SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform vs SAS Visual Analytics comparison

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform and SAS Visual Analytics based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Legacy BI Tools solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform vs. SAS Visual Analytics Report (Updated: January 2022).
744,865 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Q&A Highlights
Question: I'm comparing SAS VA vs. SAP BOBJ -- main differentiating factor?
Answer: Hi, I suppose the effectiveness of the comparison also depends on the objective of it. As far as the tools the Sas VA is not in the same category as SAP/BO, which is more of a query and reporting OLap tool and although VA has some of such capabilities it has embedded additionally models with predictive intelligence. Both have space in the same organization as User profiles are different and call for different tools. SAS is known for tis statistics capabilities and lately is pursuing some interisting partnership, sap is one of them for the optimal power of both. In my company we have BO and just acquired Hana and SAS VA. Best regards, Maria Mota
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"We are using SAP BusinessObjects because its scheduling capabilities are more powerful than those of other tools.""SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform's most valuable features are it has a great presentation layer. We can develop the presentation layer with drag-and-drop capabilities. For end-users and for our interns in the company can create reports and do their data analysis processes or works by using the objects that we created on the presentation layer by themselves.""The features which the solution has been awesome. The way the data is fetched from the database, and the queries are executed, is unique using the Universe of Business Objects. That makes it unique and we could not find another solution that functions in a similar way. It's has a great way of receiving and executing queries.""The most important feature of BusinessObjects is its integration with the SAP ERP system. If an organization is using SAP as its ERP system, and they want to do business intelligence, reporting, or analysis, SAP BusinessObjects is the only tool that I see doing that quite efficiently. That's because of the fact it is tightly integrated, and it gives a good user experience in terms of faster reporting. Its integration is the feature that I have found most valuable, but there are also other factors.""The reports are most valuable. If it is a single-source universe, based on only one database, the performance, and the reporting tool is user-friendly, and users are very familiar with the tool and are comfortable using it.""The solution is stable.""The ability to merge dimensions in a report is great.""The web intelligence reporting tool and universe designer are the most valuable aspects of the solution."

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"We've found the product to be stable and reliable.""Data handling is one of the best features of SAS Visual Analytics.""The flexibility of the configuration is valuable to me.""Visual Analytics is very easy to use. I use Visual Analytics for all the typical use cases except text mining. I used it to analyze data and monitor statistics, not text mining. I also use it for data visualization as well as creating interactive dashboards and infographics.""Great for handling complex data models.""It provided the capability to visualize a bunch of data in an organized way.""The technical support services are good.""It's quite easy to learn and to progress with SAS from an end-user perspective."

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Cons
"The interface could be slicker and more user-friendly.""SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform should be made easier for the end-users and the performance could be improved.""The financial area in the solution has certain shortcomings that need improvement.""The SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform has always struggled with dashboarding.""The initial setup could be simplified.""It could be a lighter solution.""We would like to see a native version of BusinessObjects and Web Intelligence created for the cloud.""When we implemented BusinessObjects, the setup was straightforward. After SAP bought BusinessObjects, it gradually became more and more stepwise. There are too many steps, and they take too much time."

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"I haven't come across any missing features.""In Brazil, there are few documents, courses, and other resources for studying and implementing the tool.""There are a few little things that are predefined and can be done out of the box immediately. There is no business intelligence application that is predefined, which is something some customers or prospects would love to have. Small and mid-sized companies would struggle with it because they prefer something standard that has been predefined by somebody else.""SAS Visual Analytics could be more user-friendly.""The visualization should be better in SAS Visual Analytics. It is easy to use but when compared to other solutions it is lacking and the support is not very good.""The reason we haven't rolled it out across the board is due to the fact that the licensing is so expensive.""It is not as mature as competitors such as Tableau and QlikView.""The licensing ends up being more expensive than other options."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "SAP is losing market to its competitors because of its costly user license and licensing model. They can do much better on the licensing side. That's what Microsoft has been doing, and that's why Power BI is gaining market share at the moment. SAP needs to relax a little bit on the licensing part. If Microsoft is giving people a solution that is half of the cost of SAP, people will definitely go with Power BI."
  • "SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is an expensive application."
  • "We are satisfied with the solution, but we are not satisfied with the licensing cost which SAP offers. They offer one lumpsum licensing which does everything. That is not the right strategy, because sometimes you don't have power users, they are only viewers, but we need to buy the full license for them. This is not something we want to continue with."
  • "There is an annual license to use SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform."
  • "It is not a subscription model, but you must purchase a perpetual license for this."
  • "The SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform has to improve its licensing cost."
  • More SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "The cost of the solution can be expensive. There is an additional cost for users."
  • "Visual Analytics is expensive for a small company like mine. You also need to deploy it on a server or cloud, so you pay for the license as well as the cost of the cloud or the server that you will deploy on."
  • "SAS Visual Analytics is expensive, as is the rest of the platform."
  • "It's approximately $114,000 US dollars per year."
  • "It was licensed for corporate use, and its licensing was on a yearly basis."
  • "The product is expensive."
  • More SAS Visual Analytics Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Answers from the Community
    Anonymous User
    it_user178362 - PeerSpot reviewerit_user178362 (Project Leader at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees)
    Real User

