This article explores the benefits and transformative potential of digital transformation across various industries.

What is Digital Transformation?

Digital transformation will look different for every company. It’s part technology initiative and part culture change, with a heavy dose of workflow re-imagining thrown in.

For example, if a company started with digitization—the term for transferring paper and analog data to a digital format without making any changes to business processes—it might then realize that the convenience of their new format could be matched with new ways of doing business. That moment in a digital transition is when digital transformation happens.

Here’s a good way to think about it: digital transformation is creating fundamental changes in how a business operates and the value it provides customers by introducing technology into all areas of its work.

Thinking beyond going paperless, digital transformation could mean automating processes to create efficiencies and improve accuracy, or integrating all new customer relationship management and finance and accounting systems across an organization. Digital transformation is a broad term encompassing many aspects of how businesses implement technologies and the processes around them.

The goal is not the technology itself, but the improvements it can bring to how the work is done and the value it brings to the organization and its customers—an important distinction.

Learn more: 5 Digital Transformation Examples

Enterprise Digital Transformation Through AI

Larger enterprises have engaged with digital transformation practices for years, watching the latest technology trends and brainstorming how new developments could advance their business model. One transformative advancement for both industry and consumers has come in the form of streaming or multimedia that users can access at any time via the internet. Major companies in the television, film, gaming, and music industries are some of the biggest trailblazers in the digital transformation world.

Spotify is an example of constant digital transformation. The company’s goal is to create the most personalized user experience (UX) possible for listeners, and it has consistently done that through data analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning.

Here are just a couple examples of how the company has used new technologies to tailor customer experiences (CX):

Made For You Playlists

Based on a user’s behavioral trends and previous listens, Spotify creates “made for you” playlists to match the different artists, genres, and tempos that it believes they will like most. It does this through a process called collaborative filtering, Spotify compares both qualitative and quantitative data from different users with similar listening patterns and makes recommendations to each based on the habits of those similar listeners.

Release Radar

This Spotify feature alerts users to new music from artists they already love or artists Spotify thinks they will love. Once again, Spotify uses collaborative filtering, but also natural language processing to find out what you like and listen in on the online chatter about recent releases. If a new album is considered high quality and matches a certain genre, it may end up in your release queue. This is also great exposure for new artists who match the tastes of Spotify listeners.

Streaming is a prime example of how digital transformation happens at the enterprise level, and it is one of the clearest to the millions of users who frequently engage with streaming technologies.

Digital Transformation In Customer Service And Engagement

Companies of varying sizes and industries have adjusted their customer service approach to meet customers virtually and in real-time. With a growing number of available social media platforms, smart applications, and simple website development and management tools, many organizations are using these resources to digitally transform the way they talk to customers—here are a few examples.

Social Media

Social media has served as a primary tool for connecting with other people virtually, but it continues to expand into customer service and e-commerce. Some of the examples of digital transformation that most major companies have implemented on their social media channels include the following:

• Answering customer questions and handling complaints in the comments of social media posts
• Posting challenges, events, and discounts for customers
• Selling products through native e-commerce features on Instagram and Facebook
• Finding other fun ways to start conversations with customers and other companies.

Chatbots

Chatbots are common website add-ons that companies use to digitally transform customer service. Bypassing traditional contact center models, chatbots help customers at any time of day with a pre-programmed bot that answers their questions or helps them navigate the website. Chatbots also allow customers to self-segment their personal data for your company’s database, making their experience more personalized and giving you more insight into your customer base.

Self-Help Knowledge Bases

Self-help knowledge bases provide another way to bypass traditional contact center models. By creating an FAQ library with short articles and multimedia resources, both your customers and your employees can research their questions. This self-service option lessens the strain on customer service representatives. Several major customer relationship management (CRM) platforms, such as HubSpot and Salesforce, enable this feature through service hubs.

Learn more: How to Use a Knowledge Management System to Improve Customer Service

Digital Transformation in the COVID-19 Era

The COVID-19 pandemic forced a lot of digital transformation upon a lot of companies. The widespread lockdowns and stay-at-home orders drove new uses of tools and technologies for business to maintain customer relationships in the chaos. Here are a few ways we saw digital transformation save industries and institutions from total collapse during the pandemic:

Widespread Use Of Video Conferencing Platforms

Stay-at-home orders sent non-essential employees away from the office to work from home, which completely disrupted the traditional in-office meeting workflow. Video conferencing platforms already had a place in many businesses, but during the pandemic, they became a staple that transformed the way we meet with colleagues. You can share your screen to guide someone through a process, type questions into a chat while others are presenting, and even host quick video meetings for mental health checks with faraway teammates. The widespread adoption of this technology has changed the way we work, enabling the rise of remote work.

Virtual conferencing platforms also gained major traction, considering you can’t host industry speaking conferences if no one is allowed to travel. Many hosting organizations launched virtual event platforms to keep their events going during COVID-19, hosting live and pre-recorded speaker events where people could pay for digital access.

Past conferences involved extensive event planning, catering, hotels, and air-travel fees, but through this forced digital transformation, many organizations are discovering that you don’t need a physical venue to host an informational event.

E-Learning

The way students learn and teachers teach has changed dramatically during the pandemic. Some students are learning virtually, some are in person, and many are learning in a hybrid model. This shift in the learning experience required several points of digital transformation, such as:

• Using learning management systems (LMS) to assign and turn in homework and tests
• Launching video conferencing platforms for teacher lectures and student presentations
• Ensuring students have internet access and computers or tablets that can securely connect to the school’s network

Many students are heading back to in-person learning. However, due to the digital transformation school systems had to make during the pandemic, classrooms will likely incorporate more virtual learning elements into lesson plans, particularly for students who struggle with accessibility in a traditional classroom environment.

Virtual Dining Options

Restaurants were some of the businesses hit hardest by pandemic restrictions, but many of them pivoted and maintained a revenue stream through digital transformation. Restaurants expanded their carry-out and delivery options, partnering with food delivery applications and expanding their customer-facing order applications.

As in-person dining slowly returned, many restaurants found a new form of digital transformation necessary. In order to comply with health department standards and to stay open, they began the digitalization of their menus. This move requires customers to scan a QR code and view the menu on their personal device, instead of receiving a physical copy. As COVID restrictions are fully lifted, these digital transformations may decrease in popularity, but many are likely to stick around because of their convenience for both restaurant staff and customers.

Learn more: The Primary Reasons Digital Transformation Efforts Fail

Bottom Line: Digital Transformation

Digital transformation is a means for businesses to add value to the products and services they provide customers by changing not just the technology they use, but their processes and ways of thinking about how to use that technology. It’s less about implementation than it is about effecting cultural change within the company. Enterprises interested in exploring new avenues of digital transformation can engage with consulting firms to help identify opportunities and redefine their processes, or they can start on a smaller scale with internal efforts. The only wrong way is to not explore digital transformation at all—the future is digital, and companies that fail to embrace it risk falling behind.

Read next: Top 7 Digital Transformation Companies

While postings change frequently, this article highlights six companies currently recruiting for cybersecurity roles to provide some insight into the types of jobs that are available and the benefits they offer.

Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is a widely known provider of software, hardware, and cloud solutions, and the most valuable publicly traded company in the world. Its products and software are widely known, and include the Windows operating system, the Microsoft Office suite, the Azure cloud platform, and gaming consoles.

Employees on Glassdoor rated Microsoft four out of five stars, and 87 percent said they would recommend working there.

Best Perks

Employees at Microsoft have many benefits including a health savings account (HSA), disability, health, vision, dental, life, and accidental death and dismemberment (AD&D) insurance; childcare/babysitting reimbursement, maternity and paternity leave, and adoption assistance; sick time, gym/wellness reimbursement, free lunches, and paid time off (PTO); relocation bonus, remote work, and immigration assistance; Employee Stock Purchase Program (ESPP), student loan repayment plan, 401k, and flexible spending account (FSA); tuition reimbursement, donation match, volunteer time off, and family sickness leave.

Headquarters

Microsoft is headquartered in Redmond, Washington.

Salary and Role Examples

• Senior Offensive Security Engineer, Penetration Testing: $112,000 to $238,600
• Security Analyst II, Data Science: $94,300 to $198,600
• Senior Platform Engineer, Customer Security and Trust: $112,000 to $238,600
• Senior Director, End-to-End Security Product Marketing Manager: $152,300 to $292,200
• Principal Firmware Security Engineer, Software Engineering: $133,600 to $282,200

Learn more: Top Trends For Cybersecurity Jobs

Palo Alto Networks

Palo Alto Networks is a cybersecurity company that provides firewall and cloud security solutions for businesses. The company offers next-generation security technologies and threat intelligence to protect networks from cyber threats and ensure the safety of data and infrastructure.

Employees on Glassdoor rated Palo Alto Networks four out of five stars, and 82 percent said they would recommend working there.

Best Perks

Palo Alto provides benefits such as student loan resources, HSA, gym/wellness reimbursement, and unlimited PTO; health, life, disability, vision, dental, pet, and AD&D insurance; phone bill reimbursement, adoption assistance, fertility assistance, and business travel insurance; immigration assistance, 401k, FSA, and ESPP; Roth IRA, child and elder care, legal protection, and auto and home insurance.

Headquarters

Palo Alto Networks is headquartered in Santa Clara, California.

Salary and Role Examples

• Attack Surface Data Analyst, Xpanse: $74,400 to $120,350
• Security Researcher, DNS Security: $139,400 to $225,500
• Systems Engineer, Strategic Accounts: $187,500 to $257,850
• Sr. Professional Services Consultant, NGFW: $131,300 to $180,500
• System Engineer, Major Accounts: $187,500 to $257,850

CrowdStrike

CrowdStrike is a cybersecurity company that specializes in endpoint security. Its cloud-based platform combines artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to identify and patch cyber attacks as they happen, helping businesses secure their data and infrastructures.

