David Menninger's Analyst Perspectives

Organizations are becoming increasingly aware of the potential value that can be gained by processing big data. As data sources grow, it becomes important to have tools and methods to effectively process, analyze and visualize this information from disparate systems and warehouses.

Our Analytics and Data Benchmark Research shows that the majority of the workforce in an organization is not using analytics. Part of the challenge in democratizing data and analytics is that accessing insights usually includes multiple steps in between. Processing big data often requires extensive IT support and specialized expertise, making it difficult for non-technical users to access and analyze data. Another major challenge is difficulty in accessing data sources and bringing data together in one place.

Sigma Computing is a Silicon Valley-based company founded in 2014. It offers a self-service cloud analytics and business intelligence platform. Its data exploration tool is based on a spreadsheet-like interface that anyone in the organization can use to analyze data from multiple data sources and get insights from their cloud data warehouse. Users can study very large data sets, create new metrics and perform what-if analysis interactively. It also offers collaborative features, enabling multiple users to work on the same project simultaneously and share insights in real time.

Sigma automates SQL query writing, enabling users to generate their own analysis, reporting, visualizations and dashboards from multiple data sources without writing code. The platform has built-in connections to link various data sources including Snowflake, Databricks, Google Big Query and PostgreSQL. Users can perform ad hoc queries to live data, find insights and make data-driven business decisions without having to pre-define drill paths.

Sigma offers its software to a wide range of organizations across different industries, including finance, manufacturing, retail, healthcare and e-commerce. For business users, it provides a codeless experience to analyze data and discover insights. The platform also offers templates and data warehouse views to enable users to model and analyze the data from within the platform.

Sigma recently introduced a new feature called Live Edit which enables multiple users to see the same screen as it is being created and edited, making it easier to collaborate in real time on dashboards, metrics and data stories. Sigma Computing also offers embedded analytics capabilities that enables organizations to incorporate analytics in products and portals. Embedding analytics into other applications and business processes addresses several key issues I have written about previously that often become barriers to adoption. In addition, embedding analytics can help achieve more self-service within an organization.

In a constantly changing business environment, self-service data exploration capabilities help organizations remain agile and competitive and make data-driven decisions quickly and effectively. Sigma offers a wide range of analytics and BI capabilities and is growing in the cloud analytics market. The company could build on its spreadsheet-style interface by adding more what-if capabilities, which are lacking among many vendors in this market.

Cloud analytics platforms enable organizations to gain valuable insights and make data-driven decisions that improve operations, reduce costs and increase competitiveness. Being a cloud-native application, Sigma offers the flexibility to scale to many users on the same instance. Its spreadsheet-like interface and its ability to embed charts and graphs on other platforms enables organizations to provide their team and customers easy access to data and analytics. Sigma also supports many compliance standards including the California Consumer Privacy Act, General Data Protection Regulation and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. It can be deployed on Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud Platform. Organizations looking for a cloud-native analytics platform with a spreadsheet-style interface that works with multiple data sources and warehouses should consider Sigma Computing.

Regards,

David Menninger