    Thank you everyone for your very helpful comments and expertise! We own BOBJ Lumira and will be researching more about Predictive Analytics features that it claims to offer. We will be doing more thorough analysis of business requirements and prototypes to make the decision.

    it_user92304 - PeerSpot reviewerit_user92304 (Consulting Manager at a consultancy with 51-200 employees)
    Consultant

    Even though I am not an expert (and really know very little ) in SAS and SAP BOBJ, I wanted to give you a reply.
    From my experience, if you are big on SAP BOBJ an BW, I would keep that and complement with an analytics db, built for the purpose of predictive models.
    It is difficult to have one solution that will satisfy everyone, or a single product that excels at everything.

    To replace BOBJ/BW with a new solution would be a very risky project, time and cost consuming, lots of expectations. Moreover, there will be enemies around trying to boicot the project. I would foster a new initiative to build an analytical repository, with the best tools to support a business initiative, and the results from that repository I would bring to your BI/Reporting solution (BOBJ).

    Hope my comments are of any help to you.
    Best regards
    Marco

    it_user78834 - PeerSpot reviewerit_user78834 (Director of Information Manager Unit at BCI with 501-1,000 employees)
    Vendor

    I agree with Director461.

    Elisabete Miranda

    it_user5598 - PeerSpot reviewerit_user5598 (Senior Director, BI Architecture at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees)
    Vendor

    Comparing SAS VA to SAP BOBJ is like apples and oranges, these products are from different categories, although there is indeed some overlap. SAP BOBJ is a classic enterprise BI platform whereas SAS VA is a specialty product for advanced analytics and data visualization. The products are actually complimentary, much like traditional SAS which often co-exists with enterprise BI tools.

    So it all depends on your requirements as well as user expertise. If you need reporting, OLAP and dashboarding then you need SAP BOBJ or a similar platform like MicroStrategy (which we use). If you’re targeting professional data analysts that need to conduct sophisticated modeling and build fancy visualizations then you need SAS VA.

    it_user278766 - PeerSpot reviewerit_user278766 (Co Founder at a tech vendor)
    Vendor

    That is correct, SAS offers statistical and predictive analytics, more tuned for individual data scientist as a desktop user.

    BOBJ on the other hand is well tuned for ad hoc and operational reporting, geared for IT to design and publish such reports for business users to consume.

    Tool selection is very dependent on your business requirements and the audience. If your business users are not statistical function savvy and do not see value yet to make business decisions based on predictive and statistical models, SAS may not be the right tool for now.

    Tool adoption is key for the success of a BI implementation.

    Good luck and let me know if you need deeper understanding on tool selection.

    Krish.

    it_user161745 - PeerSpot reviewerit_user161745 (Engineer)
    Vendor

    "We are considering SAS VA on top of HADOOP YARN platform. "
    I think that would be an interesting combination. I hear HADOOP all the
    time in the BI world. I have some experience in Cassandra but not HADOOP.

    "What does SAS VA offer that BOBJ would not, and how can we build a
    business case around SAS VA specifically?"
    SAS is the market leader in BI market and specifically strong in analytic
    area as you have already stated. The second area I would look at is the
    data model which is the bridge between data store and analytic tools: how
    efficient to construct flexible data models to plug to the algorithms,
    third the performance of data retrieval which is significantly important in
    production stage.

    "Based on what I read so far, SAS VA offers a lot more capability in terms
    of statistical analytics, predictive analytics and optimization – something
    that BOBJ does not appear to have. Does that seem to be the main
    differentiating factor?"
    I don't have experience in SAS VA, therefore I cannot comment on it. IMHO,
    algorithms are easy to add to a product suite, what makes the major factor
    is how smooth and easy to flow data to the algorithms (data model).
    Another part I would look at is the presentation layer, how easy report can
    be created and intuitive to the business user to create report by
    themselves.

    I believe SAP VA have their own data storage, the comparison of data
    storage should be consider as well such as scale out, efficiency... etc.

    Regards,
    Ray

    it_user177033 - PeerSpot reviewerit_user177033 (Senior Manager of Data Analytics at a tech services company)
    Consultant

    People going to SAS must ask themselves first do they have any data scientists to implement the software. It is a leader in the Gartner magic quadrant for statistics for good reasons but to utilise its capacities you must have the appropriate staff to implement it.