Employees on Glassdoor rated CrowdStrike over four out of five stars, and 81 percent said they would recommend working there.

Best Perks

CrowdStrike offers many benefits to employees including health, life, disability, vision, dental, and AD&D Insurance; ESPP, 401k, and parental and fertility assistance; remote-friendly work, health and wellness programs, professional development, and executive coaching/mentorship.

Headquarters

CrowdStrike is headquartered in Austin, Texas.

Salary and Role Examples

• Technical Support Engineer, Operations: $65,000 to $110,000
• Analyst I, Falcon Complete: $80,000 to $115,000
• Sr. Software Engineer, Data Infrastructure Engineering: $105,000 to $195,000
• Systems Administrator, Executive Support: $80,000 to $115,000
• Principal Consultant, Red Team: $125,000 to $185,000

Fortinet

Fortinet is a cybersecurity company that offers many network security products and services, including firewall, VPN, intrusion detection and prevention, and threat protection for businesses of all sizes.

Employees on Glassdoor rated Fortinet four out of five stars, and 86 percent said they would recommend working there.

Best Perks

Fortinet offers many benefits including health, dental, life, vision, disability, and accident Insurance; HSA, FSA, and mental health care; 401k, stock options, ESPP, and retirement plans; work from home, maternity/paternity leave, and family medical leave; PTO, volunteer time off, and paid holidays.

Headquarters

Fortinet is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California.

Salary and Role Examples

• Sr. Cybersecurity Technology Communications Manager, PR: $100,000 to $160,000
• Senior Software DevOps Engineer, DevOps: $110,000 to $150,000
• Senior Security Researcher, IPS Analysis: $120,000 to $160,000
• Cloud Solutions Architect, Solutions Architecture: $200,000 to $240,000
• Senior Product Security Engineer, Product Security Engineering: $150,000 to $200,000

Learn more: Today’s Cybersecurity Job Market

Tenable

Tenable is a cybersecurity company that focuses on vulnerability management and cyber exposure solutions. Its products help companies identify, assess, and prioritize security to provide effective risk management and proactive security measures.

Employees on Glassdoor rated Tenable four out of five stars, and 61 percent said they would recommend working there

Best Perks

Tenable provides benefits including health, vision, dental, life, disability, and AD&D insurance; HSA, FSA, 401k, and retirement plans; work from home, maternity/paternity leave, adoption assistance, and family medical leave; PTO, company events, and paid holidays.

Headquarters

Tenable is headquartered in Columbia, Maryland.

Salary and Role Examples

• Manager Endpoint Vulnerability Management, Digital Solutions: $112,000 to $149,333
• Staff Software Engineer, Engineering: $142,000 to $189,333
• Staff Site Reliability Engineer, Engineering: $142,000 to $189,333
• IT Asset Manager, Digital Solutions: $34.13 to $45.67/per hour
• Territory Account Manager, Sales: $112,000 to $149,333

Proofpoint

Proofpoint is a cybersecurity company that specializes in email security, loss prevention, and security threat protection. It provides companies with protection against phishing attacks, malware, and other data threats, and offers data encryption and other services to ensure data security.

Employees on Glassdoor rated Proofpoint four out of five stars, and 76 percent said they would recommend working there.

Best Perks

Proofpoint provides benefits including health, vision, dental, life, disability, and AD&D insurance; HSA, FSA, 401k, and stock purchase plans; work from home, maternity/paternity leave, adoption assistance, and family medical leave; PTO, company events, and paid holidays.

Headquarters

Proofpoint is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California.

Salary and Role Examples

• Senior Data Scientist, ML Lab: $157,650 to $231,220
• Director of Engineering, Shared Services: $168,080 to $319,550
• Senior Software Engineer, SaaS Product: $117,600 to $231,220

Read next: 10 Top Cybersecurity Predictions for 2023

While postings change frequently, this article highlights 10 companies currently recruiting for IT automation roles to provide some insight into the types of jobs that are available and the benefits they offer. Note that not all companies share salary information on job postings, either on their websites or on job boards—for those without specific salary information, we’ve instead listed the national average for similar roles according to data collected from Glassdoor, LinkedIn, Ladders, and Indeed.

Some of these companies have global presences, but all jobs listed here are U.S.-based.

Table of Contents

• ABB Ltd
• Accenture
• Amazon Web Services (AWS)
• Apple
• Cognizant
• IBM
• Intel
• Rivian
• Schneider Electric
• Siemens

ABB Ltd

ABB Ltd is an automation company that optimizes how technology is manufactured, moved, powered, and operated. It supplies electrical equipment and automation products in many different industries. ABB Ltd supplies products for robotics and other industries for a company that needs both discrete and process automation.

Employees on Glassdoor rated ABB Ltd four out of five stars, and 82 percent said they would recommend working at the company.

Best Perks

ABB Ltd offers such employee benefits as adoption assistance and family medical leave; flexible work schedules and remote work; dental, disability, health, life, mental health, and vision insurance; flexible spending account (FSA), commuter benefits, company outings, and tuition reimbursement; 401k, company equity, stock purchase plan, charity contribution matching, and performance bonus; and paid time off (PTO) and sabbatical. ABB Ltd allows work from home (WFH) depending on the position.

Headquarters

ABB Ltd Global Headquarters is in Zurich, Switzerland; North American Headquarters is in North Carolina.

Salary and Role Examples

ABB Ltd does not consistently post salary information for job listings on its website or job hiring boards. The salaries below are U.S. national averages.

• Automation and Controls Engineer, National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) Motors: $91,404
• Senior Project Engineer, Protection, Controls, and Automation Engineer: $73,731 to $90,992
• Test Automation Engineer, Automation Machinery Manufacturing: $102,918
• Technical Support Specialist, Process Automation: $96,207
• Quality Specialist, Process Automation Measurement & Analytics: $43,000 to $98,000

Accenture

Accenture is a professional services company offering digital, cloud, and security technology capabilities. It provides strategy and consulting, technology, and operations services for enterprises looking to improve their infrastructures.

Employees on Glassdoor rated Accenture four out of five stars, and 78 percent said they would recommend working there.

Best Perks

Accenture provides benefits for health, family, time away, and financial security. This includes medical, dental, and vision coverage; parental leave; care for dependents; flexible work arrangements, PTO, and holidays; 401k match, life insurance, and spending accounts. Accenture offers remote and WFH options for some of its open roles.

Headquarters

Accenture is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland; Accenture North America is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.

Salary and Role Examples

• Federal – Automation Tester, Software Engineering: $73,900 to $115,100
• Test Automation Engineering Associate Manager, Software Engineering: $90,699 to $113,002
• Federal – Automation Test Engineering Sr. Analyst, Software Engineering: $77,000 to $116,000
• Federal – Automation Test Engineering Specialist, Software Engineering: $93,000 to $150,000
• Federal IT Operations Analyst, Software Engineering: $47,500 to $92,400

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

AWS, under parent company Amazon, focuses on building technologies, inventing products, and providing services that help its customers. AWS is a top cloud computing company that is accessible for small businesses to large enterprises using multiple software and services including database services, applications, data centers, and data storage.

Employees on Glassdoor rated Amazon almost four out of five stars, and 71 percent said they would recommend working there.

Best Perks

Amazon provides many benefits for its employees, including medical, dental, and vision plans; company-paid basic life and accidental death insurance; company-paid short-term and long-term disability; PTO, The Amazon Career Choice Program, and adoption assistance; flexible spending accounts, 401k plan, and restricted stock units (RSU). Amazon has remote and WFH options as well.

Headquarters

Amazon is headquartered in Seattle, Washington.

Salary and Role Examples

• Marketing Automation Manager, Amazon Flex: $87,300 to $179,600
• Manager, Tooling and Automation, Kuiper Production: $120,800 to $234,900
• Manager, Security Automation, Security Operational Research: $78,000 to $122,000 (U.S. national average)
• Senior Security Engineer, Research and Automation: $77,413 to $101,280 (U.S. national average)
• Senior Software Dev Engineer, Continuous Infrastructure Automation: $70,000 to $121,000 (U.S. national average)

Apple

Apple Inc is one of the most widely known brands globally, creating a line of popular products and software applications as well as third-party digital content. In addition to computer hardware and related products, it provides different services such as AppleTV, Apple Music, Apple Arcade, and fitness and health applications.

Employees on Glassdoor rated Apple four out of five stars, and 82 percent said they would recommend working there.

Best Perks

Apple offers a variety of benefits and perks for its employees including medical, life, disability, accident, and retirement insurance, PTO and parental leave; commuting help; gym credit; stock purchase program; tuition and self-improvement benefits; and product discounts, subsidized meals, and a beer bash once a year. Apple has remote and WFH options.

Headquarters

Apple is headquartered in Cupertino, California.

Salary and Role Examples

• Automation Engineer, Hardware: $136,000 to $207,000
• CAD Flow Automation Engineer, Hardware: $161,000 to $278,000
• Embedded QA Automation Engineer, Software and Services: $105,500 to $196,500
• RF PHY Test Automation Engineer, Hardware: $50.72 to $76.44 per hour
• Health Software Automation Engineer, Software and Services: $104,000 to $190,000

Cognizant

Cognizant is a professional technology services company whose employees operate and build technology models for the digital era. Cognizant helps enterprises implement IT business transformation practices and assists in positioning enterprises with new innovative solutions to improve customers’ competitive edge.

Employees on Glassdoor rated Cognizant nearly four out of five stars, and 75 percent said they would recommend working there.

Best Perks

Cognizant has many benefits, including health, dental, and vision insurance; PTO, maternity, and disability leave; flexible WFH options; bonus pay, stock purchase plans, flexible spending accounts, and more.

Headquarters

Cognizant is headquartered in Teaneck, New Jersey.

Salary and Role Examples

Cognizant does not consistently post salary information for job listings on its website or job hiring boards. The salaries below are U.S. national averages.

