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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
295
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 4.3%, down 6.7% compared to last year.
Tableau, on the other hand, focuses on BI (Business Intelligence) Tools, holds 19.7% mindshare, up 18.9% 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

"It's fully integrated with great dashboard and interface."
"This is the most efficient ERP that is in the market right now."
"The most valuable features of SAP Business One are the financials, sales, and production. They are very helpful. Additionally, it is very easy to use and the user interface is stable in the application and on the web."
"I like analytics, dashboard, and KPIs a lot. It is very helpful when I need to check balances and financial statements."
"The documentation part and the user manuals provided by SAP are quite comprehensive."
"Less complicated than other similar solutions."
"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."
"Business One's best feature is that all the modules are integrated."
"We found Tableau has the quickest learning time out of the few other BI reporting tools that we have used."
"One of the most valuable features of Tableau is that it's a visual analytics solution, not just a dashboarding solution. Compared to Power BI, which is a dashboarding solution, there are no limitations with Tableau. For example, when you add a chart or a map to Power BI, it has a 3,000-point limitation. When you try to track your whole vehicle on the map, you only see the first 3,000 rows on the map, and Power BI doesn't tell you which part of the data is shown on the map. But Tableau doesn't have any limitations, which means that you can see five million data points on a map. It starts the project by creating the visuals that directly converts to SQLs. In that way, all the components have no limitations. When we compared Tableau to Power BI, we also found Tableau to be more fancy. Fancy means you can create more visual graphics and more visual dashboards. With Power BI, this isn't so—it's just some tables and some simple charts together. Tableau is more for business users who want to analyze data. Tableau can directly connect the analytics systems, like R or Titan, and get the results in screen, so it's a good solution for analytics scientists. It has some predefined capabilities to understand the data."
"The most valuable feature is the interface, which is user-friendly and intuitive."
"While using this solution I have found the valuable features to be ease of use and the visualization. It is a complete solution."
"Technical support has been responsive."
"Its performance is pretty good, and the development time is very low."
"Easy for beginners to use"
"It's a very good, flexible product, and it's easy to learn."
 

Cons

"Areas for improvement are the operating mechanisms, authorization of the production process, and sales cycle automation."
"More support can be provided on the web client end."
"SAP Business One consumes a lot of network resources and bandwidth, especially when accessing the web solution, B1 Web Access."
"The analytics data capabilities could improve which will provide businesses with much more insight into how their companies are performing."
"SAP Business One lacks solutions for some specific use cases, particularly in HR functions and production planning, which require a lot of customization."
"The solution could improve by having some added authentication, such as SAP CC or SAP S4HANA."
"The user interface could be improved with drag-and-drop functionality that it currently lacks."
"There should be a portal so that our providers can give us their invoices. This is something that it is missing currently. SAP provides such a portal with SAP ERP, but it is not available with SAP Business One."
"To be the best in the market, Tableau has to improve its user interface and also look into developing implementing the best machine learning algorithms."
"The pricing is a bit higher than the competition. They'll need to lower it to stay competitive."
"The setup was easy but we are having some problems with the configuration that is taking a long time. We have done some initial tests and some of the delays could be from bandwidth issues. However, the whole installation process should be simplified."
"The solution’s pricing could be improved."
"It should offer better features for customization."
"The visualizations should be user-friendly and allow for more custom visualizations."
"There are not enough language options. It needs to be offered in more than just English."
"Could have more integrations with different platforms."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We feel that the licensing fees are a bit on the higher side."
"It's not cheap but offers good value, particularly for medium-sized enterprises."
"Its licensing model is good. There is a one-off payment for the software license, and after that, you only need to pay the annual maintenance fee. Compared to other cloud-based systems, this cost model is quite reasonable for SMEs."
"Its price is reasonable. We have about 200 licenses. We have to pay every year for the license."
"I rate the price of SAP Business One a seven out of ten."
"SAP has a high cost of licensing."
"The price of SAP Business One is not comparable to other solutions. SAP is a well-known brand, and its price is on the higher side. However, if the solution offers the right fit for an organization the price is not a major concern for those who choose to use it."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is expensive and ten is cheap, I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten."
"The pricing of Tableau should be better to remain competitive in the market, especially when compared to alternatives."
"The solution is expensive but it depends on the customer's needs which will determine the cost of the licensing."
"Tableau is an expensive solution, though it comes with its advantages."
"The price could be higher for the quality of software, so they revised the pricing in this version, and I agree with the price for top version. The top version costs about $70 per month, and the price is cheap for the quality."
"The price is definitely a point because smaller firms don't use Tableau as it's an expensive tool."
"Deployment of dashboards to viewers and unit supervisors can be prohibitively expensive."
"The professional version of Tableau is quite expensive."
"One of the biggest drawbacks of Tableau is the price, it is expensive. The price should be reduced."
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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
15%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Retailer
6%
Educational Organization
42%
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?
The pricing model of SAP Business One is average. It is neither too good nor too bad, and there is room for more flexibility in pricing.
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: December 2024.
825,661 professionals have used our research since 2012.