Best Data Quality Software: The 2017 CRM Market Leaders
THE MARKET
The data quality market, which comprises tools for analyzing company information, identifying incorrect or incomplete data, and cleansing that data by removing abnormalities or repeat information, continues to grow. Gartner estimated that industry revenue increased 13.5 percent in 2015 and showed similar gains in 2016.
The market is seeing increasing development around artificial intelligence and machine learning, but also a growing influx of subject-area-specific support, international support, regulatory compliance, and a widening choice of deployment options to include on-premises and cloud-based solutions. Off-premises solutions, in the form of hosted and cloud services, continue to evolve and grow in popularity, with Gartner estimating that 11 percent of all deployments in 2016 were cloud-based. Vendors are also adapting their software to share features and coexist with larger master data management, data integration, or Big Data solutions.
THE LEADERS
Oracle has been known in the data space more for its hardware than software, but that’s starting to change. Early in the year it released the Oracle Data Integrator Cloud, a service that simplifies and accelerates data integration to support real-time analytics and improve data movement between Oracle and non-Oracle sources. Analysts rewarded the efforts with the category’s highest score in company direction (4.0.) and the second-highest score (also 4.0) in depth of functionality. “Oracle has, both organically and by acquisition, become a leader in this space,” says Rebecca Wettemann, vice president of Nucleus Research.
Pitney Bowes was quite busy this spring with the launch of a data practice to help firms tap the full potential of their data; updates to its Communicate solutions with capabilities around document workflows and video, digital, interactive, and multichannel customer interactions; and a string of new partnerships, including one with Yellowfin. All of that contributed to the vendor’s 3.8 score in depth of functionality. Its customers are satisfied, according to analysts, who gave Pitney Bowes a 3.8 score in that area. Still, as in past balloting, analysts this year were skeptical of the company’s direction.
Talend this year expanded an already extensive integration network that was key in propelling the vendor onto the leaderboard for the first time. Add to that the latest release of Talend Data Fabric, which delivers comprehensive support for all major cloud platforms, including Amazon Web Services, Google, and Microsoft Azure, and you have a solution that is both robust and easy to use, hallmarks of Talend’s offerings. At 3.9, its customer satisfaction score was near the top, but cost is where Talend really shines: Analysts gave the company a category-leading 4.2 in that area, nearly a half-point ahead of competitors.
Big Data solutions provider Syncsort purchased Trillium Software from Harte-Hanks late last year, positioning it to lead the data market with solutions that cover both data integration and data quality across traditional data management technology stacks and emerging Hadoop and cloud environments. A few months later, the company released Trillium Precise, a data-as-a-service solution for validating, verifying, and enriching customer and prospect contact information while also identifying fraud risks via proxy servers or temporary email addresses. That high degree of functionality (for which Trillium received a 3.9) did not go unnoticed. Analysts gave the company a 3.9 in customer satisfaction as well.
THE WINNER
As it has done year after year, Informatica ran away with the top spot. Its overall score was 4.1, but perhaps more impressive was its 4.6 in depth of functionality, nearly three-quarters of a point ahead of its closest competitor. “Informatica continues to innovate in the space, driving higher value for customers,” Wettemann says. And customers have again taken notice, as analysts gave Informatica a category-leading 4.1 in customer satisfaction.
ONE TO WATCH
SAS Institute, a longtime leader in CRM magazine’s balloting, this year slipped off the leaderboard, but it still managed to stay on analysts’ radar for the time being. “SAS is losing ground against more modern and cost-effective competitors” Wettemann warns. Her fellow analysts agreed, giving the company a low score (2.9) in cost.