• Mobile Automation Lead, Technology & Engineering: $131,995
• Automation Tester, Technology & Engineering: $63,000 to $87,000
• Junior Automation Engineer, Technology & Engineering: $87,000 to $126,000
• Automation Test Manager, Technology & Engineering: $112,700
• Senior Automation Tester, Technology & Engineering: $100,173 to $122,943

IBM

IBM is widely known for its cloud computing and data analytics solutions, but it also provides technology research, consulting, and hosting services in areas from mainframe computers to nanotechnology. It is the largest industrial research organization in the world.

Employees on Glassdoor rated IBM four out of five stars, and 75 percent said they would recommend working there.

Best Perks

IBM offers many perks, including health and well-being services, family support, tax-advantaged spending accounts, financial benefits, and PTO. Some unique benefits include IBM MoneySmart which offers financial education and planning at no cost; Wellbeing@IBM which provides resources to improve your health and well-being; and IBM offers three weeks off a year for employees who work for under ten years and four weeks for employees who work over ten years. IBM also offers remote and hybrid options for employees.

Headquarters

IBM is headquartered in Armonk, New York.

Salary and Role Examples

• Automation Developer, Watsonx: $66,565 to $79,833
• RPA/Automation Developer, Data & Analytics: $98,000 to $183,000
• Network Automation Engineer, Tool Development: $141,000 to $263,000
• SAP Quality Assurance/Test Consultant, Automation/Consulting: $78,000 to $146,000
• Senior Automation Architect, IT Management Consultant: $150,000 to $250,000

Intel

Intel is the largest manufacturer by revenue of semiconductor chips, and is a large technology company that conducts research in artificial intelligence (AI), analytics, and cloud-to-edge technology. Intel is a developer for the microprocessors found in most personal computers.

Employees on Glassdoor rated Intel over four out of five stars, and 84 percent said they would recommend working there.

Best Perks

Intel offers many benefits including health, vision, and dental insurance; behavioral health, fertility, and retiree health insurance; quarterly, annual, and stock bonuses; PTO, travel discounts, and maternity leave; family programs and more. Intel also offers three working models including fully remote, fully on-site, and hybrid remote arrangements.

Headquarters

Intel Corporation is headquartered in Santa Clara, California.

Salary and Role Examples

• DevOps Software Development Engineer, HPC Storage Architecture and Development: $94,000 to $135,000
• Software Development Engineer, Generative AI, GPT, and Automation: $129,846 (U.S. national average)
• PDK Design Automation Engineer, Design Enablement Group: $119,130 to $178,690
• Software Tools & Automation Engineer, High-Performance Data Division: $102,918 (U.S. national average)
• Engineering Intern, Automation: $54,210 or $26.06 per hour

Rivian

Rivian is an electronic vehicle (EV) manufacturer that produced the first electric pickup truck and sport utility vehicle (SUV). The company is committed to building products that use renewable energy sources. Rivian’s vehicles are designed for off-road capabilities, which is not typically a focus for electric transportation, making its technology unique within its industry. Rivian has around 7,500 employees.

Employees on Glassdoor rated Rivian four out of five stars, and 55 percent of employees said they would recommend working there.

Best Perks

Rivian provides many perks and benefits for employees, including health, dental, and vision insurance; health savings accounts, PTO, and flexible spending accounts; mental, financial, and physical wellness programs; and unique perks include tuition assistance, LGBTQIA2+ benefits, and pet insurance.

Headquarters

Rivian is headquartered in Irvine, California.

Salary and Role Examples

Rivian does not consistently post salary information for job listings on its website or job hiring boards. The salaries below are U.S. national averages.

• Senior Automation Engineer, Equipment Engineering: $111,703
• Senior Vehicle Test Automation Engineer, Manufacturing: $137,207
• Staff Automation Controls Engineer, Manufacturing: $65,216 to $124,567
• BMS Software Engineer, Test System Automation and Simulation: $101,000 to $113,000
• Staff Automation Controls Engineer, Integration: $60,663 to $115,877

Schneider Electric

Schneider Electric is a digital and environmental company. It works with energy and automation digital solutions to combine energy technologies, automation, software, and services for solutions for homes, buildings, data centers, infrastructure, and other industries.

Employees on Glassdoor rated Schneider Electric over four out of five stars, and 87 percent said they would recommend working there.

Best Perks

Schneider Electric offers unique benefits and perks for employees, including BenefitBuck$, which helps with benefits costs including vision, supplemental AD&D insurance, short and long-term disability, spouse life, child life insurance, and more. For employees who have to pay for transportation and parking, Schneider Electric offers commuter benefits and if an employee does not wish to commute, the company also offers home office enhancements.

Schneider Electric offers a program called Care@Work to provide emergency backup child care, adult/elder care, or pet care. The company also offers PTO, health programs, legal services plans, and more.

Headquarters

Schneider Electric is headquartered in Rueil-Malmaison, France; Schneider Electric North America is headquartered in Andover, Massachusetts.

Salary and Role Examples

• End User Automation Sales Executive, Sales: $150,000
• Building Automation System – Technician I, Customer Projects & Services: $74,101 (U.S. national average)
• Senior Application Design Engineer, Industrial Automation: $96,000 to $144,000
• Automation Engineer for Microgrid: $82,009

Siemens

Siemens is a digital engineering, manufacturing, and electronics company. Siemens designs and develops electrification, automation, and digitalization solutions and has the capability to install complex systems and projects into enterprise infrastructure.

Employees on Glassdoor rated Siemens over four out of five stars, and 83 percent said they would recommend working there.

Best Perks

Siemens provides many benefits to employees, including medical, dental, and vision insurance; 20 days of PTO, life insurance, and long-term and short-term disability plans; 401k plan with up to six percent company match, tuition reimbursement, career development plans; commuter benefits, and financial planning programs. Siemens does allow WFH, but it is limited.

Headquarters

Siemens is headquartered in Munich, Germany; Siemens USA is headquartered in Washington D.C.

Salary and Role Examples

• Building Automation Operations Manager I, Smart Buildings/Automation: $131,995 (U.S. national average)
• Senior Deep Learning Scientist, AI Automation: $48,000 to $91,000 (U.S. national average)
• Atellica Product Portfolio Manager Automation, Product Management, Portfolio & Innovation: $134,000 to $184,000
• Sr Power Automation, Protection and Controls Engineer: $74,226 (U.S. national average)
• SaaS Site Reliability Engineer and Automation Developer, Research & Development: $116,900 to $210,400

Bottom Line: IT Automation Jobs

Automation is becoming increasingly a part of day-to-day work across many industries, and as more enterprises incorporate it into their workflows, the need for a skilled automation workforce grows. Jobs in automation combine technical expertise, problem-solving skills, and the opportunity to help shape a company’s future with technology-driven operations, and offer a wide range of benefits and perks.

Read next: What Is Automation?

Table Of Contents

• What Are DevOps Tools?
• Types of DevOps Tools
  • Tools for Collaboration
  • Tools for Planning
  • Tools for Configuration Management
  • Tools for Automated Testing
  • Tools for Database DevOps
• 20 Popular Tools for DevOps
• Bottom Line: DevOps Tools

What Are DevOps Tools?

DevOps tools are software and apps that facilitate the practices and principles of DevOps, a collaborative approach combining software development and IT operations. DevOps covers the entire software development lifecycle, which usually includes seven repeated steps:

Planning. In this phase, teams set goals for projects and strategize how to meet them. Planning tools can assist with creating tables, timelines, and charts.

Coding. In the next phase, software code is written to the specifications laid out in the planning phase. Tools used in this phase can help with writing and testing code.

Constructing. In this phase, software developers introduce the code and the project is rebuilt to accommodate it as needed. Version control tools can be a big help in this phase as new code is called for, reviewed, approved, and uploaded.

Testing. In this phase, code is tested for bugs and performance—rather than “one and done,” this phase is repeated until the desired results are achieved. Automated tools can run 24/7 to provide a more complete and efficient testing regiment.

Deploying. In DevOps the entire team works to ready the project for production, unlike more traditional software environments where this phase would be strictly the domain of the operations team. Deployment dashboards and automated deployment tools can support this process.

Operating. In this phase, the development project is tested in a production environment, including user testing to provide critical feedback. Automation tools like Cucumber and Robot Framework can test for operation issues.

Monitoring. In this phase, observation provides insight into how well the project works, how it is used, and how it can be improved in future iterations. Server monitoring tools like Headspin can detect issues and send alerts.

Types of DevOps Tools

When thinking about your company’s DevOps workflow, look for opportunities to introduce tools that can help streamline efficiency, promote collaboration, automate testing, and help manage systems. Most DevOps tools fall into the five general categories outlined below.

Tools for Collaboration

Collaboration tools foster communication and teamwork and facilitate remote work and geographically dispersed teams. They can help teams communicate throughout the project lifecycle, facilitate file-sharing, and track employee processes.

Tools for Planning

Planning tools help coordinate and organize tasks, set and track timelines, plan workflows, and align project goals. They can keep teams on track throughout the project lifecycle, not just in the planning stage, and provide up-to-date information on deadlines, priorities, and goals.

Tools for Configuration Management

Configuration management tools process and maintain the consistency of a system’s performance, requirements, and design. This allows insight into the entire system throughout the software development life cycle.

Tools for Automated Testing

Automation testing tools provide a framework for developers to create and run tests consistently and repeatedly for more efficient and accurate results.

Database Tools

Database tools help companies gather, update, transfer, and store company data. These tools often streamline and automate processes to ensure functions are managed efficiently.

20 Popular DevOps Tools

While some tools are purpose-built for the DevOps lifecycle, tools built for a wider range of industries and environments can also be useful in this context. Here’s our roundup of 20 of the most popular tools for DevOps on the market today:

1. Slack

Slack is a cloud-based team collaboration tool built primarily around a live chat technology similar to Internet Relay Chat but with more controls, direct chat, drag-and-drop file sharing, and development tool integration. Slack can improve communication and collaboration to ensure the development and operations teams are on the same page.

2. Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams is a communication and collaboration platform that integrates with all Microsoft software and systems. It offers one-on-one chat capabilities, group channels, file sharing, and video conferencing. Microsoft Teams help with team collaboration through messaging services, video calls, and application sharing to improve work quality and communication.

3. Open DevOps

Open DevOps software is part of Jira, Atlassian’s popular software development tool used in Agile development, a key component of DevOps. Open DevOps helps teams focus on building and operating projects while integrating partnering tools such as Bitbucket, Opsgenie, and Confluence. These tools can save time on coding reviews by testing and identifying any unexpected changes and minimizing content switching during the project development by adding comments, viewing attachments, making edits, and even detecting vulnerabilities.

4. Jenkins

Jenkins is a self-contained, open-source automation server often used for collaboration and integration in DevOps. Jenkins’ integration capabilities support code sharing, code review, notifications and reporting, and collaboration and communication within teams. It offers hundreds of plugins to support building, deploying, and automating any project.

5. Monday.com

Monday.com is a cloud-based platform that allows teams to create applications and project management software and can help teams collaborate, communicate, plan, and manage their DevOps processes. Project management within monday.com includes keeping tasks visible, budgeting, and creating a timeline to uniting teams and their systems.

6. Trello

Trello is a project management tool that uses organization boards, custom to-do lists, and cards to represent tasks. Its built-in automation can handle repetitive tasks like creating agendas, adding team members, and tracking due dates. Companies choose how to visualize projects with dashboards, timelines, tables, and more. Trello offers over 200 integrations with other DevOps software.

7. Azure DevOps

Best for Microsoft users, Azure DevOps is a planning tool that helps developers, project managers, and contributors create better application projects. It includes agile planning boards; Azure Pipelines to support continuous improvement/continuous deployment (CI/CD); GitHub Advanced Security for Azure DevOps; Azure Test Plans for manual and exploratory testing; Azure Artifacts universal package repository; and a marketplace with over 1,000 extensions.

8. Chef

Cloud configuration management tool Chef configures and manages server applications and utilities. Its capabilities describe a series of resources for applications like Hadoop or MySQL, such as dependencies, packages, files, and services. It works at the cloud scale to optimize application delivery, secure cloud assets, move configuration to compliance management, and help achieve compliance audits.

9. Ansible

Ansible is a configuration management and automation tool for software deployment and client configuration covering Unix, Linux, and Windows. It uses JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) and yet another markup language (YAML) instead of Infrastructure as Code (IAC) and works both on internal systems through OpenStack as well as Amazon EC2. It can configure systems, deploy applications, and help support system updates within advanced workflows and focuses on the security and reliability aspects of this technology as an integrated and streamlined software.

10. Puppet

Puppet Enterprise manages infrastructure as code (IAC), an IT infrastructure provisioning process in which systems are automatically built and provisioned with code instead of a scripting process. Because Puppet helps with the coding, the process is easily repeatable. Puppet makes for easier versioning, automated testing, and continuous delivery and can respond to problems or errors quickly.

11. Apache JMeter

Apache JMeter is an open-source pure Java automated testing tool used for DevOps and designed to test a system’s functional behavior while measuring automation performance. Apache JMeter is used to test both static and dynamic resources within web applications by simulating heavy loads on multiple servers and networks to analyze overall performance.

12. Cucumber

Cucumber is a behavior-driven development (BDD) automation testing tool that supports many programming languages. Cucumber includes multiple tools like CucumberStudio, which allows a software development team to co-design the acceptance tests; Cucumber School to help employees effectively learn the system; and Cucumber Open to execute automation testing.

13. HeadSpin

HeadSpin is a data science-driven platform that provides mobile testing, monitoring, and analytic solutions. It provides insight into the performance, user experience, and behavior of mobile applications across devices, networks, and locations. HeadSpin identifies problems and fixes them to improve application performance so your business can be ahead of its competition. HeadSpin’s DevOps not only completes automated testing but also enhances collaboration between teams and offers CI/CD integration.

14. Robot Framework

Robot Framework is an open-source automation framework used for both automation testing and robotic process automation (RPA). It allows testing with hybrid and mobile applications throughout business software with both iOS and Android. Robot Framework’s capabilities can include infrastructures implemented with Python, Java, or other programming languages. Robot Framework can be integrated with most automation solutions and has libraries and tools that have been developed as separate projects.

15. DbVisualizer

DbVisualizer is a database tool that manages, develops, and designs to simplify database object management, administration, exploration, and SQL query development. When working in a DevOps environment, it supports simple coding, flexible integration, customization for planning tools, and meets high-security standards to mitigate project vulnerabilities. DbVisualizer can be leveraged for both planning and database DevOps functions.

16. Liquibase

Liquibase is an open-source database management tool that lets users manage database changes as a code, facilitate automated deployments, and ensure consistency across environments. It fits into the software development lifecycle by providing tools like Changeset and Changelog to help track databases. The tool integrates easily with other tools and providers such as Atlassian, Discourse, and YourKit.

17. Toad by Quest

Toad is a database management tool created by Quest that streamlines database development, administration, and performance-tuning tasks. Toad is often used to simplify workflows, coding, and automate repetitive tasks and promotes collaboration across teams. It can be used for cloud projects to give companies the flexibility they need to create the best software development lifecycle.

18. AWS Database Migration Service

AWS Database Migration Service is Amazon Web Services (AWS)’s database migration tool. It works in DevOps by migrating databases to simplify the process of database schema conversion and data migration while maintaining company infrastructure with integrity. The tool is known to maintain minimal downtime and integrate with tools such as Oracle, SQL Server, MongoDB, and other databases.

19. Docker

Docker is a database tool focusing mainly on containers. In DevOps it can be used to package apps and dependencies on any Linux server, from virtual systems to cloud-based instances. Docker for DevOps allows an isolated application to be deployed to many servers across the internet.

20. GitHub

GitHub is a top software development tool that uses AI to accelerate project development. GitHub uses many tools, including GitHub Codespaces, to help build a DevOps environment quickly to help code, build, and test from anywhere. Another tool, GitHub Copilot, is an AI programmer to help give coding suggestions to users. GitHub Actions helps automate workflows to improve how processes are completed, and collaboration features include a mobile tool to connect employees and teams on the go and at the office.

Bottom Line: DevOps Tools

Many tools offer a wide range of features and advantages for businesses looking to add collaboration, planning, configuration management, automated testing, and database processes into their DevOps software development lifecycles. Some of these tools are purpose-built for DevOps, others are used in a wide range of industries and environments but can help make teams more efficient. Identify the types of tools you might benefit from most, and consider how they fit with your budget and existing tool stack.

Here are our picks for the top five AI image generators based on features and price.

Table Of Contents

• Top AI Image Generators
• AI Image Generators Comparison Table
  • DALL-E 2: Best Overall Image Generator
  • DeepAI: Best For Ease Of Use
  • Deep Dream Generator: Best For Style Prompts
  • Artbreeder: Best For Customization
  • Midjourney: Best For High-Quality Images
• Key Features Of AI Image Generators
• How To Choose What AI Image Generators Best For You
• Bottom Line: AI Image Generators

Top AI Image Generators

The top five providers all offer feature-rich AI image generators at varying prices. Your company’s specific needs will determine which is right for you. When selecting a provider, consider use cases and costs for each provider as outlined below.

AI Image Generators Comparison Table

DALL-E 2: Best Overall AI Image Generator

DALL-E 2 is OpenAI’s AI image generator, released in 2022—a year after the initial version of DALL-E. Users can prompt DALL-E 2, and it will create an original and realistic image based on that prompt. DALL-E 2 will not create “violent, hate, or adult images,” and OpenAI removes explicit data from its system.

Features

• Strong Composition: DALL-E 2 generates images with strong composition due to the vast amount of text and image training, making the images more accurate and natural to the prompt.
• Deciphers Images: DALL-E 2 can decipher generated images and compare them to the prompt, providing feedback to refine output.
• Image Normalization: Using image normalization, DALLE-2 standardizes and transforms prompts to ensure they have consistent characteristics and contain the properties for a better generated image.

Pros

• Free and paid options
• Simple image creation
• Users own image copyright

Cons

• Possible copyright and trademark issues
• English language only
• Unable to do hyperrealistic images at this time

Pricing

Pricing for DALL-E 2 works on a credits-purchased model, based on image resolution. For 1024×1024 pixel images, the cost is $0.020 per image; 512×512 pixels is $0.018; and 256×256 pixels is $0.016. Credits are a single charge of $15 per 115 credits, with 50 free credits at signup and 15 additional free credits per month.

DeepAI: Best For Ease Of Use

DeepAI is a well-known image generator that is mostly free for public use, and lets users create an unlimited number of unique images. The model is based on stable diffusion, which creates images from scratch from a text description, and DeepAI includes a free text-to-image API that can connect to another software project.

Features

• Art Style Options: DeepAI’s tool lets users pick an image style based on the options they create.
• Text-to-image API: DeepAI’s text-to-image API allows users to give creative inputs through text prompts, which the tool uses to produce the image.
• Saves Image Drafts: Unlike many image generators, DeepAI allows users to save a draft of an image to finish later.

Pros

• Easy to use
• Access to the full database
• No account required

Cons

• Free edition contains ads
• Only one image generated at a time
• Slow

Pricing

DeepAI has limited free accounts, but if you plan to use the image generator often, DeepAI has two pricing options. The DeepAI Pro plan starts at $4.99 per month, while its pay-as-you-go plan starts at $5 per 100 API calls.

Deep Dream Generator: Best For Style Prompts

Deep Dream Generator creates unique images with a “dream-like” appearance. Users have three image-processing options: Text 2 Dream, Deep Style, and Deep Dream. Text 2 Dream uses text prompts; Deep Style modifies users’ photo prompts based on their choice of style prompts (Starry Night, colorful abstract, and Pieter Bruegel); Deep Dream modifies prompt images by turning them into dream-like photos with varied color schemes and overlaid images of animals.

