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SAP Business One vs Tableau comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

SAP Business One
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
65
Ranking in other categories
ERP (4th)
Tableau
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
294
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (2nd), Reporting (2nd), Data Visualization (1st), Embedded BI (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

SAP Business One and Tableau aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. SAP Business One is designed for ERP and holds a mindshare of 4.5%, down 6.7% compared to last year.
Tableau, on the other hand, focuses on BI (Business Intelligence) Tools, holds 19.8% mindshare, up 18.5% since last year.
ERP
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Q&A Highlights

Tomasz Rabong - PeerSpot reviewer
 

Featured Reviews

Sajith Morais - PeerSpot reviewer
Caters to the company's B2B business model and highly stable solution
I have seen some limitations. For example, in Sri Lanka, I implemented SAP Business One in the fashion industry, specifically the footwear industry. Currently, the system does not support creating size-wise items with a size grid, which would be a beneficial feature to have. Additionally, in some areas, particularly in budget preparation and cost accounting, there are certain limitations that could be improved. Specifically, the budgeting side needs enhancement. When comparing SAP Business One with Netsuite and Microsoft Dynamics, Netsuite has a feature that allows easy integration with email, whereas SAP Business One lacks this capability. Users need to log in to the SAP Business One application separately to access emails, unlike Netsuite. These minor features make a difference, and if SAP Business One can include and improve such aspects, it would become the ideal product for SMEs. One another thing is SAP Business One consumes a lot of network resources and bandwidth, especially when accessing the web solution, B1 Web Access. While NetSuite is a completely cloud-based solution that can be accessed via a web browser, SAP Business One has this facility but faces some constraints, especially in terms of top performance and speed at the browser level. However, in the network, there are issues regarding application slowness. This could be a major concern with SAP Business One. These are some areas of improvement for me.
ROMIL SHAH - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides fast data access with in-memory extracts, makes it easy to create visualizations, and saves time
When it comes to visualizations, Tableau has a limitation as compared to Power BI. It has a limited set of visualizations. Power BI has the entire marketplace, so you can connect and import many visualizations and use them, whereas Tableau has only 10 or 15 visualizations. There should be more visualizations, and there should also be data integration with more cloud providers. Tableau has recently launched a paid version for the documentation. So, documentation has become a little bit challenging when it comes to Tableau development because we do not have any tool to export the data out of it. It is a license-based feature that you need to purchase to prepare documentation. So, on the documentation front, for preparing clear documentation for any dashboard, it would help if we get an embedded option, rather than buying a license for each user for the documentation. To document anything, if I have to connect to each workbook and see what has been written as a formula and then document in the Word document, it is pretty time-consuming. We have the Microsoft stack, and we are currently evaluating Power BI because Tableau has a limitation of 50 columns for a drill-down report. If we want more than 50 columns, we have found a hack, but there is no ready-made option for doing it. So, we have to use another tool in case we need a drilled report with more than 50 columns. There are many instances where users need 80 or 90 columns for their analysis, and switching between two technologies becomes a challenge. It is not a cost-effective approach for us. Their support should be improved. We are not happy with their support. Whenever we raised queries, we were pointed to a few blogs, and we didn't get a proper solution from them. Their licensing should also be improved. They want us to purchase a Tableau Creator license for business users, whereas Power BI Desktop is free for business users. They should come up with a basic license with one or two connectors that our business users can use for preparing their visualizations. Tableau also charges us per user for users who want the data only through email.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"I had been using it for the end-to-end functionality."
"This is an all-in-one ERP solution for small businesses. Everything is linked. Once you have this, you have all the features available in SAP. You have PR, inventory items, journal entry, and project management features."
"The most valuable feature of Business One depends on the industry. Generally speaking, Business One works best in automotive industry use cases."
"One of the biggest advantages of SAP Business One, especially in the public cloud, is that many features are standardized, which reduces the need for customization."
"The document search feature is very good."
"The solution has all the basic features that are required for us."
"SAP Business One has valuable and helpful features for standard utilities, such as sales, purchasing, inventory, and finance, including Indian localization. Additionally, it is strong in the area of production. It has enhanced capabilities in advanced production planning, maintenance, and other features as needed through the use of add-ons provided by partners. These add-ons run within the solution and can be provided to customers based on their specific production needs."
"SAP Business One is pretty streamlined, with tight integration and standard best practice flows."
"Although Tableau isn't the best for us when it comes to processing and working on live data, it is very good at extracting data for analysis."
"The stability seems to be very reliable."
"The product’s performance is better than other tools."
"There are already connectors to almost every single major database and service that you can possibly think of."
"Tableau will automatically show charts for the related data that I choose making it very easy to use."
"Self-service is most valuable. Users can pick up quickly and do the resolution. There are a lot of out-of-the-box features, and it satisfies most of the needs. If users are properly trained, they can deal with any situation."
"It is an excellent tool for data capture, processing, and visualization."
"It is definitely easy to use. It is intuitive, and more or less, everything can be done from the front end. As such, there is no concept of metadata. You can just take data from a database and start building your own stuff, such as OLAP data warehouse. You don't need extensive metadata modeling like Oracle BI."
 

