Report: Market Overview

The Era of Self-Service

Analytics Emerges: Inside
SAP Lumira with SAP
Predictive Analytics 2.0
SAP Says Business Intelligence Users Can Tap
Advanced Analytics, But Which Approach Fits
Your Firm?

By Doug Henschen
Vice President and Principal Analyst
Content Editor: R Ray Wang
Copy Editor: Maria Shao

June 12, 2015

Produced exclusively for Constellation Research clients

Table of Contents
Purpose and Intent ..................................................................................................3
Executive Summary .................................................................................................3
Benefits of Advanced Analytics Remain Out of Reach for Business Users .........................4
New Products Improve Accessibility of Analytics ..........................................................5
A Brief Overview of the Self-Service Movement ...........................................................5
Constellation Suggests Four Evaluation Criteria ...........................................................7
Democratizing Advanced Analytics .............................................................................7
SAP Lumira Meets Predictive Analytics 2.0 ...............................................................8
Constellations Analysis: ................................................................................... 10
Recommendations: Finding the Right Self-Service Analytics Option Depends on the Business
Use Case..............................................................................................................12
Disclosures ........................................................................................................... 12
Analyst Bio: Doug Henschen ................................................................................... 13
About Constellation Research .................................................................................. 14

2015 Constellation Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

Purpose and Intent

Advanced analytics represent a class of software that helps companies go beyond historical
reporting to predict future opportunities and risks. Predictive analyses help identify best
customers, develop better up-sell and cross-sell offers, understand financial risks, choose
new products, and anticipate equipment failures. Until recently, advanced analytics were
the province of statisticians and data scientists, but thats changing with the emergence of
self-service options for analytics.
This paper provides insights into three of Constellations research themes, Consumerization
of Technology/The New C-Suite, Data to Decisions, and Technology Optimization and
Innovation.

Executive Summary
Business leaders want to see whats coming, not just read reports on what happened last
week or last quarter. Thats why theres intense interest in predictive analytics. Predictive
and statistical techniques have been a staple for insurance companies and big banks for
decades, but more recently theyve gained adoption in many other industries.
Spurred on by the success of the self-service business intelligence movement, vendors are
moving into self-service analytics. SAP Lumira is one of the products leading the trend.
SAP Lumira starts with desktop data-visualization software, and its cloud and server
deployment options are growing in depth and versatility. Native prediction capabilities are
basic in Lumira, but its integrated with SAP Predictive Analytics 2.0, which has gained
automated modeling capabilities through SAPs KXEN acquisition.
While there are many choices out there, your best-choice product will depend on the breadth
of your deployment, the skill level of you users, and the nature of the decisions users are
trying to support. Keep in mind that collaboration with data experts is desirable, as novice
users need guidance and support in order to turn data into valid insights and better
decisions.

2015 Constellation Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

Benefits of Advanced Analytics Remain Out of

Reach for Business Users
Advanced analytical techniques have been around for decades, used by big insurance
companies to understand auto, life, property and business insurance risks. Big banks have
used advanced analytics to study lending risk while financial advisory firms have used the
techniques to anticipate investment opportunities and market swings. Manufacturers,
retailers, marketers, healthcare providers and others have joined the predictive bandwagon
in recent years, but the real work of advanced analytics has remained largely in the hands
of statisticians, data miners and data scientists.
Here are four product traits that have kept analytics out of the hands of business users (see
Figure 1):
Figure 1. Four Product Traits Limiting Business User Access to Advanced Analytics

IT-centric data
access

Ph.D-oriented
user interface

Complex codingoriented
interface

Cumbersome,
iterative
workflow

1. IT-centric data access: Just getting access to enterprise data sources has been a
time-consuming and laborious process for anyone interested in analyzing
information, as theyve had to wait in line for attention from the IT department.
Interest in adding new sources or external data only made matters worse, as IT had
to apply new rounds of data cleansing, transformation and integration with existing
sources. Legacy tools simply were not designed for end-user data work.
2. Ph.D-oriented user interfaces: What algorithm do you choose if you dont know
the difference between logistic regression and decision trees? Old-school tools
assume users are experienced statisticians and data miners who know how to use
algorithms, statistical formulas and equations.
2015 Constellation Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

3. Complex, coding-oriented interfaces: If the algorithm selection didnt throw you

for a loop, the need for hand-coded data transformation, queries and subroutines
surely did. You say youre not hip to SQL or statistical languages? Dont try to make
sense of this data.
4. Cumbersome, iterative workflows: If the data access, algorithm selection and
coding didnt trip you up, you would still face time-consuming, iterative testing of
models and repetitive data movement work before and after the modeling phase.
Its no wonder deep, predictive analysis has been locked in the ivory tower. But thats
changing with the emergence of self-service products that are beginning to expose at least
the basics of predictive analysis to business users. Some tools are better suited to analyst
types while others are usable for data-savvy Excel jockeys. Either way, these new tools
employ drag-and-drop and point-and-click interfaces that get the job done with
configuration and automation rather than coding and repetitive manual drudgery.

