Services for Organizations

Using our research, best practices and expertise, we help you understand how to optimize your business processes using applications, information and technology. We provide advisory, education, and assessment services to rapidly identify and prioritize areas for improvement and perform vendor selection

Consulting & Strategy Sessions

Ventana On Demand

    Services for Investment Firms

    We provide guidance using our market research and expertise to significantly improve your marketing, sales and product efforts. We offer a portfolio of advisory, research, thought leadership and digital education services to help optimize market strategy, planning and execution.

    Consulting & Strategy Sessions

    Ventana On Demand

      Services for Technology Vendors

      We provide guidance using our market research and expertise to significantly improve your marketing, sales and product efforts. We offer a portfolio of advisory, research, thought leadership and digital education services to help optimize market strategy, planning and execution.

      Analyst Relations

      Demand Generation

      Product Marketing

      Market Coverage

      Request a Briefing



        David Menninger's Analyst Perspectives

        << Back to Blog Index

        Looker Bets on LookML


        I am happy to offer some insights on Looker drawn from our latest Value Index research, which provides an analytic representation of our assessment of how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. The Ventana Research Value Index: Analytics and Business Intelligence 2019 is the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts by Ventana Research. We utilized a structured research methodology that includes evaluation categories designed to reflect the breadth of the real-world criteria incorporated in a request for proposal (RFP) and vendor selection process for analytics and business intelligence. We evaluated Looker and 14 other vendors in seven categories, five relevant to the product (adaptability, capability, manageability, reliability and usability) and two related to the vendor (TCO/ROI and vendor validation). To arrive at the Value Index rating for a given vendor, we weighted each category to reflect its relative importance in an RFP process, with the weightings based on our experience and data derived from our benchmark research on analytics and business intelligence.

        image1Looker distinguishes itself based on its modeling language, LookML. While the language is flexible and makes the product very extensible, this Value Index’s evaluation criteria favor products that rely more on graphical interfaces to deliver data modeling and analytic functionality as it makes these critical capabilities easier to use. The Looker product is available as a public cloud service but can also be installed and configured on-premises. Its architecture is based on a model of accessing data in-place in a variety of relational databases. The presentation components of the product offer a modern and clean user interface. The product also includes an integrated development environment for creating LookML and analytic applications.

        Looker’s strengths are in Manageability, Validation and Reliability. It ranks sixth in Manageability, offering strong support for administration by both business and IT personnel. image2It also offers a flexible architecture and configuration, ranking seventh in Reliability. The company also offers good case study material and references to validate the value of its products.

        Broader functionality would help improve the Looker product’s Capability score, where it ranks last. The criteria in this category include evaluations of various types of advanced analytics – predictive analytics, planning and optimization as well as collaborative decision-making – that Looker either lacks or where it relies heavily on third party integrations. As Looker adds more of these capabilities its Value Index showing can improve. Less reliance on LookML or providing a graphical alternative to LookML would also improve its last-place score in Usability.

        This assessment was based on Looker Version 5.8. Since our analysis was completed Looker has released Versions 6.0 and 6.2. The new versions provide enhanced visualizations, support for time intervals in dimensions and connectivity to MongoDB among other enhancements.

        This research-based index is the most comprehensive assessment of the value of analytics and business intelligence software in the industry. You can learn more about Looker and others using our Value Index as an effective vendor selection and RFI/RFP tool; read the report here.

        Regards,
        David Menninger
        SVP & Research Director

        Get the full picture Read the Analytics & Business Intelligence Value Index report
        David Menninger
        Executive Director, Technology Research

        David Menninger leads technology software research and advisory for Ventana Research, now part of ISG. Building on over three decades of enterprise software leadership experience, he guides the team responsible for a wide range of technology-focused data and analytics topics, including AI for IT and AI-infused software.

        JOIN OUR COMMUNITY

        Analyst Perspective Policy

        • Ventana Research’s Analyst Perspectives are fact-based analysis and guidance on business, industry and technology vendor trends. Each Analyst Perspective presents the view of the analyst who is an established subject matter expert on new developments, business and technology trends, findings from our research, or best practice insights.

          Each is prepared and reviewed in accordance with Ventana Research’s strict standards for accuracy and objectivity and reviewed to ensure it delivers reliable and actionable insights. It is reviewed and edited by research management and is approved by the Chief Research Officer; no individual or organization outside of Ventana Research reviews any Analyst Perspective before it is published. If you have any issue with an Analyst Perspective, please email them to ChiefResearchOfficer@ventanaresearch.com

        View Policy

        Subscribe to Email Updates

        Posts by Month

        see all

        Posts by Topic

        see all


        Analyst Perspectives Archive

        See All