    You cannot compare SAS to BOBJ in reality as they are diiferent Tools. Indeed SAP now have their own statistic software called SAP Predictive Analysis which now competes directly against SAS. This Tool which came from the KXEN purchase, whilst not as mature as SAS at present offers quicker modelling capabitilities meaning it will be easy apply the solution and you do not have to have the specific thoroughbread data scientists in house.

    As you are already a SAP Customer you should contact them for further information.

    SAP BW are HADOOPS are of course extremely different beasts

    H.Emre Arıkan - PeerSpot reviewerH.Emre Arıkan
    Real User

    Hi
    SAS VA is a data discovery tool where business users can primarily do lightweight data mining activites on their own with the help of IT. Be sure that you have placed it right. It s counterpart in the BO world is Lumira which doesnt belong to BO BI Suite, thus paid extra.

    We made a data discovery tool evaluation last year, Spotfire came to my mind at first as a DD tool with broad data mining capabilities. Have you evaluated it?

    Can the tool seemlessly integrate to your hadoop Platform and perform well?
    What are the data mining capabilities needed, who is going to to that business or IT/BI?
    What are the front end capabilities, can the (business )users create reasonable dashboards on their own and publish them?
    POC passed?

    Those are the questions came to my mind

    thanks,
    Emre

    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:There are many...It would rather depend what System BI architecture or Enterprise legacy you have at your end...I would recommend as follows:  1) If you have legacies of SAP, Oracle  - look for SAP… more »
    Top Answer:Both tools have their positives and negatives. First, I should mention that I am relatively new to Tableau. I have been working on and off Tableau for about a year, but getting to work on it… more »
    Top Answer:The initial setup of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform was easy since the solution is user-friendly.
    Top Answer:The technical support services are good.
    Top Answer:SAS Visual Analytics could be more user-friendly. There could be more integration with different computer languages. Additionally, there needs to be more API features.
    Ranking
    2nd
    out of 3 in Legacy BI Tools
    Views
    2,010
    Comparisons
    1,560
    Reviews
    29
    Average Words per Review
    624
    Rating
    7.8
    3rd
    out of 68 in Data Visualization
    Views
    3,620
    Comparisons
    2,891
    Reviews
    13
    Average Words per Review
    520
    Rating
    8.4
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform, SAP BusinessObjects, Business Objects
    SAS BI
    Learn More
    Overview

    SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is a versatile and flexible solution for reporting and dashboards, focusing on analytics and ad hoc reporting. It can be deployed on-premise or in the cloud. The solution includes tools such as Web Intelligence, Crystal Reports, SAP Lumira, and Analytical Cloud and is primarily used for comprehensive business intelligence reporting.

    The most valuable features include excellent reporting features, good technical support, scalability, and the ability to translate database data into business language. The solution has helped organizations by providing analytics, monitoring KPIs, and making important decisions as a financial business.

    SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Key Features

    • Central management: Access all your BI from a single, central launchpad that can be customized to meet user-specific needs. The launchpad provides business users with access to all their BI tools, reports, notifications, and applications in a single place. This includes the ability to launch SAP Analytics Cloud.

    • Data visualization and analytics: Create powerful visualizations, dashboards, and applications to assess risk, improve efficiency, identify opportunities, and enable users to analyze developments and data. Business insights can be shared with colleagues across enterprises.

    • Integration with Microsoft Office: Integrate with SAP Business Warehouse and SAP HANA to power real-time analytics. For large-scale data analysis, you can integrate with Microsoft Excel to discover in-depth business insights and forecasts. Data analytics information can also be embedded into Microsoft PowerPoint presentations.

    • Cloud support: Extend and expand your BI on the cloud. SAP Analytics Cloud connects your BI to the cloud and offers enterprise planning and advanced analytics from a single online solution.

    Reviews from Real Users

    SAP BusinessObjects BI stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Several major ones are its user-friendly dashboard, its impressive reporting and analytic features, and its ability to integrate with multiple solutions.

    A managing partner at a tech services company writes, "One of the most valuable features of SAP BusinessObjects is that it's not a dashboarding solution. It's a real product. You can create operational reports and publish it to anyone. You can create schedules. You can create a Universe, semantic layers. There's also a security configuration. It's a huge product, so if there is a business need, SAP BusinessObjects can cover it."

    An associate manager at a consultancy notes, "It provides flexibility for creating reports. It is very good for creating highly complex reports. I like this solution because when I buy BusinessObjects, it comes with many components, such as reporting, dashboard, and data visualization tools. Its performance is good. It is running on top of SAP BW and SAP HANA."

    A manager of data analytics and interfaces at a healthcare company says, "It has got great flexibility. As a reporting tool, it has a great deal of flexibility for numerous data resources that you can bring into it. It allows you to write your SQL query directly within the product. It has great visualization. 