New Products Improve Accessibility of Analytics

There arent enough data scientists and analytics experts to go around, so why not make it
easier for business users to handle advanced analytic techniques such as predictive and
statistical analysis? Theres been a push toward self-service business intelligence over the
last decade, and now theres a growing call for self-service analytics as well as BI. As wouldbe customers will discover, there are several different styles of offerings with different
assumptions about just how much complexity and sophistication a business user can
handle.
SAP Lumira teamed with SAP Predictive Analytics 2.0 is a leading example of this emerging
class of self-service software and cloud services that promise to bring prediction to the
broad community of BI users.
SAP Lumira was developed in response to demands for self-service data discovery and data
visualization. Like Qlik and Tableau, the fast-growing leaders of the self-service movement,
SAP has also introduced basic predictive capabilities in its products, but SAP has also
integrated Lumira with the companys advanced analytics platform, SAP Predictive Analytics
2.0. This product integrates the automated KXEN InfiniteInsight product, acquired in 2013,
with the companys more conventional SAP Predictive Analytics suite.
In general, many vendors are making predictive analysis a self-service proposition. In short,
theyre unleashing the masses or at least a broader group of analysts and data-savvy
business users to bring predictive insights into reports, dashboards, mobile visualizations,
and broadly accessible applications.

A Brief Overview of the Self-Service Movement

Data professionals and vendors have been talking about democratizing data analysis for
more than a decade. The hope is to enable as many business users as possible to make
data-driven decisions. Ten years ago, even the most successful business intelligence
2015 Constellation Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

deployments reached no more than about 25 percent of employees. Debate raged about
whether cost or complexity was the chief impediment to broad deployment, but both factors
helped give legacy BI software a bad name.
Part of the complexity challenge has been limited access to data. At many companies,
business users still have to wait for IT to make available new dimensions and sources of
data, and then power users have to develop the requested reports and dashboards. The
statisticians and data miners have historically been even further removed from the front
lines, restricted to working on the most high-value analyses (see Figure 2).
This hierarchical approach brought delays of days, weeks, or even months, depending upon
the complexity of the request. And in most cases, predictive capabilities werent even
available, as statisticians worked for a select few departments and research projects.

Figure 2. Old-School Business Intelligence and Analytics Approaches Left

Many Business Users Beholden to the Few Experts for Data Access and
Analyses

Thankfully, the self-service BI movement and the push for agile, Big-Data analysis have
reshaped data analysis over the last five years. The leaders of the self-service movement
have been data-discovery-oriented Qlik and data-visualization-oriented Tableau Software.
Incumbent BI vendors argue that their centralized, IT-centric systems deliver governed,
trusted data that companies can rely on for consistent data models and data definitions.
2015 Constellation Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

But that hasnt cooled interest in self-service BI, particularly for focused line-of-business
and departmental deployments where interest in speed of deployment and ease of use have
often trumped cross-enterprise data-model consistency concerns.
With self-service BI winning the majority of new deployments, incumbent BI vendors
including IBM, Information Builders, MicroStrategy, Oracle, and SAP have all added their
own data-discovery and data-visualization modules. Now, the latest push in self service is
into predictive analytics, the subject of this report.

Constellation Suggests Four Evaluation Criteria

So which self-service application venturing into predictive analytics is right for your
organization? That depends on the types of analyses, the diversity of the data, and the skill,
number, and range of users you have in mind. Examining SAP Lumira and Predictive
Analytics 2.0, Constellation will consider the following traits:
1. Ease of use. Is this product/service aimed at any business user or is it better suited
to data-savvy analysts?
2. Collaborative capabilities. Business users likely dont understand and cant handle
truly advanced analysis, so one approach is to make it easy for data experts and
business users to work together. Collaboration options range from e-mail and shared
workflows or cloud environments to social features for rating and promoting reuse of
dashboards, analyses and apps.
3. Advanced analytics capabilities. Data discovery, data visualization, reporting and
dashboarding are baseline business intelligence capabilities. How broad and deep is
support for advanced analytics in a self-service approach?
4. Cost. The pricing schemes range from cloud-based per-user and per-month pricing
to conventional perpetual licensing. The total cost of ownership has to put in the
context of total deployment expectations, considering business users and advanced
analysts.