Features

• Community Platform: Deep Dream Generator acts as a community, letting users share and comment on generated images.
• Three Modes: Unlike many other generators, Deep Dream Generator offers three generator modes: Text 2 Dream, Deep Style, and Deep Dream.
• Strong Neural Networks: The strong algorithms and neural networks generate realistic, dream-like art.

Pros

• Diverse options
• Change aspect ratio
• User-friendly interface

Cons

• Limited credits
• Expensive high-resolution downloads
• Slow processes

Pricing

Deep Dream Generator offers a free version that functions more like a free trial. The three payment plans are based on credits. The advanced plan is $19 per month, the professional plan is $39 per month, and the ultra plan is $99 per month.

Artbreeder: Best For Customization

Artbreeder is an image generator that runs on the BigGAN and StyleGAN style-based generator architectures to let users create and modify images, including portraits, landscapes, and paintings. Users move sliders to change clothing, facial features, and more; another slider lets them compare the original to the modified image. Artbreeder will also build images based on text input. The terms of use explain that any images created and publicly shared are released to the public domain.

Features

• Image Modification: Users have four function options when generating portraits: random, remixed, uploaded, and animated. Original images can be modified widely using the various controls.
• Specific Criteria: By specifying criteria for the generator and discriminator models, users can prompt the system to produce wanted outcomes.
• Trained With Many Images: Artbreeder has been trained with thousands of images to create multi-scale transformations.

Pros

• Extensive image library
• Downloads as both JPG and PNG
• Customizable

Cons

• Difficult interface
• Limited free features
• Lower-quality images

Pricing

Artbreeder has four pricing plans. The free plan allows 10 credits per month. The starter plan allows 100 credits for $8.99 a month, while the advanced plan allows 275 credits for $18.99. The champion plan allows 700 credits and costs $38.99.

Midjourney: Best For High-Quality Images

Midjourney is an image generator known for rapidly generated, high-quality images, but it is exclusively a text-to-image platform. Midjourney is hosted on Discord. Users must join a Discord server and use its bot commands to work with the tool.

Features

• High-Quality Images: Midjourney is considered the highest-quality image generator, and can create unique oil-paint style images, which many generators cannot do.
• Shared Images: Users can share images and get other ideas from the community.
• Beta Tool: Midjourney uses ATM, a beta tool used by Discord bots, to assist first-time users.

Pros

• High-quality images
• Four images created with one input
• Community built on Discord

Cons

• Limited realistic images
• Complicated setup
• Pay for unlimited inputs

Pricing

Midjourney has a free plan and three paid plans. The basic plan allows 200 images per month and costs $8; the standard plan allows unlimited image generations, but only has 15 hours a month of fast GPU time and costs $24 per month; the pro plan has unlimited generations and allows 30 hours a month of fast GPU time, and costs $48 per month. All plans are billed yearly rather than monthly.

Bottom Line: AI Image Generators

The technology is still new and changing rapidly, and is becoming more widely adopted in enterprise uses after its initial period of consumer use. Not all AI image generators are capable of creating the same type or quality of imagery, so your use case should be a determining factor when considering which one to use. You’ll also want to consider copyright, production time, and cost—while none of the tools are expensive, if your company plans to generate images in higher volumes, you should take that into account.

Read next: 100 Top Artificial Intelligence Companies 

Table Of Contents

• Top Robotics Companies
  • UiPath
  • ABB Ltd
  • Universal Robots
  • KUKA
  • FANUC
• Benefits of Robotics
• How To Choose a Robotics Company
• Bottom Line: Top Robotics Companies

Top Robotics Companies

All the robotics companies covered here offer feature-rich services in differing areas of focus, from mobile robots that integrate with your infrastructure to sensors that can monitor for and respond to different conditions. While your business’s specific needs and budget will be a key factor in finding the right company, pricing is another factor—and comparing pricing can be a challenge.

Because robotics is not an off-the-shelf solution, customization means pricing can vary widely. We’ve gathered publicly available pricing information where possible, but for accurate quotes you’ll need to contact the vendors.

UiPath

UiPath is a leading provider of robotic process automation (RPA) technology, sometimes referred to as “software robotics,” and provides both automation and operations to customers. UiPath’s RPA platform uses automation and artificial intelligence (AI) to streamline business practices. It offers visual design tools and integration capabilities, and allows bots to interact with different systems, applications, and databases. UiPath provides solutions for many industries, giving businesses direct control with a drag-and-drop user interface.

Features

• AI and Machine Learning (ML): UiPath integrates AI and ML capabilities with software bots to handle unstructured data, make better decisions, and adapt to unexpected changes, improving automation potential for users.
• Robust Integration: UiPath bots can interact with a broad range of systems, applications, and databases, including web and desktop applications, enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, customer relationship management (CRM) systems, and more.
• Screen Scraping: UiPath’s screen-scraping enables bots to extract data from business applications including legacy systems and virtual environments to fuel the RPA technology.

Pricing

UiPath provides three pricing options: There is a free option for personal use. The pro plan starts at $420 a month; for enterprise plan pricing, contact sales.

ABB Ltd

As one of the leading robotics and machine automation suppliers, ABB Robotics offers a large range of robots, software, and services. ABB Robotics and Discrete Automation has a wide portfolio of tools in a wide range of sizes, payloads, and reach capabilities, and provides robotics, machine automation, digital services, and other innovative solutions for many industries.

Features

• Vision And Sensor Integration: ABB Robotics emphasizes the seamless integration of vision systems and sensors into robotics tools to facilitate data exchange and coordinated workflow within the automation setup.
• Flexibility: ABB’s robots are designed to be flexible and capable of performing various tasks including assembly, welding, material handling, painting, inspection, and more.
• Affordability: While prices can range based on solutions, ABB Ltd offers robotics options for businesses with a lower budget.

Pricing

ABB Ltd has a pricing page; price ranges from $33,000 to $90,500 depending upon maximum reach, maximum payload, arms, and types.

Universal Robots

Universal Robots, part of Teradyne Inc., aims to “create a world where people work with robots, not like robots.” To meet this goal, it uses collaborative robots, or cobots, that can automate repetitive tasks and shift them away from human workers. The cobots are meant to share work with human employees, making its automation possible to be used for a variety of applications.

Features

• Build-Your Own-Application: Users can choose from 400 components, kits and solutions, software tools, and safety accessories for robot integration, giving a wide range of options.
• Robot Collaboration: The company can connect operators to robots for successful automation by building a program, selecting functions, and executing them line by line, or via physical interaction by manually moving the robots’ arms.
• No Coding, Easy Setup: Universal Robots are designed to be used without robotics or coding experience. The company offers classes and has experts on call.

Pricing

Universal Robots does not have a pricing page. Based on user reviews, customers should budget between $50,000 and $100,000 depending on cobots and accessories.

KUKA

KUKA provides industrial robots for factory automation, with customers ranging from BMW and Ford to Siemens, Airbus, and Volkwsagen. The company also offers cobots with various payload capacities and reaches, and builds them to size and specifications for a wide range of deployments in automotive, electronics, food and beverage, foundry and foreign, medical, plastics, and other industrial applications. KUKA also sells used robots to help make entry into robotics more affordable for smaller companies.

Features

• Motion Control: KUKA robots have advanced mobile control systems that enable precise movements, optimizing performance, speed, and productivity.
• Programming Interface: KUKA robots provide an user-friendly interface during programming and operations, facilitating a wider range of tasks.
• Robot Controllers: The company sells both manual and autonomous robots that self-navigate, minimizing intervention.

Pricing

Pricing varies based on a wide range of factors. Used robots are available on the KUKA Marketplace.

FANUC

FANUC offers a range of industrial robotics products and services including computer numerical control (CNC) machining systems and factory automation solutions. It has more than 100 models of robots and cobots for manufacturing in a wide range of industries designed to be easy-to-operate and flexible, with payloads up to 5,000 pounds.

Features

• Wide Range: Existing models make it easier for customers to find the right fit for their specific industrial application based on payload capacities, capabilities, and configurations.
• Customer Support: The company provides a wide range of support services for customers, including system installation, training, maintenance, and technical support.
• Robust And Durable: Known for robust construction and durability, FANUC robots are designed for demanding industrial environments.

Pricing

FANUC does not provide pricing details. Contact sales for quotes. Customer reviews list prices in a range from $6,000 to $200,000.

Benefits Of Robotics

Robotic tools provide comprehensive support in a wide range of industrial applications.

• Enhanced Productivity: By automating routine tasks, robotic tools enable your company to devote more time to critical tasks.
• Consistent Performance: Once an automation framework is established, robotic tools operate consistently, minimizing human intervention and distraction.
• Improved Safety: Incorporating robotics provides safety measures, especially when dealing with heavy machinery. Human employees are vulnerable to potential harm from objects in the workplace, but robots can be repaired.
• Accelerated Efficiency: Robots achieve constant productivity, minimizing downtime.

How To Choose A Robotics Company

There are several criteria to weigh when looking to choose the right robotics provider.

Type of Robotics

Depending on the industry and the specific tasks the robot will undertake, it is important to explore various types of robots. Popular types include autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), automated guided vehicles (AGVs), articulated robots, humanoids, cobots, and hybrids. AGVs are beneficial for delivery and transportation services, while humanoids are well-suited for research.

Maintainability and Availability

Consider the reliability, repairability, and availability of robotics tools—factors like battery duration and part complexity can have an impact on efficiency. Providers should offer support for maintenance and repairs to help avoid downtime.

Cost

While it can be difficult to compare prices with robotics tools, establish a budget that incorporates the initial investment as well as upkeep, repair, and downtime costs. Narrow down providers by their ability to meet your robotic needs, and then work with their sales teams to receive an exact cost.

