers access data from anywhere. IBM acquired Cognos in 2008.
Founded: 2010
Headquarters: American Fork, Utah
Domo’s cloud-based platform enables access to data and analytics from anywhere and by any employee, from a front-line worker to the CEO, according to the company’s website. The platform can integrate data from a variety of sources, including AWS, Salesforce, Facebook and Oracle; customers can create custom dashboards and also safely share analytics with stakeholders.
Founded: 2004
Headquarters: New York, New York
Sisense’s code or no-code platform lets users customize and personalize their data experience for both internal and external analytics, according to its website. It offers three solutions from one platform: Sisense Fusion, to embed custom analytics into applications; Sisense Infusion Apps, which allows sharing of data in Google products, Slack and other apps; and Sisense Fusion Analytics, which “empowers everyone to make intelligence-driven decisions,” according to the company.
Founded: 1998
Headquarters: Greenwood Village, Colorado
SambaSafety says it focuses on “promoting safer communities by reducing risk through data insights.” The company offers driver risk management solutions that serve commercial vehicle fleets and insurers. SambaSafety’s data and analytics capabilities provide businesses with dashboards that consolidate risk data so they can monitor key metrics, set alerts, share reports with stakeholders and initiate data-driven interventions to address unsafe driving behaviors.
Founded: 2017
Headquarters: Boston, Massachusetts
Laudio’s platform helps healthcare frontline leaders support and recognize their team members. It aims to build high-performing frontline teams. The company believes that leaders can accomplish this through encouraging engagement and early intervention when any issues occur.
Founded: 2009
Headquarters: Denver, Colorado
Digital media consulting company Adswerve serves agencies, analysts, publishers and marketers. It offers business intelligence within the Google Analytics and Adobe Analytics ecosystems, including campaign management and optimization, data and media audits, data governance, BigQuery machine learning services and data collection and reporting. Adswerve has worked with major names like Gannett, Food Lion, GoFundMe, TOMS and Whole Foods.
Founded: 2011
Headquarters: Fully Remote
Enigma uses AI and machine learning to analyze vast data sets, combing for insights on small and medium sized businesses. Serving companies like payment processors and credit card issuers, Enigma’s gives its clients comprehensive intelligence regarding businesses’ identity, financial wellbeing and behavior, which is useful in contexts ranging from risk monitoring to sales and marketing.
Founded: 1972
U.S. Headquarters: Newtown Square, Pennslyvannia
Global, multi-billion-dollar SAP offers business solutions for CRM and customer experience, supply-chain management, financial management, spend management and human-resources management for companies of all sizes. It is a player in industries ranging from consumer products to energy and natural resources, and recently announced a partnership with investment company Dediq to form SAP Fioneer to expand its presence in the financial services sector.
Founded: 1991
Headquarters: Chicago, IL
Vail Systems offers secure messaging, voice and conferencing services with proprietary audio-analysis technology. It aims to improve businesses’ customer service outcomes and includes automated verification, voice clarity, enhanced call treatment and in-app calling. The company was founded in 1991 and has headquarters in Chicago.
Founded: 2012
Headquarters: Chicago, Illinois
Prosodica makes AI-powered conversational analytics solutions intended to inform improvements to businesses’ customer service interactions and contact center operations. The Prosodica Assess tool, for example, provides thorough insights on service representatives’ performance and customer satisfaction.
Founded: 2011
Headquarters: Boston, Massachusetts
Toast makes point-of-sale software for restaurants and is used in tens of thousands of restaurant locations across the country. Its main product is a point-of-sale system that enables servers to take orders and payments table side as well as collect feedback from guests. Toast’s payroll and team management products help managers schedule for highest efficiency, and customer data captured can help determine the success of email marketing campaigns. Toast went public in 2021.
Founded: 1996
Headquarters: Chicago, Illinois
Strata Decision Technology provides cloud-based analytics solutions to inform decision making for financial institutions, hospitals and health systems and colleges and universities. For example, the StrataJazz platform covers financial forecasting and planning along with performance optimization for healthcare providers.
Founded: 2003
Headquarters: Seattle, Washington
Tableau, which was acquired by Salesforce in 2019, touts its easy-to-use, code-free products that anyone in an organization can see. Users can connect to data with “fully integrated” artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities and also “see and understand” data via vibrant visuals.
Founded: 2006
Headquarters: Chicago, Illinois
Fusion Risk Management builds technology to enable operational resilience. Its platform gives businesses in industries like financial services and manufacturing tools and insights meant to help them identify risks and prepare to respond to potential incidents. The company’s platform is designed to integrate with other systems and apps to facilitate accurate emergency notifications and comprehensive visibility into incident impacts.
Founded: 2018
Headquarters: San Francisco, California
DataGrail offers an enterprise platform brands use to establish and manage their data privacy programs. Its features automate workflows, identify privacy risks and offer live data mapping capabilities that cover an organization’s entire tech stack. DataGrail says its technology is intended to protect businesses by helping them address risks and earn customer trust.