Democratizing Advanced Analytics

Self-service BI is now a baseline expectation, but business leaders want to see whats
coming. Thats why the next act in the self-service trend is predictive analysis. But how do
you simplify advanced analyses that are normally the domain of data miners and data
scientists who understand how various algorithms work? To make prediction a self-service
proposition, vendors are pursuing two broad approaches:
BI meets prediction: In one approach, products focused primarily on self-service
BI (e.g., data exploration, data visualization, dashboarding and reporting) are being
enhanced with predictive features. In most cases, its a limited set of analytical
techniques being exposed as menu options or callable services. The complexities of
selecting algorithms and iterative testing are hidden from end users.
2015 Constellation Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

Products taking this general approach include Microsoft Power BI, Qlik Sense, SAP
Lumira, and Tableau, among others. IBM Watson Analytics also hides the
complexities of algorithm selection, but smart technology works behind the scenes
to recommend data-cleansing steps and visualization choices and to automate
choices from among thousands of algorithms.
Analytics simplified: In a second approach, products that include the basics of BI
but that are focused primarily on advanced analytics have developed with simple,
drag-and-drop or point-and-click interfaces and built-in automation features. In most
cases, these tools are aimed at data-savvy analyst types, but the complexities of
coding and iterative testing are hidden from the end user. Products falling into this
category include Alteryx, Alpine Data Labs Enterprise Platform, SAP Predictive
Analytics, SAS Visual Analytics/Visual Statistics, and TIBCO Spotfire.

SAP Lumira Meets Predictive Analytics 2.0

SAP is responding to customer demand for self-service data exploration and data
visualization with SAP Lumira. Introduced in 2013, Lumira is a rebranding of the SAP Visual
Intelligence desktop software product introduced in 2012.
Lumira starts with a free Personal edition, desktop software that can be used with Access
databases and spreadsheet files. Lumira Desktop Standard Edition is $995 per year and
adds database access options (including SAP HANA) as well as the ability to create and
publish infographics. Both levels include 1 GB of storage in Lumira Cloud. Lumira Desktop
competes most directly with Qlik Sense Desktop and Tableau Desktop, both of which also
let you publish analyses to cloud environments to support collaboration. Also similar to Qlik
and Tableau, theres a paid Enterprise cloud service level and server offerings for onpremises deployment.
Lumira Cloud is not just a place to share visualizations created with Lumira Desktop. Theres
also a Web-based "Vis & Compose" interface thats gaining more and more of the
functionality of the desktop software with each update. You can load data and build a variety
of data visualizations using a PC or tablet. Compared with IBM Watson Analytics, the
automating and recommendation features are fewer and simpler. In the data-acquisition
and cleansing phase, youll see alerts that there are missing fields or inconsistencies in the
data. At the analysis stage, theres a lightbulb icon that you can press to automatically
create a set of suggested data visualizations.
Visualizations, dashboards and infographics can be shared by e-mail if youre using the free
desktop and cloud offerings. The enterprise-grade cloud and server products give you
collaboration workspaces, and you also can grab URLs for visual assets and embed them in
public websites (see Figure 3).

2015 Constellation Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

Figure 3. The SAP Lumira Visualize Workspace Has a Wide Array of Charting
Options. The Lightbulb Icon (top right) Suggests Recommended Visualizations. A
Predictive Forecasting Algorithm Is Available for Some Measures.

At $24 per user per month starting at five users, SAP Lumira Cloud Enterprise Edition
provides 5 GBs of shared storage and supports private collaboration among multiple users,
groups and subgroups, with read and edit permissions controlled by administrative users.
Additional storage (beyond the first 5 GBs) is $24 per GB per month.
SAPs on-premises enterprise-grade offering is SAP Lumira Server ($1,425 per user,
perpetual, plus maintenance). In March, SAP introduced Lumira Edge edition, an option for
small- and midsized-businesses and departments of larger companies. Think of Edge as a
lower-cost option than Lumira Server or as an on-premises alternative to Lumira Cloud for
businesses that want to work with internal data sources that they dont want to put in the
cloud. Nonetheless, you can still draw on personal, cloud and third-party data sources.
Lumira Edge runs on an embedded SAP In-Memory Data Engine, and the entire system is
said to install on commodity x86 servers in as little as 15 minutes. The system supports up
to 100 named users or 50 concurrent users. The cost is $1,313 per named user or $26,000
per 5 concurrent users. The Lumira Server and Lumira Edge editions integrate with
BusinessObjects deployments to draw on BusinessObjects Universes (semantic models)
managed by IT. Data visualizations created and published in Lumira can automatically
refresh as data is updated in sources such as BusinessObjects or operational databases.
With the Lumira Server editions, desktop users also can save their Lumira files to the SAP
BusinessObjects BI 4.1 Platform. From there, users can view, edit, save and refresh content
online through the BILaunchPad browser. This ability to draw data from BusinessObjects
and return visual analyses, dashboards and infographics back to the BusinessObjects world

