Embedded analytics is the integration of analytic content and capabilities within applications, such as business process applications (e.g. CRM, ERP, EHR/EMR) or portals (e.g. intranets or extranets).
Incorporating relevant data and analytics inside applications helps users work smarter and more efficiently by solving high-value business problems. More importantly, embedded analytics is a tool to make data accessible to non-technical users.
Today, Over 90% of software companies are embedding analytics tools in their applications, according to the State of Embedded Analytics Report. So why is embedded analytics garnering so much attention now in the software industry and business intelligence space? Let’s look at some of the reasons.
Achieve faster time to market
Dedicated analytics development requires expertise, resources, and time. It can be difficult to achieve speed, reliability, and scale with a homegrown solution. By investing in a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) embedded analytics solution, the burden of maintaining infrastructure, storage, and computing power is removed and you can be confident your analytics solution will work at 5×, 10×, or even 100× users. Perhaps most importantly, the right embedded analytics solution puts you in a position to go to market faster by drastically cutting down the analytics development cycle.
Storyslab, a branded sales enablement platform for B2B sales teams, harnessed the power of embedded analytics to replace clunky dashboards while continuing to focus on their core offering. They were able to go live in < 1 month, perform over 20 million data aggregations and reduce the time and resources needed to maintain their analytics offering.
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" Empowered non-technical users to build robust, customizable dashboards that were fully integrated and live in <1 month " - VP of Product and Engineering, StorySlab
Stand out in the marketplace
Businesses today want to differentiate their offerings and increase the adoption rate of products in the customer’s hands. Only 25% of users return to an application after their first day using it. The key to better traction is delivering insights to customers anywhere, anytime, in less than 3 steps. While traditional analytics solutions often require significant data wrangling, embedded analytics delivers on-demand insights within applications in one easy context.
The ability to quickly and intuitively drill down in a report, cross-highlight it with other relevant data or perform trend forecasting delivers significant value to users. In fact, the difference in usage between embedded analytics and non-embedded solutions is significant: 43% of users leverage embedded analytics on a regular basis – double the adoption rate of traditional analytics. The trend is clear: the more accessible analytics are in your app, the more customers will adopt them.
Expand revenue streams
An embedded analytics solution can impact your own business as much as it impacts your application. Embedded analytics can open the door to new revenue streams and help grow opportunity size. You can develop new lines of business around embedded analytics services – such as white-labeled dashboards – as ways to expand customer loyalty and scale your business. This allows you to unlock more upselling and cross-selling opportunities.
Dataneo, a leading data valorization company, effectively used embedded analytics to simplify their dashboards built with traditional BI tools for data-savvy populations that were too complex for business users. This helped them identify business opportunities to fill the gap in their offering by empowering users with data. With only 3 weeks to develop, the fast integration allowed Dataneo to onboard 150+ companies.
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"Generated new revenues by addressing new personas and empowered our 150+ users with data" - Chief Data Officer, Dataneo
Generate value, not just reports
Your application developers should focus on creating new features and improving core functionality, not custom building an extensive analytics engine or coding reporting features that need to be constantly updated. With the right embedded analytics, you don’t have to start from scratch to meet customer demands. This puts time back into the hands of your developers to improve core features and functionalities.
The more an application can guide users through decisions by weaving massive sets of data into something meaningful, the more likely adoption and usage will increase. As a software vendor, you need a combination of powerful analytics and visualization capabilities in order to deliver on the promise of turning data into actionable insight.
Self-Service Analytics for Everyone
Data analysis is no longer for just a few highly trained, technical people. Ten years ago, the IT department and analysts were responsible for most analytics and information delivery. Today, everyone needs to be a “data expert” in their own role to make intelligent decisions that drive the business forward. This influx of non-technical users has forced embedded analytics solutions to re-work the definition of self-service analytics. Users expect the software to simplify the traditionally difficult tasks of data preparation, data querying, and visual analysis.
Keizai, a management and consulting service for the finance, enterprise and telecom industry, noticed all their competitors using complex, highly technical analytics solutions that the users had to decode to understand. Keizai used the power of embedded analytics to create a user-friendly analytics solution, in less than a few weeks, which allowed them to WOW the prospects and close deals. This was primarily due to the self-service features that allowed prospects to view and understand their data without the need for a team of data analytics and data scientists.
"Keizai uses data storytelling best practices to bridge the gap between complex data and everyday business users" - Founder & CEO, Keizai
Empower customers with confidence
From business executives and data scientists to the occasional user, providing actionable insights to anyone who uses your app will keep them coming back for more. This can be easily accomplished with the use of embedded analytics. At the end of the day, it’s all about driving success for your customers and that means giving them not only the tools they need but also the confidence that they are making the right decisions for their business. Today, every role is a data role and with embedded analytics, your customers can gain actionable insights that would directly drive growth.
Verified Market Research (VMR), an in-depth marketing analytics and forecasting company transformed its static PDF reports into interactive dashboards. This gave users more real-time information, building their confidence in the data. VMR was able to convert one-time visitors into recurring visitors and grow the customer base with a new offer.
" (Toucan) Provides an innovative experience to users who can interact with dashboards, yield insights, and get key information, at a glance" - CEO, Verified Market Research
From cost centric to profit-centric with embedded analytics
Today, data volumes, sources and reporting complexity have grown, and the potential overhead has skyrocketed. This leaves a lot of businesses wondering how to best expand their analytics and visualization capabilities. Does a custom-built platform make the most sense for your business's unique needs, or will an off-the-shelf solution free you up to focus on what’s important to your business? Real-time, self-service and freely explorable visualizations provide massive competitive differentiation, but developing a homegrown set of visuals to represent your data strains the time and resources of software vendors and developers. Technical and business decision-makers alike know that building analytics from the ground up comes with serious challenges, and you’ve probably said something like this yourself
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Mature, embedded analytics and BI solutions are available off the shelf, enabling your business to leverage the dedicated R&D, infrastructure, and development effort of a vendor that has BI and data. If you don’t have this core competency in-house, choosing to buy is the obvious option. By eliminating the burden of development, your business will be free to invest in capturing additional value for you, your developers, and your customers.