Bottom Line: Top Robotics Companies

The top robotic companies offer a wide range of features and advantages for businesses looking to automate processes. While these robots offer numerous benefits, there are also potential disadvantages to consider, such as initial investment costs, integration complications, and the need for coding professionals. However, with proper training, planning, and maintenance, these robots can revolutionize industry automation and drive your business toward increased productivity and competitiveness.

Table Of Contents

• Digital Transformation Companies Comparison Table
• Top Digital Transformation Companies
  • Accenture: Best For Reporting Insights
  • Deloitte: Best For Scalability
  • Boston Consulting Group: Best For People-Focused Consultation
  • Cognizant: Best For Company Culture
  • Capgemini: Best For Telecommunications
  • Microsoft Corporation: Best For Industry Cloud
  • McKinsey & Company: Best For Subject Matter Expertise
• Benefits of Working With a Digital Transformation Company
• How To Choose What Digital Transformation Companies Best For You
• Bottom Line: Digital Transformation Companies

Digital Transformation Companies Comparison Table

Top Digital Transformation Companies

The top digital transformation companies all offer feature-rich services at varying prices. For example, a consulting engagement with these companies can help your business transform billing and payment processing, provide better analytics and reporting to gain deeper insights into customer behavior, and improve infrastructure across your organization. In short, digital transformation service providers can help your business keep up with the competitive nature of technology and industry needs.

Your business’s specific needs and budget will determine which company is the right fit, but comparing pricing can be a challenge. It is not uncommon for digital transformation providers not to disclose pricing publicly because it is dependent upon the particular tools and services involved, the complexity and duration of the engagement, and other factors that make it difficult to offer a one-size-fits-all pricing strategy.

When selecting a provider, consider the use cases outlined below to find those that best meet your specific needs and then contact those providers to get cost estimates for the right solutions to address them.

Accenture: Best For Reporting Insights

Accenture’s digital transformation services are part of its Technology Strategy and Advisory Practice, and include assistance with cloud acceleration, data-driven company tools, operating models and innovation, network connection services, and modern architecture using the Accenture Momentum digital transformation tool.

Features

• Real-time Reporting: Accenture’s digital transformation tools track the status of initiatives such as assessing, reviewing, and resolving risks.
• Value Drivers: The company’s digital transformation tools build and visualize value trees to create complete business cases using many details to help with individual initiatives.
• Forward-looking Insights: Accenture Momentum provides reporting dashboards for dynamic views and drill-downs.

Pros

• Holistic evaluations
• Processing oriented systems
• Strong service delivery system and personnel

Cons

• Limited data flexibility
• Limited dynamic frameworks
• Slow delivery timelines

Pricing

Accenture does not list pricing on its website. However, it recently introduced Manage myPrice, its new approach to pricing. For more detailed information, contact sales.

Deloitte: Best For Scalability

Deloitte’s digital transformation capabilities are incorporated within its Strategy and Analytics business as well as its Monitor Deloitte arm. Deloitte aims to help enterprises with the capacity for change to help fuel growth, practice continuous transformation, and harness insights.

Features

• Intelligent Mining: Deloitte assists companies in implementing sustainable transformation by offering the required multidisciplinary skills and industry experience needed.
• Business Scalability: It helps companies realize and refine their digital transformation vision by providing flexibility and offering integrated delivery teams for an agile operation.
• Concept Refinement: Deloitte offers iterative concept refinement and faster income statements through its Deepen, Design, and Prove steps.

Pros

• Excels at integrating technology
• Experts in DevOps and automation
• Helps with multi-cloud setup

Cons

• Limited technology capabilities
• High prices
• Heavy research needed

Pricing

Deloitte does not list prices on its site. Contact the sales team or see the pricing strategy page to learn more, or send a Request for Proposal.

Boston Consulting Group: Best For People-Focused Consultation

Boston Consulting Group (BCG) describes its digital transformation capabilities as focused on people and technology. Its six steps of success include crafting a clear strategy, commitment to leadership from top to middle, putting the best employees for the job in the right place, having an agile government mindset, monitoring and controlling progress, and creating a business-led data platform.

Features

• Digital Skill-Building: BCG’s digital transformation is about evolving employee and business capabilities in such areas as data science, location strategies, and finding the balance between insourcing and outsourcing.
• Operating Model Transformation: BCG’s goal is to work to align governance, processes, and organizational structure with a platform-driven operating model.
• Outcomes Implementation: Digital transformation practices include identifying, prioritizing, and implementing high-impact use cases for your company.

Pros

• Highly regarded consultants
• Wide range of capabilities
• Fees based on agreed-upon Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Cons

• Not for small companies
• A slow-paced approach
• No specific tools used

Pricing

The Boston Consulting Group offers a pricing page but does not offer specific pricing. Contact sales for more information.

Cognizant: Best For Company Culture

Cognizant offers digital transformation services through its Digital Strategy umbrella. Its goal is to keep up with customer demands across all sides of a business to ensure relevancy in its infrastructure. Cognizant’s digital transformation services offer insight into transformation, managed innovation, workforce transformation, change adoption, and transformation enablement. The offerings aim to create a positive company strategy that adds agile processes and a digital approach in different departments within the company.

Features

• Transformation Insights: Customers improve their insights through reinvention, offering an agile approach and using execution expertise.
• Managed Innovation: Insight-driven processes develop client solutions with new forms of value to establish, nurture, and grow innovation capabilities.
• Change Adoption: Cognizant’s change adoption offers digital tools to enable growth and agility with a structured approach to help clients with their adoption rate and pace with business change all around them.

Pros

• Strong cloud technology
• Diverse technical services
• Flexible payment model

Cons

• Limited location access
• Weak strategy capabilities
• Limited customer service help

Pricing

Cognizant does not list pricing. However, it does provide a pricing and fees page that offers direct contact and lists available products and services. Contact sales to discuss a payment model.

Capgemini: Best For Telecommunications

Capgemini’s digital transformation services are focused on the telecommunications industry to help accelerate the transformation from communication service providers to digital service providers. For B2C operators, it enables new value digital proposals; for B2B, it offers the ability to rewire and reboot customer experience and operational excellence. For vertical industries, it will help increase revenue and efficiency with the better-connected world.

Features

• Customer-First B2C: Capgemini promotes designing digital and market-facing services to design business models and operations to support connected experiences to provide value.
• B2B Omni-Channel Customer Experience: Capgemini aims to improve customer experience and help transform companies into digital service providers.
• 5G Monetization: The company’s support for vertical industries helps them make the most of revenue and efficiency opportunities in the current digital world.

Pros

• Deep digital expertise
• Flexible approach to digital transformation
• Helps with customer’s self-funded projects

Cons

• Limited global expertise
• Limited strategy capabilities
• Expensive platform

Pricing

Capgemini’s site explains its PriceLab pricing tool but does not provide specific pricing. Contact the company to learn more.

Microsoft Corporation: Best For Industry Cloud

Microsoft is a top tech company whose digital transformation services focus on five industries: financial services, government, health care, manufacturing, and retail. It has led with digital transformation by modernizing platforms with Microsoft 365 and Azure Edge, helping organizations find solutions to fix common issues, giving data and analytics assistance, and helping them further engage with customers.

Features

• Industry Cloud: Azure Cloud helps companies gain agility while accelerating innovation in a specific industry.
• Customer Relationship Management: Microsoft’s digital transformation services help companies reach more customers by outperforming competitors with new innovative digital agility.
• Artificial intelligence (AI) For Digital Transformation: AI benefits digital transformation by increasing intelligent marketing, by adding innovation to the current infrastructure, and with analysis.

Pros

• Wide range of services
• Strong documentation
• Reliable known company

Cons

• Limited navigation help
• Complicated networking
• Limited reporting ability

Pricing

Microsoft is the most transparent provider of the seven when it comes to pricing, and offers estimated pricing based on which tools a customer uses. Use Microsoft’s pricing calculator, which also lists digital transformation products. Contact sales for more information.

McKinsey & Company: Best For Subject Matter Expertise

McKinsey & Company’s digital transformation service, McKinsey Digital, helps businesses add capabilities such as AI and other new technologies to automate operations, encourage digital growth, create unique digital experiences, and improve customers’ digital talent and culture.

Features

• Speed Of Impact: McKinsey Digital aims for a quick impact to generate higher cash flows and is dependent on temporary subject matter experts to fill roles within companies.
• Long-term Sustainability: McKinsey Digital addresses and emphasizes capability building, organizational setup, and improvement to give a continuous impact.
• Emphasis On Innovation: McKinsey Digital offers companies the ability to invest heavily in their IT departments to build completely new infrastructure and have more subject matter experts.

Pros

• Highly regarded company
• Many projects completed
• Pilot testing before expanding to other parts of the company

Cons

• Known to be expensive
• Limited technical capabilities
• Hard-driving attitude

Pricing

McKinsey & Company does not list pricing on its website, but provides a pricing article that explains how customers are charged. Contact sales to get a quote.

For more: 5 Digital Transformation Examples

Benefits of Working With a Digital Transformation Company

Digital transformation supports the business in multiple ways, and a good digital transformation consultant will work with customers to create a framework that does the following:

• Boosts Performance: Digital transformation helps keep up with new technology and improves performance, such as adding automation to complete menial tasks and free up resources for strategic work.
• Improves Company Communication: Digital transformation provides staff with new communication skills and tools, and enables business improvements.
• Enhances Innovation: Digital transformation can provide better access and insights to help innovate new products and services and new ways of doing things.
• Informs Decision-Making: Because digital transformation uses analytic tools, it provides insight into the correct decision on what’s best for a company and its data.

How To Choose a Digital Transformation Company 

There are several criteria to weigh when looking to choose the right digital transformation services provider.

Outline a Strategy

When a business looks into working with a digital transformation company, it should know exactly what it wants from the process. Finding a provider to help refine and execute a digital strategy can be more effective than rushing into an engagement without planning ahead.

