And the 2018 BARC data analytics award winner is …

This article is about  performance in the 2018 BARC survey. Phocas has continued to excel in subsequent BARC surveys - read about the most recent results here.

In the world of data analytics, the annual BARC Survey, conducted by the Business Application Research Center, is equivalent to the Academy Awards. Similar to the academy voting members, respondents vote on a variety of categories such as performance, visualizations, customer experience and ease-of-use.

The annual BARC Survey has been conducted for 17 years and is the world’s largest and most comprehensive independent evaluation of leading data analytics providers. in 2018, 37 leaders in data analytics were assessed.

Phocas sweeps the Awards

Since 2012, Phocas has been considered an outstanding performer in the BARC annual review. In 2018, Phocas was the top-ranked vendor in 28 categories, including:

Winner of Outstanding Project Success: In analytics, this category is comparable to winning the award for Best Production, as it represents the ability to produce successful projects on time and within budget. Because long-term projects are often more costly than first anticipated, it is essential that projects are completed as quickly as possible. The ability to successfully manage projects provides a company with significant cost-saving benefits over time. BARC asks participants to judge the success with which projects were completed on time and on budget and weighs the responses to calculate project success rates. A respondent working in manufacturing said of Phocas: “Excellent product. The general performance is what sets it apart for us and the ease of which it can be used allows new users to pick it up very quickly…”

Winner of Innovation in Visual Analysis: This category is comparable to winning the award for Best Visual Effects. Innovation is the driving force behind advancements in technology to customers. The ability to perform outstanding visual analysis reflects Phocas’ commitment to providing the latest technology. “Visual analysis enables decision-makers to quickly digest insights on trends through highly visual representations. As data grows increasingly complex, many decision-makers find they can more readily see insights and detect outliers if they are plotted in visual charts and graphs, versus being buried in data tables.” Phocas’ visualizations include features such as bar charts, bullets, columns, gauges, pies charts, geospatial maps, heat maps, and circle markers that make sense of your data.

Winner of Ease-of-Use: Equivalent to the Best Live Action award of data analytics, ease-of-use is integral to delivering an exceptional customer experience. Users don’t want to spend a lot of time learning to use a solution. Instead, they prefer the agility and near-instant results found with self-service data analytics. According to BARC, “Ease of use is often considered the holy grail of software.”

Phocas’ intuitive design was developed to be used by non-technical users right out of the box. This means users are able to quickly understand how to work with relevant features and see near-immediate benefits. Phocas’ customizable dashboard displays all of your metrics available at a glance, increasing its usability. When a solution is designed for ease-of-use, adoption among employees is far more likely.

Winner of Price-to-Value: This category is equivalent to the highly-coveted Best Picture category. Price-to-Value is important when considering making an investment in data analytics because the cost of buying, supporting, and upgrading a solution can add up quickly. As more vendors release new analytics solutions, finding one that offers real value is critical. And Phocas can deliver a near-instant return on investment (ROI). For instance, Michael Smith, the director of Johnstone Companies said, “I would say we’re 20% in to what we can get out of it but it’s already given us an 80% return.” Phocas also offers quick and easy implementation. “The implementation process with Phocas was very quick. Within a few days, we had data available to us to review. It was real-time data. It was our data.” Another respondent said, “Best tool we have purchased for BI. Phocas is easy to understand, flexible enough to give ‘what if’ results…makes data available on multiple devices-desktop, laptop, tablets, smartphones- anytime/anywhere.”

The annual BARC Survey is an independent assessment that was created to help people find the data analytics solution that best meets their needs. The survey is peer-reviewed by people who are using the software on a regular basis. BARC collates the results and as well as cumulative rankings and provides a dashboard for a side-by-side comparison to help you select the best solution for your business. Of Phocas’ ranking, Dr. Carsten Bange, CEO of BARC said, “Where Phocas has ranked over the past several years is telling of its commitment to the customer experience, and making data analytics simple and accessible for everyone across the organization.”

To get a complete summary of how Phocas performed in the most recent BARC BI Survey, download our highlights.