Cons

"There are issues with inventory management and quality management."
"Business One lacks built-in HR features."
"The solution could improve by providing HR payroll, quality control, and maintenance. These are the missing features which we have to use add-ons solutions to provide the functionality."
"SAP Business One consumes a lot of network resources and bandwidth, especially when accessing the web solution, B1 Web Access."
"The production scheduling, manufacturing, and planning could improve in SAP Business One. Additionally, the projection management module could improve. These functionalities are important in the construction industry we are working in at the moment."
"It is limiting in terms of the in-between communication for manufacturing. We are suffering from a lot of issues in production. We are now considering S/4HANA, and we are also looking for some customized tools to integrate with SAP Business One."
"The initial implementation is not straightforward. It took approximately three months to complete. The process could be easier."
"SAP Business One could improve by automatically inputting exchange rates in the software. We currently have to enter them manually to find the appropriate exchange rates from a website. If it could be done with one click it would be helpful and more straightforward."
"Reports should be downloadable as PDF files."
"Lacks customization in some areas."
"It would be nice if we could export more raw data. Currently, there is a limit as to how much data you can export."
"It is not so great when it comes to data exchange/integration, data mining, etc."
"The ability to use it on MAC machines. As far as I know, this is not possible."
"The extraction, transformation and loading of data in Tableau takes a lot of time and we do not have confidence that Tableau is showing all the data we need."
"The pricing is a bit higher than the competition. They'll need to lower it to stay competitive."
"From the developer perspective, the data connection handling the target data set is what most needs to be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of SAP Business One is reasonable."
"I rate the solution's pricing a six or seven out of ten since it is expensive."
"I rate the price of SAP Business One a seven out of ten."
"This solution can work with a very small company, but the price may not be the right, it may not be the right fit for them. We can't help with this because we have to really understand the market, the target audience, and we have to position the product accordingly. The price is not a very big concern because if the customer is finding value or the dealer, distributor, or implementation partner can show real value in the solution, then the price will not be a question at all."
"Business One's prices are really high."
"SAP Business One is moderately priced."
"I rate the product pricing structure at around six out of ten due to currency fluctuations posing challenges."
"The price of SAP Business One is not expensive for the features and the benefits it provides."
"For the use and the capability of the software, it's $70 per month, and that is quite inexpensive."
"Tableau has core-based and user-based licensing, and it is tied to scalability. The core-based licensing is about you buying a certain number of cores, and there is no restriction on the number of users who can use Tableau. The restriction is only on the number of cores. In user-based subscription licensing, there is a restriction on the number of users. Big companies and government organizations with a lot of users typically go for core-based licensing. User-based subscription licensing is a more common model. It has user roles such as creator, explorer, and viewer. A creator is someone who does the groundwork or development work. An explorer is someone who is into middle management but is not technically savvy, such as a category head. A viewer is like a typical decision-maker in senior management. For each role, Tableau is priced differently. The viewer role has the minimum price, and the creator role has the highest price. This pricing is available on their website. Everybody can see it."
"I recommend that you discuss your needs with the salesperson and try to negotiate the price."
"Tableau is an expensive solution, though it comes with its advantages."
"I wish there was more of a subscription model with the pricing when it comes to Tableau, so you can get all the latest version upgrades/features if you pay monthly/annually."
"The solution is expensive but it depends on the customer's needs which will determine the cost of the licensing."
"Its licensing cost should be improved."
"There is a license for the use of this solution and it is on a per-user basis. The server is free but the users you have to pay for."
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Comparison Review

it_user6330 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 2, 2013
MicroStrategy vs. Tableau
After a recent presentation, several attendees asked me about the applications of Visual Insights and Tableau. Many companies are investing in both tools and are trying to figure out the right tool for specific applications Tableau has found its sweet-spot as an agile discovery tool that analysts…
 

Answers from the Community

Tomasz Rabong - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 20, 2022
Apr 20, 2022
Dear Community, Many thanks for yor support and help!
2 out of 6 answers
EB
Apr 18, 2022
Hi @Delmar Assis, @Angel Pineda, @reviewer1318779, @George McGeachie, @Carel Van Der Merwe and @Moorthy Natarajan, Can you please assist @Tomasz Rabong ​with their question?​​ ​ ​ ​ ​
Leandro Sodré - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 18, 2022
Hi Tomasz Rabong,  I believe that if you have a developer team in Amundsen it would be possible.  Alternatively, you can look at Informatica EDC or at Data Virtualization Data Catalog (from Denodo).
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Retailer
6%
Educational Organization
41%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Are there any advantages of SAP S4 HANA over SAP Business One (SAP B1) apart from the cost?
SaP Business One is a complete solution for business management. The software applications are broad, ranging from accounting to project management and human resources. It is very versatile and com...
What do you like most about SAP Business One?
It's user-friendly and comes with comprehensive manuals. So, it is easy to learn to use SAP Business One
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP Business One?
Pricing is acceptable, and it is one of the lower-cost solutions.
Seeking lightweight open source BI software
It depends on the Data architecture and the complexity of your requirement. Some great tools in the market are Qlik Sense, Power BI, OBIEE, Tableau, etc. I have recently started using Cognos Enter...
Tableau vs. Business Objects - Which is a better solution for visualization and analysis?
Both tools have their positives and negatives. First, I should mention that I am relatively new to Tableau. I have been working on and off Tableau for about a year, but getting to work on it consta...
Which would you choose - Tableau or SAP Analytics Cloud?
Tableau is easy to set up and maintain. In about a day it is possible for the entire platform to be deployed for use. This relatively short amount of time can make all the difference for companies ...
 

Also Known As

Business One
Tableau Desktop, Tableau Server, Tableau Online
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Ego Pharmaceuticals Pty. Ltd
Accenture, Adobe, Amazon.com, Bank of America, Charles Schwab Corp, Citigroup, Coca-Cola Company, Cornell University, Dell, Deloitte, Duke University, eBay, Exxon Mobil, Fannie Mae, Ferrari, French Red Cross, Goldman Sachs, Google, Government of Canada, HP, Intel, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Macy's, Merck, The New York Times, PayPal, Pfizer, US Army, US Air Force, Skype, and Walmart.
Find out what your peers are saying about SAP, Microsoft, Oracle and others in ERP. Updated: November 2024.
817,354 professionals have used our research since 2012.