Embedded Analytics a Primer

Embedded analytics is a type of business intelligence technology that integrates data visualisations, dashboards, reporting tools, and other analytics functions into a company’s existing applications. 

What is embedded analytics?

Embedded analytics is a technology designed to enable BI tools in any application or website. It lets users quickly access analytical insights right where they work without moving to separate programs or services for analysis. This means larger organisations can democratise their data and increase the speed of their decision-making.

Think Power BI or Tableau graphs built into your internet banking platform. 

The idea is to bring business intelligence and business process together. Instead of rendering BI some external tool housed only within its walls, embedded analytics brings the power of BI to wherever it is needed.

What are some use cases for embedded analytics?

1. Enhanced customer data experience

Embedding analytics into a data-intensive customer portal has many advantages. First, most embedded analytics tools store and process data outside of the application itself, offloading the heavy lifting of analytics. With the infrastructure in place to handle large loads, developers and analysts can turn up the dials on advanced forecasting, statistics, and machine learning, providing more profound levels of analysis of their data.

2. Wider internal data usage

Many companies struggle with internal data siloes and a lack of data sharing. Couple with that license inconsistencies, lack of confidence in using BI tools, and painful IT departments, and you have some fertile territory for shadow analytics to thrive. Embedded analytics allows data work to be presented in an intranet or internal company application democratising data for everyone, not just your analysts.

3. Rapid MVPs and product deployment.

The world has gone data mad which presents companies with an intriguing decision: build or buy. By utilising a third-party embedded solution, organisations can enjoy quick returns on investment and fast realisation of value by buying an analytics platform that has already been built specifically for embedded analytical purposes as opposed to spending months constructing an internal build (and potentially ending up with a rubbish product).

Ok, how much do these services cost?

I'm glad you asked as it's precisely why I wrote this post. Companies are sheepish about their pricing perhaps to hide it from each other or perhaps in an effort to not scare you away ($$$$). Regardless, I don't swing that way and transparency is crucial in project land, I've called around, set up appointments, and squeezed all I can. Here are the costs for as many embedded services as I can find (I'll update it as I get my hands on more pricing):

All pricing in $USD

• Power BI Embedded: Starting from $735.913/month (correct as of 03/02/2023)
• Tableau Embedded: $98/month authoring license plus $13/month per report viewer billed for an upfront 12-month period (correct as of 06/02/2023).
• Mode Embedded Analytics: $28,000 per year (correct as of 09/02/2023).