Research Providers

Before picking a digital transformation provider, research the company and its customer stories. If it is meeting the needs of similar companies and the case studies sound familiar, it’s more likely to be a good fit for your own needs too.

Inventory Tool Stack

Digital transformation requires measuring the effectiveness of your current infrastructure and tool stack. For example, if a company uses a cloud-based infrastructure, on-site equipment likely will not help during the transformation process—technologies must support each capability. Before taking on a digital transformation project, make an inventory of existing tools to provide a more clear picture of what the transformation will encompass.

Consider Budget

While it can be difficult to compare prices from providers, a company considering a digital transformation project should know what it can spend and what it is willing to invest. Narrow down providers by their ability to meet specific needs, and then work with their sales teams to price out an engagement. Providers can also help organizations calculate the potential ROI of such a project and help with cost/benefit analysis.

Bottom Line: Digital Transformation Companies

When considering a digital transformation provider, it is vital for companies to weigh features and costs against their primary goals, including refining and executing their strategies and frameworks. While each digital transformation consulting firm offers a variety of services, matching them to specific use cases can help companies evaluate them against their specific needs.

For more information on digital transformation: Data Transformation Trends

For businesses considering a data warehouse solution, a number of competing providers offer a range of features and prices. This article will compare the top seven solutions and explain the features that differentiate them, making it easier to match them to specific needs.

Table Of Contents

• Top Data Warehouse Providers And Solutions
• Data Warehouse Providers And Solutions Comparison Table
• Amazon Redshift: Best For Deployment Optimization
• Google BigQuery: Best For Serverless Data Warehousing
• IBM Db2 Warehouse: Best For Analytic Workloads
• Azure Synapse Analytics: Best For Code-Free Offering
• Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse: Best For Integration
• SAP Datasphere: Best For Data Warehouse Templates
• Snowflake: Best For Cloud Data Warehouses
• Key Features Of Data Warehouse Providers And Solutions
• How To Choose What Data Warehouse Provider Best For You
• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
• Bottom Line: Data Warehouse Providers And Solutions

The top seven providers all offer feature-rich data warehousing plans at varying prices. A business’s specific needs will determine which is right for them. When selecting a provider, consider the use cases and costs for each as outlined below.

Data Warehouse Providers And Solutions Comparison Table

Amazon Redshift: Best For Deployment Options

With Amazon’s entry into the cloud data warehouse market, Redshift is an ideal solution for those organizations that have already invested in AWS tooling and deployment. Redshift deploys with Software as a Service (SaaS), cloud, and web-based solutions.

Pricing

Amazon Redshift has a pricing page where users can sign up for a trial period, request a quote, or calculate costs based on needs. Pricing starts at $0.25 an hour and can be configured using various models based on usage.

Features

• Spectrum Feature: This feature allows organizations to directly connect with data stores in the AWS S3 cloud data storage service, reducing startup time and cost.
• Strong Performance: The performance benefits companies from AWS infrastructure and large parallel processing data warehouse architecture for distributed queries and data analysis.
• Integration With AWS Glue: AWS Glue makes it easy to write or autogenerate Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL) scripts in addition to testing and running them.

See all Redshift features at https://aws.amazon.com/redshift/features.

Pros

• Parallel processing capabilities
• Contains network isolation security
• Good documentation

Cons

• Expensive
• Poorly designed user interface
• Unable to restrict duplicate records

For more on AWS: AWS Data Portfolio Review

Google BigQuery: Best For Serverless Technology

Google BigQuery is a reasonable choice for users looking to use standard SQL queries to analyze large data sets in the cloud. It is a serverless enterprise data warehouse that uses cloud, scale, Machine Learning (ML)/Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Business Intelligence (BI).

Pricing

Google BigQuery’s pricing page contains specific information about pay-as-you-go plans and longer-term (one to three year) commitments. The provider offers multiple versions of the platform, including Enterprise Edition and Enterprise Plus Edition. The Standard Edition is a pay-as-you-go plan starting at $0.04 per slot hour and the Enterprise Edition has different plans to help a company find its cloud data warehouse.

Features

• Serverless Technology: Using serverless technology, Google handles the functions of a fully managed cloud service, data warehouse setup, and resource provisioning.
• Logical Data Warehousing Capabilities: BigQuery lets users connect with other data sources, including databases and spreadsheets to analyze data.
• Integration With BigQuery ML: With BigQuery ML machine learning, workloads can be trained on data in a data warehouse.

See all BigQuery features at https://cloud.google.com/bigquery.

Pros

• Works with Google Cloud
• Full SQL query support
• Efficient management of data

Cons

• No user support
• Difficult for beginners in data warehouses
• Difficult user interface

For more information on Google: Google Data Portfolio Review

IBM Db2 Warehouse: Best For Analytic Workloads

IBM Db2 Warehouse is a strong option for organizations handling analytics workloads that can benefit from the platform’s integrated in-memory database engine and Apache Spark analytics engine.

Pricing

IBM offers a free trial for IBM Db2 Warehouse and provides a pricing page where users can ask for a quote and estimate the cost. For the flex one plan, the pricing is $1.23 per instance-hour, $0.99 per VPC-hour, and $850 per a service endpoint dedicated connectivity.

For more information, go to IBM’s pricing page.

Features

• Helpful Integration: IBM Db2 Warehouse integrates an in-memory, columnar database engine, which can be a big benefit for organizations looking for a data warehouse that includes a high-performance database.
• Netezza Technology: Db2 Warehouse benefits from IBM’s Netezza technology with advanced data lookup capabilities.
• Cloud Deployment And On-Premises: Deployment can be done in either IBM cloud or in AWS, and there is also an on-premises version of Db2 Warehouse, which can be useful for organizations that have hybrid cloud deployment needs.

See all Db2 Warehouse features at https://www.ibm.com/products/db2/warehouse.

Pros

• Includes in-memory columnar database
• Cloud deployment options
• Configuration flexibility

Cons

• Expensive
• Limited references online
• Limited buffer pool commands

For more on IBM: IBM: Hybrid Cloud Portfolio Review

Azure Synapse Analytics: Best For Code-Free Offerings

Azure Synapse Analytics, previously known as Azure SQL Data Warehouse, is well suited for organizations of any size looking for an easy on-ramp into cloud-based data warehouse technology, thanks to its integration with Microsoft SQL Server.

Pricing

Azure Synapse Analytics’s pricing page allows customers to request a quote or explore pricing options. For tier one, Azure offers 5,000 units for $4,700; tier two offers 10,000 units for $9,200. For other tier options, refer to the pricing page.

Features

• Dynamic Data Masking (DDM): Azure Synapse Analytics provides a granular level of security control, enabling sensitive data to be hidden on the fly as queries are made.
• Azure Integration: Existing Microsoft users will likely find the most benefit from Azure SQL Data Warehouse, with multiple integrations across the Microsoft Azure public cloud and more importantly, SQL Server for a database.
• Parallel Processing: In contrast to simply running SQL Server on-premises, Microsoft has built on a massively parallel processing architecture that can enable users to run over a hundred concurrent queries.

See more Azure Synapse Analytics features at https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/synapse-analytics/whats-new.

Pros

• Easy integration
• Some code-free offerings
• Strong data distribution

Cons

• Difficult logging metrics
• Limited diagramming tools
• Limited documentation

For more on Microsoft Azure: Microsoft Azure: Cloud Portfolio Review

Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse: Best For Integration

For existing users of the Oracle database, the Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse might be the easiest choice, offering a connected onramp into the cloud including the benefits of data marts, data warehouses, data lakes, and data lakehouses.

Pricing

Oracle’s Autonomous Data Warehouse’s main page offers pricing information as well as a cost estimator for users. The bottom price for Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse shared and dedicated infrastructures is $0.25 per unit.

Features

• Works With Cloud And Hardware: A key differentiator for Oracle is that it runs the Autonomous Data Warehouse in an optimized cloud service with Oracle’s Exadata hardware systems, which has been purpose-built for the Oracle database.
• Easy Collaboration: The service integrates a web-based notebook and reporting services to share data analysis and enable easy collaboration.
• Strong Integration: While Oracle’s namesake database is supported, users can also migrate data from other databases and clouds, including Amazon Redshift, as well as on-premises object data stores.

See more features at https://www.oracle.com/autonomous-database/autonomous-data-warehouse/.

Pros

• Migration support for other database services
• Purpose-built hardware
• Fast query performance

Cons

• No on-premises solutions
• Limited data connection
• Complicated setup

For more on Oracle: Oracle Data Portfolio Review

SAP Datasphere: Best For Templates

Thanks to the pre-built templates it offers, SAP’s Datasphere might be a good fit for organizations looking for more of a turnkey approach to getting the full benefit of a data warehouse. SAP Datasphere allows data professionals to deliver scalable access to business data.

Pricing

SAP Datasphere’s pricing page lists a free tier and range of flexible pricing options based on needs. The price for capacity datasphere units is $1.06 per unit.

Features

• SAP’s HANA (High-performance Analytic Appliance): The cloud services and database are at the core of Data Warehouse Cloud, supplemented by best practices for data governance and integrated with a SQL query engine.
• Pre-Built Business Templates: Templates can help solve common data warehouse and analytics use cases for specific industries and lines of business.
• Integration with SAP Applications: SAP Datasphere integration means easier access to on-premises as well as cloud data sets.

See more features including a product demo at https://www.sap.com/products/technology-platform/datasphere.html.

Pros

• Inventory controls
• Extract data from multiple sources
• Strategic solutions

Cons

• Difficult for beginners
• Difficult integration
• Limited visual analytics

For more on SAP: SAP Data Portfolio Review

Snowflake: Best For Data Warehouse In The Cloud

Snowflake is a great option for organizations in any industry that want a choice of different public cloud providers for data warehouse capabilities. Snowflake aims to bring development to data, help companies govern data for users, and work globally and cross-cloud.

