Executive Summary
- This article is part of our honest vendor series, which is one of the only ratings of vendors rather than applications.
- The vendor quality is critical to the decision making process as software purchases have a high long term involvement by the software vendor.
Introduction
Teradata is one of the older BI Heavy companies (founded in 1979 as a division of NCR) that focus on BI. They began as a relational database company, but now is best known for its data warehouse. They are also known for being able to manage huge amounts of data. Throughout the years, Teradata has created the world’s largest database at various clients. Teradata is well known for its technical acumen in developing creating ways to manage vast databases.
Quality of Information Provided
Teradata has a lot of good technology to offer, but even still, the sales team does get ahead of Teradata’s consulting. On the other hand, the papers and other documentation provided by Teradata are severe and of a very high quality. Teradata has made an essential contribution to how multiple ERP systems can be rationalized by using data applications to provide a single view of numerous companies. And offers a more thorough architecture than any of the ERP software vendors on two-tiered ERP. Teradata’s approach is discussed in the book The Real Story Behind Two-Tiered ERP.
We learned a great deal about data technologies and approaches by merely performing the reading of Teradata material to evaluate them for this section of our rating. We rate their content development as the best in the overall BI Heavy or BI Light category. The only thing that stopped them from receiving a perfect 10 in terms of quality of information was sales information.
Teradata is the type of software vendor that buyers can learn a great deal.
Consulting and Support
Teradata can attract top-notch talent, possibly because they offer a highly respected technology with which to work. This will naturally attract technologists who don’t only search out for the highest compensation.
Teradata has a significant amount of experience in many different aspects of data management. It is similar to SAS in that they provide this knowledge through their consulting arm, but are more focused on software sales rather than consulting. This means that the consulting offered by these companies is generally a much better value and come with far less fluff and padded billing rather than getting the same type of advice from either a major consulting company or a large software conglomerate. Teradata not only can be relied upon for configuration consulting of Teradata applications but also can be relied upon for how to structure data warehousing and data marts. They have experience on anything from query optimization to how to set up data teams, and if we had a very heavyweight set of requirements, Teradata would be our top choice.
Internal Efficiency
Bureaucracy has undoubtedly set in at Teradata. Management does have a good vision, knows how to develop the external strategy, and gets the big picture, but their internal operations, as well as their systems, lack efficiency. This software vendor is also top-heavy with too many executives, which invariably leads to more politics than necessary. Teradata has a large number of senior employees with a great deal of experience, but the BI market is changing these experienced resources will need to adapt.
Innovation
Teradata has traditionally been a strong innovator. They have the knowledge base to perform more innovation in the future. However, Teradata is facing the innovation challenge of “bigness” and is showing signs of some calcification. Overall, yet, it has done a better job of staying innovative considering its size. There have been some acquisitions, which have caused hiccups, but Teradata is not primarily an acquisition-driven software vendor. If Teradata wants to stay on the leading edge, it should consider its compensation scheme. Executives don’t provide technological innovation, the more junior resources do.
Vendor Scores
Honest Vendor Ratings
- VC = Vendor Consulting
- VS = Vendor Support
- QIP = Quality of Information Provided
- IE = Internal Efficiency
- I = Innovation
- C = Category
- ACS = Average Category Score
| Vendor | VC | VS | QIP | IE | I | C | ACG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Average Score for the BI Heavy Software Category | 6.4 | 5.3 | 5.1 | 4.5 | 4.4 | BI Heavy | Category Average |
| Average Score for the BI Light Software Category | 7.7 | 6.7 | 5 | 6.3 | 6.8 | BI Light | Category Average |
| Average Score for the CRM Software Category | 5.2 | 4.4 | 4.3 | 3.4 | 3.4 | CRM | Category Average |
| Average Score for the PLM Software Category | 7.3 | 7.5 | 6.3 | 6.2 | 6.3 | PLM | Category Average |
| Average Score for the Production Planning Software Category | 7.3 | 6.7 | 6 | 5.2 | 5.7 | Production Planning | Category Average |
| Average Score for the Small and Medium ERP Software Category | 7.3 | 6.7 | 6.3 | 6.7 | 5.9 | Small and Medium ERP | Category Average |
| Average Score for the Supply Planning Software Category | 7.5 | 6.7 | 6.1 | 5.5 | 5.6 | Supply Planning | Category Average |
| Average Score Score for the Demand Planning Software Category | 7.7 | 6.9 | 6.6 | 6.1 | 6.1 | Demand Planning | Category Average |
| Average Score for the Big ERP Software Category | 4.7 | 3.8 | 2.7 | 2.2 | 2.6 | Big ERP | Category Average |
| Actuate | 7 | 7 | 8 | 6 | 5 | BI Heavy | Application Specific |
| Arena Solutions | 9 | 10 | 10 | 8 | 10 | PLM | Application Specific |
| AspenTech | 4 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 7 | Production Planning | Application Specific |
| Base CRM | 8 | 8 | 9 | 9 | 7 | CRM | Application Specific |
| Birst | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8.5 | 9 | BI Heavy | Application Specific |
| Business Forecast Systems | 9 | 9 | 10 | 9 | 8 | Demand Planning | Application Specific |
| Delfoi | 8 | 8 | 8.5 | 4 | 8 | Production Planning | Application Specific |
| Demand Works | 9 | 9 | 10 | 10 | 10 | Supply Planning | Application Specific |
| ERPNext | 8 | 8 | 8.5 | 10 | 9 | Small and Medium ERP | Application Specific |
| FinancialForce | 10 | 10 | 9 | 10 | 9.5 | Financial | Application Specific |
| Hamilton Grant | 8 | 9.5 | 8 | 9.5 | 8 | PLM | Application Specific |
| Intacct | 10 | 10 | 9 | 9 | 9.5 | Financial | Application Specific |
| Intuit | 8 | 8 | 9 | 6 | 6.5 | Financial | Application Specific |
| JDA | 3.5 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 2 | Demand Planning | Application Specific |
| Microsoft | 4 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Small and Medium ERP | Application Specific |
| MicroStrategy | 8 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 | BI Heavy | Application Specific |
| NetSuite | 6 | 5 | 6 | 4 | 4 | CRM | Application Specific |
| OpenERP | 7 | 8 | 8.5 | 8 | 7 | Small and Medium ERP | Application Specific |
| Oracle | 5 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Many | Application Specific |
| PlanetTogether | 9 | 10 | 8 | 10 | 10 | Supply Planning | Application Specific |
| Preactor | 7 | 8 | 7.5 | 3 | 3 | Production Planning | Application Specific |
| ProcessPro | 10 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 9 | Small and Medium ERP | Application Specific |
| QlikTech | 8 | 7 | 5 | 8 | 9.5 | CRM | Application Specific |
| Salesforce | 7 | 3 | 8 | 6 | 6 | CRM | Application Specific |
| SAS | 9 | 7 | 10 | 7 | 7 | Demand Planning | Application Specific |
| SugarCRM | 4 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 3 | CRM | Application Specific |
| Tableau | 10 | 10 | 9 | 10 | 10 | BI Light | Application Specific |
| Teradata | 9 | 8.5 | 8.5 | 6 | 8 | BI Heavy | Application Specific |
| ToolsGroup | 10 | 10 | 9 | 9 | 9 | Demand Planning | Application Specific |
| SAP | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Many | Application Specific |
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