2015 Constellation Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

is part of SAPs argument that you can offer self-service while also working with and adding
to trusted, IT-governed data.
Predictive capabilities show up in Lumira in two ways. First, in the case of Lumira Server,
SAP has a Predictive Analytics Library (PAL) available that data experts can use to create
predictive models that can be embedded into visualizations and dashboards. Second, prebuilt integrations are available to SAP Predictive Analytics 2.0. With this tie, you can invoke
simple predictive capabilities such as forecasting. Or you can have data experts develop
models in Predictive Analytics 2.0 that can be embedded into charts and analyses with
scheduled refresh capabilities.
Released in March, Predictive Analytics 2.0 merges SAP Predictive Analysis, the company's
three-year-old data-mining workbench, with KXEN InfiniteInsight, the business-analystoriented system that SAP acquired in 2013. The latter automates the selection of algorithms
and model building to make things much easier for data analysts. At this writing, the
traditional data-mining tools and automated KXEN experience share a single server
installation and a portal-like lobby user interface from which you open either product, but
SAP has yet to unify the two environments so experts and business users can work together.
That level of integration is expected to wrap up by the end of 2015.

Constellations Analysis:
Ease of use: SAP has been steadily investing in Lumira over the last three years,
moving toward functional parity between the desktop and the web/cloud-based
offerings. The prepare, visualize, compose, and share workplaces are simple
enough to understand and navigate, and Lumira has basic recommendation features
to help with data prep and visualization. Lumira is fairly mature, so SAP has more
than 40 how-to interactive demos and companion videos available offering step-bystep task instructions and demos of popular types of analyses.
Collaborative capabilities: With the free versions of Lumira and Lumira Cloud,
collaboration is limited to e-mail, but the Cloud Enterprise Edition, Lumira Edge and
Lumira Server offerings provide shared workspaces in which you can administer user
access and edit privileges. Cloud and server editions also let you grab URLs for
visualizations and infographics so you can embed them into Web pages.
Advanced analytics capabilities: The predictive capabilities available directly in
Lumira are limited to basics like forecasting. If you need other or more powerful
advanced analytics, you can embed predictive services from the HANA Cloud Platform
or predictive algorithms from SAPs PAL and APL libraries or R libraries from SAP
Predictive Analytics 2.0. With the latter, power users and data analysts can use
automated (KXEN) capabilities to build without coding. Otherwise, were talking about
data-scientists-curated analytics.
Cost: SAP has comprehensive (desktop/cloud/server) Lumira offerings and
competitive pricing. Ask for discounts as needs scale up (and by all means mention
youre considering Qlik and Tableau). The recent Edge offering is a sweet deal if
2015 Constellation Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

10

youre inclined toward on-premises deployment and can take advantage of

concurrent-user pricing.
Summing it up: SAP Lumira is the most mature of three self-service offerings considered
in this report. The years of development and investment show. There are multiple
subscription and licensing options and theres a clear vision and roadmap for how Lumira
fits in with the rest of the SAP analytics portfolio. As evidence, there are two-way
integrations with both BusinessObjects and Predictive Analytics 2.0. Self-service predictive
capabilities are limited within Lumira itself, but data analysts can tie models in from the
KXEN side of Predictive Analytics. Data scientists have a choice of tools and libraries they
can use to develop models that can be invoked/embedded from Lumira.