Pricing

Snowflake’s pricing page links to a quote page and offers a 30-day free trial with $400 of free usage.

Features

• Database Engine: Snowflake’s columnar database engine capability can handle both structured and semi-structured data, such as JSON and XML.
• Cloud Provider Of Choice: Snowflake architecture allows for compute and storage to scale separately, with data storage provided on the user’s cloud provider of choice.
• Virtual Data Warehouse: The system creates what Snowflake refers to as a virtual data warehouse, where different workloads share the same data but can run independently.

See more features at https://www.snowflake.com/en/.

Pros

• SQL-based queries for analytics
• Support for JSON and XML
• Integration with AWS, Azure, and GCP

Cons

• Limited data visualization
• Unable to create dynamic SQL
• Difficult documentation

For more information on Snowflake: Snowflake and the Enterprise Data Platform

Key Features of Data Warehouse Providers and Solutions

Cloud data warehouses typically include a database or pointers to a collection of databases where the production data is collected. Many modern cloud data warehouses also include some form of integrated query engine that enables users to search and analyze the data and assist with data mining.

Other key features to look for in a cloud data warehouse setup:

• Integration or API Libraries
• Data Quality and Compliance Tools
• ETL Tools
• Data Access Tools/Database Searchability
• SQL and NoSQL Data Capabilities

For more features and benefits: Top 10 Benefits of Data Warehousing: Is It Right for You?

How To Choose Which Data Warehouse Provider is Best for You

When looking to choose a cloud data warehouse service, there are several criteria to consider.

Existing Cloud Deployments. Each of the major public cloud providers has its data warehouse that provides integration with existing resources, which could make deployment and usage easier for cloud data warehouse users.

Ability to Migrate Data. Consider the different types of data the organization has and where it is stored. The ability to migrate data effectively into a new data warehouse is critically important.

Storage Options. While data warehouse solutions can be used to store data, having the ability to access commodity cloud storage services can provide lower-cost options.

Bottom Line: Data Warehousing Providers and Solutions

When considering providers and solutions of data warehousing, it’s important to weigh features and cost against your company’s primary goals, including deployment and analytic needs and cloud services.

While each provider and solution offers a variety of features, identifying a company’s own use case can help better evaluate them against a company’s needs.

For more information: 15 Best Data Warehouse Software & Tools

For example, a business might aggregate a pool of 1,000 customers by their locations, by their purchases, or by their demographics—gender and age—to better understand customer behavior and buying decisions.

Aggregated data can be analyzed and reported on to provide insights about particular resources or resource groups, and data aggregation plays a role in both data analytics and Business Intelligence (BI).

Table of Contents

• The Process Of Data Aggregation
• Benefits Of Data Aggregation
• Who Uses Data Aggregation?
• Manual Vs. Automated Data Aggregation
• Top Data Aggregation Tools
• Bottom Line: Data Aggregation

The Process Of Data Aggregation

Data aggregation is done using data aggregation software tools that typically include features for collecting, processing, and presenting aggregate data.  Some perform highly specialized single tasks to meet specific use cases.

Aggregation is done on varying scales, and data can be aggregated over different time frames—for example, a business might gather data from a few hours of website traffic to monitor customer behavior, or from five years to show long-term trends.

Data aggregation is a three-step process:

1. Collection: Data aggregation tools extract data from one or multiple sources, storing it in large databases or data warehouses as atomic data. Atomic data is the smallest unit into which data can be broken down.
2. Processing: Extracted data is processed by the database, aggregation software, or middleware. In this step, the data is “cleaned”—errors are corrected, formatting rules are applied, and garbage data is discarded.
3. Presentation: The aggregate is then presented in a readable form, such as charts or statistics, to be presented to non-technical users.

Benefits Of Data Aggregation

Data aggregation can benefit businesses in multiple ways. Here are a few of them:

Provides Insights Through Extracted Data

Data collection and data analysis are separate processes, and data does not always need analysis. Sometimes aggregate data can reveal information that can lead a business to make a change.

Enables Statistical Analysis

Aggregation facilitates the statistical analysis of large amounts of data which can lead to the discovery of patterns and trends.

Improves Data Quality

Data aggregators automatically collect, clean, and summarize data that can be shared for collaboration. Data aggregators can reduce labor, communication overhead, save time, energy, and money.

For more tools for data quality: Best Data Quality Tools & Software

Leads to Better Decision-Making

Data aggregation collects and summarizes information across the entire company, allowing a business to see the big picture.

Who Uses Data Aggregation?

Data is a vital source of information for all industries and at all levels. Businesses rely on data analysis for everything from price-setting and product development to planning, hiring, and marketing. Here are some of the ways data aggregation can be used across different industries.

• Marketing teams can aggregate data from campaigns and the different channels they use to reach customers. They might aggregate data from a specific campaign to see how it performed over time, and then aggregate the results of that campaign with others to see how it compares. Or they might aggregate data from each specific campaign and compare them to each other to see how they are being received across channels, populations, and cohorts.
• Websites, particularly content-driven sites, can aggregate visitors by location, time of visit, time spent, and which content was popular and which was not to understand the behavior of site visitors over time and improve engagement and retention.
• E-commerce sites can aggregate data from a time of day to understand peak and low visits, visitor demographics, the number of transactions, and whether customers made purchases based on recommendations. They can also aggregate data about competitors—like product offerings, promotions, and prices—to learn what they’re up against.
• Because the news can drive stock market activity, financial and investment firms are becoming more dependent on news-related data. Aggregating headlines and article copy can provide data for predictive analytics.
• Despite the tight burdens of such regulatory compliance as HIPAA, even the healthcare industry can benefit from aggregation—especially case analysis. By aggregating the data of numerous similar cases, medical experts can come up with more effective treatment methods to accelerate overall healthcare treatment.

Manual Vs. Automated Data Aggregation

Manual aggregation is, as the name implies, the process of gathering and extracting data and aggregating it manually—in a spreadsheet, for example. This can be a time-consuming process with a high risk of errors, which means it is better-suited to small amounts of data. It also has the potential to overlook some data.

Automated data aggregation is the process of using tools to extract and aggregate data from sources automatically. This can be done on a recurring basis at regular intervals.

Given the enormous amounts of data that businesses are capable of gathering, manual aggregation is increasingly less feasible than automation through data aggregators.

Top Data Aggregation Tools

Here are some of the most widely used data aggregation tools:

1. Microsoft Excel

Excel is a hidden gem of analytics with remarkable power and capability to load from data stores, clean and process data, and generate reports. It is often the entry-level tool for people new to analytics, and there are plenty of web resources on the subject.

2. Cloudera Distribution for Hadoop (CDH)

CDH is aimed at enterprise-class businesses with an emphasis on big data. The open source tool has a free platform distribution that encompasses Apache Hadoop, Apache Spark, Apache Impala, and more technologies, all for collecting and processing huge amounts of data. There is a commercial version as well.

3. MongoDB

MongoDB is a NoSQL, document-oriented database that comes in three “flavors”: free-to-use, small-to-medium business, and enterprise. The open source tool supports multiple operating systems, and its main features include aggregation, ad hoc queries, indexing, replication, and sharding—a means of splitting large datasets into manageable chunks.

4. Sisense

Sisense is a popular software package for preparing, analyzing, visualizing, and organizing data for a business, and is designed to address inquiries directly through a single channel as well as gather and present data as relevant insights through interactive dashboards.

5. Zoho Analytics

Zoho Analytics is a popular BI, data analytics, and online reporting tool for creating data visualizations and generating actionable business insights. Zoho Analytics is designed to be used by anyone regardless of their technical skills.

6. DbVisualizer

DbVisualizer is a feature-rich database management tool for consolidating and visualizing information from across multiple database applications. Developers and analysts can manage multiple databases and configure tables with the software’s drag-and-drop interface, and it also comes with an advanced SQL editor to write SQL queries.

7. Google Looker

Looker, which was acquired by Google, is a cloud-based data-discovery platform that provides companies with real-time access to relevant data to make better business decisions. Primarily a BI platform, it allows users to explore and transform data, but also to create reports and make them accessible to everyone.

8. Stata

Stata is a data analysis and statistical software solution designed and developed specifically for researchers from different disciplines, ranging from epidemiology to political science. It offers a point-and-click graphical user interface, comprehensive statistical tools, command-line features, complete data management capabilities, and publication-quality graphs.

9. Alteryx

Alteryx is focused on what it calls analytic process automation (APA), which unifies analytics, data science and machine learning (ML), and business process automation into one end-to-end platform to accelerate digital transformation, and is designed to be used by non-technical staff.

10. IBM Cloud Pak for Data

IBM Cloud Pak for Data is a fully integrated data and AI platform that modernizes how businesses collect, organize, and analyze data, forming the foundation to apply AI across their organizations. Built on Red Hat OpenShift, and available on any cloud, it is designed to help companies accelerate and manage the end-to-end AI lifecycle.

11. GoSpotCheck

GoSpotCheck is one of the top data collection tools for businesses that depend on gathering field data. It collects data in real-time and analyzes it instantly to help users complete tasks right then and there. It is mobile-based with built-in content collection and distribution that makes sharing information with the rest of the team easy.

12. Repsly Mobile CRM

Repsly Mobile CRM is a premier all-in-one field management CRM tool. It is a cloud-based field service software for mobile sales teams and fits SMB needs and covers a range of different industries. It provides a detailed customer history, data collection with fully customizable mobile forms, and real-time visibility into how a company’s brand and their competitors are presented at retail.

For data analysis software: Top Data Analytics Tools

Bottom Line: Data Aggregation

Data aggregation is a means of gathering raw data from multiple sources and simplifying it for statistical analysis and reporting. Aggregated data can be analyzed and reported on to provide insights about particular resources or resource groups, making it a vital source of information for all industries and at all levels.

For more information on big data: Big Data Trends and The Future of Big Data