Phocas is #1 in 24 categories in the 2017's largest BI user survey

Note: while this article refers to past BARC survey performance, be sure to check out our more recent industry beating performance in BARC's annual BI Survey.

Phocas outperforms larger BI providers including Tableau, Qlik Sense, QlikView, Microsoft Power BI, and IBM Cognos Analytics across many KPIs that are highly valued by customers.

BARC's BI Survey 17 rates BI products across 29 KPIs to determine their impact on business performance. This year, based on user feedback, Phocas received outstanding feedback in many important KPIs, outperforming competitors in its peer-groups.

In the Business Benefits KPI, Phocas has again proven to provide BI software that customers use to great effect.

Founder and CEO of BARC, Dr. Carsten Bange says, “Perfection in this KPI is telling of Phocas’ commitment to helping customers improve data quality, make better decisions, get reports faster, increase revenues and reduce costs.”

Just over 3,000 business intelligence software users gave feedback in BARC’s BI Survey 17, which offers unparalleled insight into 42 business intelligence tools and solutions.

Phocas stands out in Customer Satisfaction and Recommendation.

Phocas is top-ranked in the ‘Customer Satisfaction’ KPI, and according to Dr. Bange, “After four years of performing well in this KPI, it is no surprise that Phocas scores a 9.7/10 this year, setting the bar way above the average.”

Customer Satisfaction takes into account five other KPIs, all of which had Phocas in the leader or top rank positions in its peer groups.

When it comes to Recommendation, Phocas customers are eager to spread the word with a significant amount of new business coming through referrals.

“Customers’ willingness to recommend Phocas is telling of its success and well-maintained reputation among manufacturing, wholesale distribution, and retail businesses,” said Dr. Bange.

Phocas aims to offer customers more than just an out-of-the-box tool. Instead, users can expect a solution tailored to their specific needs, which is usable by anyone in their organizations. Its Ease of Use means non-technical people can access and analyze data without the need for IT specialists.

Compared to the BI Survey average, customers preferred Phocas more often for its Ease of Use and experienced fewer problems than customers using other products.

According to Dr. Bange, “Phocas is designed to empower everyday business users whether they are on the road or factory floors. Dashboards are easy to read, and users can drill down to see the underlying data for quick business decisions.”

Phocas is particularly proud of the support and services it offers, and customer feedback confirms Phocas as the top-ranked product in the Vendor Support KPI in the Data discovery-focused products and Americas-focused vendor peer group.

Phocas offers a variety of training options to best suit each customer’s individual needs, many free online resources, and a support desk for more advanced questions.

Other KPIs critical to the success of Phocas, include Mobile BI; Customer Experience; Product Satisfaction, and notably, Self Service.

Phocas continues to lead the way in Self Service, empowering all users within a business – not just IT specialists and spreadsheet experts – offering excellent self-service capabilities, particularly for mid-market organizations in manufacturing, supply and retail. Customer feedback gave Phocas a score of 9.3 for this KPI, which is well above the average.

“The high scores from customers for these KPIs give Phocas a strong position in each of its competitive peer groups,” Dr. Bange said.

By outperforming larger and more prominent BI providers, Phocas has again proven to be a global BI provider with a unique set of user benefits.

Myles Glashier, Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer at Phocas, said “These results are incredibly reassuring for us because they reflect what the team at Phocas continues to build on. We’re 100 percent ‘phocassed’ on delivering business benefits for our customers, making BI easy for non-technical people and delivering industry solutions, not generic tools.

“BI is not a plug-and-play software. It needs to integrate with other databases and large datasets. We are developing ways for Phocas to be easier to get up and running and to apply in flexible, useful and extended ways to improve decision-making and planning.

Glashier added, “Customers can still go from beginner to expert in a matter of hours, and we’re incredibly proud to be unrivalled in customer satisfaction in this year’s BARC results.”

Download a more comprehensive report of Phocas in BARC's most recent BI & Analytics Survey from our blogpost; The BI & Analytics Survey 2023, BARC.