Recommendations: Finding the Right Self-Service

Analytics Option Depends On Business Use Case
All vendors on the path to self-service analytics are obviously going to try to sell these
products to their installed-base customers first. But the days of were an X-vendor shop
standardization are waning. Self-service BI disrupted the business intelligence market as
we once knew it, and thats one reason youre seeing all-new products and new brands
including SAP Lumira. If you have an opportunity to convert licenses or win volume
discounts by working with your current vendor, thats fine. But consider these products on
their own merits, looking closely at the fit with your organization.
SAP Lumira gives you lots of deployment options, from desktop to cloud to the small
business-focused Edge Server to enterprise-grade server deployments on a lightweight inmemory database or on SAP HANA. There are plenty of connections available to enterprise
sources, including BusinessObjects data, and you can bring Lumira content back into
BusinessObjects for reuse.
Lumira has few native prediction options at this point mostly around forecasting. The list
will grow, but Lumira also has ties to predictive analytics libraries and SAP Predictive
Analytics 2.0, with the latter offering automated, analyst-friendly development of models.
Closest competitors to Lumira include Qlik Sense and Tableau. SAP tends to get larger
deployments, in part due to its customer base, but the improving Lumira Cloud and
strengthening server offerings are growing strengths.
One caveat to keep in mind is that not everyone can be a data expert, no matter how simple
or automated the tools may be. The danger with self-service tools is the creation of silos of
data and insights developed based on incomplete data. Upon seeing a sales shortfall, for
example, a sales leader might study his or her data and find evidence that more salespeople
should be hired. A marketing person might want to justify a bigger marketing budget. What
they might miss is manufacturing or distribution data showing shortages of popular
products.
This is an exaggerated example, but Constellation believes that the best and wisest
approach to building a data-driven culture is to foster collaboration between experts and
2015 Constellation Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

11

business users, giving them shared environments and connected tools so they can work
together and learn from each other. In short, cultural and organizational considerations are
as important, if not more important, than the selection of self-service tools.

Disclosures
Your trust is important to us, and as such, we believe in being open and transparent about
our financial relationships. With our clients permission, we publish their names on our
website.

2015 Constellation Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Analyst Bio: Doug Henschen

Data Management, Analytics and Big Data Expert
Doug Henschen is a Vice President and Principal Analyst for Constellation Research, focusing
on data-driven decision making. Dougs Data-to-Decisions research examines how
organizations employ data analysis to reimagine their business models and gain a deeper
understanding of their customers. Innovative applications of data analysis require a multidisciplinary approach, starting with information and orchestration technologies, continuing
through business intelligence, data visualization, and analytics, and moving into NoSQL and
Big Data analysis, third-party data enrichment, and decision management technologies.
Insight-driven business models are of interest to the entire C-suite, but most particularly to
chief executive officers, chief digital officers, chief financial officers, chief marketing officers,
chief information officers, chief customer officers, and manufacturing and supply chain
leaders.
Coverage Areas
Analytics, Big Data platforms and NoSQL technologies, business intelligence, data
exploration and visualization, data integration and orchestration, decision support and
management, decision management and real-time analysis technologies.
Expertise
Doug led analytics, Big Data, business intelligence, optimization, and smart applications
research and news coverage at InformationWeek. His experiences include leadership in
analytics, business intelligence, database, data warehousing, and decision support research
and analysis for the magazine and website Intelligent Enterprise. Further, Doug led business
process management and enterprise content management research and analysis at
Transform magazine. At DM News, he led coverage of database marketing and digital
marketing trends and news.
Education
Bachelor of Arts, Syracuse University
Doug can be reached at doug@ConstellationR.com

2015 Constellation Research, Inc. All rights reserved.

13

About Constellation Research

Constellation Research is an award-winning, Silicon Valley-based research and advisory firm that
helps organizations navigate the challenges of digital disruption through business models
transformation and the judicious application of disruptive technologies. This renowned group of
experienced analysts, led by R Ray Wang, focuses on business-themed research, including Digital
Marketing Transformation; Future of Work; Next-Generation Customer Experience; Data to
Decisions; Matrix Commerce; Safety and Privacy; Technology Optimization and Innovation; and
Consumerization of IT and the New C-Suite.
Unlike the legacy analyst firms, Constellation Research is disrupting how research is accessed, what
topics are covered and how clients can partner with a research firm to achieve success. Over 350
clients have joined from an ecosystem of buyers, partners, solution providers, C-suite, boards of
directors and vendor clients. Our mission is to identify, validate and share insights with our clients.
Most of our clients share a common trait - the passion for learning, innovating and delivering
impactful results.

Organizational Highlights

Founded and headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2010.

Named Institute of Industry Analyst Relations (IIAR) New Analyst Firm of the Year in 2011
and Number One Independent Analyst Firm for 2014.
Serving over 350 buy-side and sell-side clients around the globe.
Experienced research team with an average of 25 years of practitioner, management and
industry experience.
Creators of the Constellation Supernova Awards the industrys first and largest
recognition of innovators, pioneers and teams who apply emerging and disruptive
technology to drive business value.
Organizers of the Constellation Connected Enterprise an innovation summit and best
practices knowledge-sharing retreat for business leaders.
Founders of Constellation Executive Network, a membership organization for digital
leaders seeking to learn from market leaders and fast followers.

Website: www.ConstellationR.com
Contact: info@ConstellationR.com

Twitter: @ConstellationRG
Sales: sales@ConstellationR.com

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