Alteryx: Turning Data into Extensive Business Insights

Revolutionizing businesses through data science and analytics, Alteryx delivers an end-to-end analytics platform which empowers data analysts and scientists alike to break data barriers, deliver insights, and experience the thrill of getting to the answer faster.

The platform enables any data worker to turn the tremendous potential of data into something real and actionable faster than before. Thousands of companies of all sizes experience the thrill of solving game-changing problems using Alteryx. With a vibrant online and offline community, everyone from business analysts to data scientists are loving their jobs again because of the Alteryx platform. The platform is flexible enough to harness the power of data for a competitive edge and deliver real business impact.

In the past twelve months, Alteryx has introduced several new solutions that help round out the end-to-end platform—from data discovery to prep and blending, to visualization and insights. These solutions include:

•  Alteryx Connect—a data exploration platform that allows users to discover and collaborate on data assets, and workflow visualizations, etc. that are typically siloed across departments. It is an outgrowth of the company's acquisition of Semanta in early 2017.

•  Alteryx Promote: a component of the Alteryx platform that empowers both data scientists and citizen data scientists to deploy predictive models directly into business systems through an API and then managing model performance over time. It is the result of the Alteryx's acquisition of Yhat, a Brooklyn-based data science company, announced in June 2017.

The most recent Rexer Analytics Data Science Survey found that only 13% of data scientists say their advanced analytic models are always deployed. There's so much hype around machine learning, cognitive modeling, AI, etc.—but it all might go awry if data scientists don't actually have the ability to deploy algorithmic processes. Promote is helping alleviate that problem—allowing users to instantly deploy ML algorithms and see the true value of data science.

A Dynamic Leader Who Knows the Way

Dean Stoecker is the Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and a Founding Partner of Alteryx. Dean's leadership and motivational skills, along with his ability to create, communicate and realize a vision, are a driving force behind bringing back the thrill of solving to analysts and data scientists across the globe.

Alteryx is a 20-year success story with Stoecker leading the company through solid organic growth, three rounds of funding and a successful IPO in March of 2017 to deliver a transformational experience to customers of all sizes. Dean's unique vision and strategy around bringing a code-free and code-friendly experience unleashes the line-of-business analyst from the menial and mundane to truly loving their work again.

2017 was a banner year for the company. In addition to being recognized as one of the top performers in the class of 2017 IPOs, Stoecker received the EY Entrepreneur of The Year® 2017 Award in the Orange County Region, which recognizes entrepreneurs who excel in areas such as innovation, financial performance and personal commitment to their businesses and communities. In addition, Dean drives a philanthropic leadership with the creation of Alteryx for Good, a program that brings the charge of solving real-world problems to non-profits, educators, and local communities.

Success Doesn't Come Overnight

Dean has said, "You can live without an arm or a leg, but you can't live without a heart; analytics is the heart of the enterprise." Alteryx's rise to success is not your typical Silicon Valley story. Based in Irvine, CA., the 20-year-old company was founded as SRC in 1997 before changing its name to Alteryx in 2010. Dean and the rest of the co-founders never took a dollar of venture money until 2011. Alteryx ultimately raised US$163 million in three rounds, when Dean saw an opportunity for growth and a broader vision for an IPO. 

Client Satisfaction at the Forefront

For over 30 million people using spreadsheets to do complex work, Alteryx has worked very hard to take them from the end of their rope to the edge of their seat—bringing thrill back to their jobs and turning them all into discoverers of marginal profitability for the enterprise.

Alteryx has earned the trust of thousands of customers around the world, ranging from many of the world's largest and best-known brands, including Kaiser, Ford, and McDonald's, to growing organizations such as Rosenblatt Securities, Veritix, and Consumer Orbit, who all want to use the power of data for a competitive edge.

Awards and Recognition

Alteryx has been honored by several organizations for company growth, customer satisfaction, and impact on the industry and community. A few notable awards include:

In late 2017, Gartner named Alteryx the Gold winner in its first-ever Gartner Peer Insights Customer Choice Awards for Business Intelligence and Analytics, a rating of vendors by verified end-user professionals. Many users across a range of industries praised Alteryx as an intuitive end-to-end analytics platform that drives significant time savings and business results and opens doors for advanced analytics. Alteryx was ranked #1 out of 49 vendors, which included the likes of Tableau, Microsoft, Domo,and Qlik.

Drexel Lebow Analytics 50 honored two Alteryx customers, Southwest Airlines and Western Union, for their innovative use of analytics to solve business challenges. Southwest won for its use of advanced analytics in fuel consumption forecasting and improved accuracy by approximately 12% using Alteryx platforms. Western Union uses advanced analytics to improve security management and risk mitigation, and saved hundreds of hours after switching to Alteryx.

Changing Perceptions

Alteryx was traditionally known for its data prep and blending capabilities and the company is tasked with changing that perception. Its technology has evolved to a complete, end-to-end analytics platform, from data discovery to prep and blending, to visualization and insights.

Future Industry Predictions  

Alteryx will continue to build its platform with the goal of revolutionizing businesses through data science and analytics. Below are a few predictions on where the data analytics industry is heading in general:

•  Data science will break free from code-dependence. The company sees increased adoption of common frameworks for encoding, managing and deploying machine learning and analytical processes. The value of data science will become less about the code itself and more about the application of techniques. As analytics becomes more pervasive in organizations, and the number of data sources and statistical languages (R, Python, Scala, etc.) continues to expand and evolve, the industry will see the need for a common, code-agnostic platform where LOB analysts and data scientists alike can preserve existing work and build new analytics going forward.

•  LOB analysts won't be able to ignore what is in the data lakes anymore. To date, most analysts have not taken advantage of the vast amount of unstructured resources like clickstream data, IoT data, log data, etc. that have flooded their data lakes—largely because it's difficult to do so. This reality will change in 2018, as more CDOs and enterprises want better ROI for their data lakes. Analysts will begin replacing "brute force" tools like Excel and SQL and embrace more programmatic techniques as well as technologies that allow them to discover and get more value out of the data, such as data cataloging.

•  The CDO will come of age. Data is essentially the new oil, and the CDO is beginning to be recognized as the lynchpin for tackling one of the most important problems in enterprises today – driving value from data. Often with a budget of less than US$10 million, one of the biggest challenges and opportunities for CDOs is making the much-touted self-service opportunity a reality by bringing corporate data assets closer to line-of-business users. In 2018, the CDOs that work to strike a balance between a centralized function and capabilities embedded in LOB will ultimately land the larger budgets. Success will come to CDOs who put greater focus on agile platforms and methodologies that allow resources, skills, and functionality to shift rapidly between CoE and LOB.