Your dashboards work, but they no longer answer the questions the business is asking. Leaders want plain-language answers instead of static reports, data still sits in silos, and every analytics team is being asked what it plans to do with GenAI. If you are planning advanced BI and reporting modernization, the hard part is rarely picking a visualization tool. It is choosing a services partner who can fix the data underneath, build reporting people actually use, and add AI without creating new governance problems.
The December 2024 ISG Provider Lens report on advanced analytics and AI services, focused on the U.S. market, was written for that decision. It gives you an independent view of the specialist providers in this space, how they differ, and what separates the strongest from the rest.
Why advanced BI and reporting modernization goes beyond a tool swap
The report opens with the problems U.S. enterprises keep running into as they try to put data and AI to work. Some are about foundations: poor data quality, inconsistent definitions across departments, storage limits, weak stewardship and growing regulatory scrutiny. Others are about the business context, such as thin customer intelligence, analytics that cannot scale in real time, rising cloud costs, legacy systems and a shortage of AI and data talent.
From there, ISG lays out the technology and enterprise trends it sees gaining traction in 2024 and 2025. You'll read about data democratization and self-service BI, augmented analytics, embedded analytics, data mesh and the convergence of lakes and warehouses. For reporting teams specifically, the analysis looks at the growing demand for generative BI, where business users query data in natural language and AI helps produce the insight. If you need to explain to stakeholders why GenAI BI reporting depends on data readiness, this section gives you the framing.
How ISG Provider Lens compares BI modernization providers
The core of the report is a quadrant that positions specialist providers of advanced BI and reporting modernization services against two dimensions: the attractiveness of their portfolio and their competitive strength. ISG explains each category it uses, from Leaders and Product Challengers to Market Challengers and Contenders, plus the Rising Star designation for providers it expects to move into the Leader group.
To qualify, providers had to meet six eligibility criteria that ISG spells out in full. Those criteria double as a practical yardstick for your own shortlist, covering areas such as data integration and quality, applied analytics, industry tailoring, dashboard and storytelling design, deployment flexibility and ongoing support.
You'll also get ISG's observations on how specialists are changing the work. The report covers how they pair mainstream platforms such as Tableau, Power BI and Looker with their own accelerators, how they approach data storytelling and role-based personalization, and how collaboration features are becoming part of the BI experience. Short summaries explain what distinguishes each of the top-positioned firms.
The report is particularly relevant if you are one of these readers:
- Chief data officers weighing analytics techniques that turn data assets into business outcomes
- Chief analytics officers defining how analytics fits into the business
- Technology professionals assessing provider competencies across data, AI and analytics
- Line-of-business managers looking for partners who can tie insight to their goals
Inside the Sigmoid profile: reporting, storytelling and GenAI
This edition is shared by Sigmoid and includes ISG's detailed profile of the company. It walks through Sigmoid's approach to data storytelling, its use of centralized data portals and persona-based dashboards for self-service analytics, its use of GenAI in dashboards, and its accelerator for connecting data sources. ISG also includes a caution, the one area it believes Sigmoid should strengthen, which makes the profile a balanced read rather than a brochure. You'll see exactly where Sigmoid sits in the quadrant and how the lead analyst sums up its reporting work.
The report closes with customer experience insights drawn from ISG's Star of Excellence program, showing how enterprise clients rate their analytics and AI providers and which aspects of service they care about most.
Download the ISG Provider Lens report on advanced analytics and AI services
Get the full quadrant report to see the complete provider positioning, the six eligibility criteria, ISG's market observations, the Sigmoid profile with strengths and caution, and the customer experience findings. It is a solid starting point for an analytics service provider comparison, a vendor shortlist or a business case for modernizing your BI and reporting. Fill out the form to download your copy.