    SAS Visual Analytics is a data visualization tool that is used for reporting, data exploration, and analytics. The solution enables users - even those without advanced analytical skills - to understand and examine patterns, trends, and relationships in data. SAS Visual Analytics makes it easy to create and share reports and dashboards that monitor business performance. By using the solution, users can handle, understand, and analyze their data in both past and present fields, as well as influence vital factors for future changes. SAS Visual Analytics is most suitable for larger companies with complex needs.

    SAS Visual Analytics Features

    SAS Visual Analytics has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

    • Data
    • Interactive data discovery
    • Augmented analytics
    • Chat-enabled analytics
    • Sharing and collaboration
    • Visual analytics apps
    • Embedded insights
    • Location analytics
    • Security and administration
    • In-memory engine

    SAS Visual Analytics Benefits

    There are many benefits to implementing SAS Visual Analytics. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

    • Machine learning and natural language: SAS Visual Analytics uses machine learning and natural language explanations to find, visualize, and narrate stories and insights that are easy to understand and explain. This enables you to find out why something happened, examine all options, and uncover opportunities hidden deep in your data.
    • Easy and efficient reporting: With SAS Visual Analytics, you can create interactive reports and dashboards so you can quickly summarize key performance metrics and share them via the web and mobile devices.
    • Easy to use: SAS Visual Analytics was designed to be easy to use. Its easy-to-use predictive analytics enables even business analysts to assess possible outcomes, which also helps organizations make smarter, data-driven decisions.
    • Self-service data: Self-service data preparation gives users the ability to import their own data, join tables, create calculated columns, apply data quality functions, and more. In turn, the solution empowers users to access, combine, clean, and prepare their own data in an agile way, which helps facilitate faster, broader adoption of analytics for your entire organization.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by PeerSpot users currently using the SAS Visual Analytics solution.

    A Senior Manager at a consultancy says, “The solution is very stable. The scalability is good. The usability is quite good. It's quite easy to learn and to progress with SAS from an end-user perspective.

    PeerSpot user Robert H., Co-owner at Hecht und Heck GmbH, comments, “What I really love about the software is that I have never struggled in implementing it for complex business requirements. It is good for highly sophisticated and specialized statistics in the areas that some people tend to call artificial intelligence. It is used for everything that involves visual presentation and analysis of highly sophisticated statistics for forecasting and other purposes.

    Andrea D., Chief Technical Officer at Value Partners, explains, “The best feature is that SAS is not a single BI tool. Rather, it is part of an ecosystem of tools, such as tools that help a user to develop artificial intelligence, algorithms, and so on. SAS is an ecosystem. It's an ecosystem of products. We've found the product to be stable and reliable. The scalability is good.”

    Offer
    Learn more about SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform
    Learn more about SAS Visual Analytics
    Sample Customers
    SRAM, Kennametal, Fairfax Water, British American Tobacco, Velux, and FedEx.
    Staples, Ausgrid, Scotiabank, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, Oklahoma Gas & Electric, Xcel Energy, and Triad Analytics Solutions.
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Manufacturing Company18%
    Healthcare Company11%
    Energy/Utilities Company9%
    Insurance Company7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm13%
    Computer Software Company11%
    Government9%
    Manufacturing Company9%
    REVIEWERS
    Insurance Company17%
    Financial Services Firm17%
    Government17%
    Retailer6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm17%
    Government13%
    Computer Software Company11%
    Insurance Company7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business29%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise55%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business19%
    Midsize Enterprise11%
    Large Enterprise71%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business32%
    Midsize Enterprise21%
    Large Enterprise47%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business17%
    Midsize Enterprise11%
    Large Enterprise73%
    Buyer's Guide
    SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform vs. SAS Visual Analytics
    January 2022
    Find out what your peers are saying about SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform vs. SAS Visual Analytics and other solutions. Updated: January 2022.
    744,865 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is ranked 2nd in Legacy BI Tools with 26 reviews while SAS Visual Analytics is ranked 3rd in Data Visualization with 14 reviews. SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is rated 7.8, while SAS Visual Analytics is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform writes "Integrates very well with SAP ERP, allows you to scale up or down anytime, and is absolutely trustworthy". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SAS Visual Analytics writes "Easy to learn and use with good scalability potential". SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is most compared with SAP Analytics Cloud, Microsoft BI, Oracle OBIEE, IBM Cognos and Alteryx, whereas SAS Visual Analytics is most compared with Tableau, Microsoft BI, Databricks, Microsoft Azure Machine Learning Studio and Amazon QuickSight. See our SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform vs. SAS Visual Analytics report.

    We monitor all Legacy BI Tools reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.